March 17-24

Screw on tops are no longer safe from Olivia.  If she can get her hand around the top, she can get it off.  Mostly this pertains to small things: toothpaste, rash cream, etc.  Sippy cups and jars from the fridge are still too large.  I have noticed that she's worse with screwing lids back on.  She has trouble turning them that direction, apparently.  We add this to her growing list of opening accomplishments: velcro, zippers, and weak snaps...

Every now and again, I let Olivia try to feed herself with utensils.  She's not too bad with a fork, as long as the food in front of her is easily stab-able.  Spoons, on the other hand...  Well, she's getting better.  Her main problem with spoons is that when you tilt them, food falls off.  Oatmeal sticks to the spoon enough that I let her try feeding herself every morning, and she manages to get some food into her mouth before she gives up and hands the spoon back to me.  This does make our breakfasts longer, as she's stubborn enough to want to try for several minutes before she accepts help.

Olivia's biggest conquest in the food area has actually been with drinks.  She can use a big person cup.  I'm not sure when it happened, since we never give her anything except a sippy cup.  She takes occasional drinks out of our cups (especially at restaurants, where mastering the use of a straw was an incredibly tricky maneuver), but usually sticks to her own cups.  The other day, though, she wanted one of the animal cups from the cupboard, so I told Bryan to give her water and see how she did.  As it turns out, she did pretty well.  One dribble escaped when she got too ambitious too fast, but she wasn't even noticeably wet.  By breakfast the next morning, she was holding the cup with one hand like she'd been doing it for years.  I'm still not brave enough to let her have anything other than water in her un-lidded cup, and I encourage the use of the sippy during the day when she's up and walking around, but she is fully capable of not drenching herself should she ever want/need to use a big person cup.

At my last appointment, the doctor thought I was "measuring small."  Basically, my stomach wasn't large enough according to the tape measure.  He seemed unconcerned, explaining that I'm not a very big person, so that was probably the whole reason the numbers weren't matching up.  Regardless, he had me schedule an ultrasound for the same day as my next appointment.  Said ultrasound happened this past week, and everything is fine.  The tech looked at me and said, "There's just nothing to you, is there?  Let me guess, they think you're measuring small."  All the measurements are fine, though, and she said Reggie's measuring in the 50th percentile.  The estimated weight is currently 6 lbs, 5 oz.  I did get a few more pictures out of the deal, so those are below.  I was surprised by how much harder it was to identify anything during this ultrasound than during the 20-week ultrasound, but then I realized that Reggie is more squished and can't move around as much at all.  :)  I did ask which limb might be poking me in my right side (as it had been particularly persistent in the waiting room), and she took a quick look and told me it was both feet.  And a hand.  Well fine.  :)

On Wednesday, look for a bonus post explaining how Olivia made picks for her March Madness bracket.

Pictures:
Reggie at 35-36 weeks.  Two profiles, a hand, and a face.  I think the face looks a little like Reggie has a ginormous nose:

Also Olivia's profile (turned sideways for better comparison).  Do you see the resemblance?

Terrorizing the neighbors' dogs.  She can see the dogs on their porch from her bedroom window, and delights in looking at them.  Whenever they notice her, though, they start barking at the pint-sized intruder.  This, of course, delights Olivia even more:

Posing for a picture.  Her expression got more and more strained as she waited for me to tell her she could take the glasses off again:

Eating like a grown-up: