October 20-27

We visited Justine, Joseph, and William last weekend.  It was kind of nice to not have any reason to be there except to visit.  Although...  we did bring baby stuff and I made a cake for Justine's birthday.  That was circumstantial, though.  The main reason was to visit.  :)  All the kids did well, and Justine and I got some cute pictures of them playing together.  Gretchen was terrible in the sleeping department, but she did better once we got home, so we're chalking most of her problems up to travelling.

Olivia counts things.  She doesn't just count while she points to things like most toddlers do.  She actually counts.  If she counts something twice or misses something, she starts over.  The only trouble she has is remembering the order of 6-10.  Her counting is usually 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 2, 3, 5!  When I look at her, she'll usually tack on 10 and then glance at me for approval.  We're working on it.  :)  She also labels each of her fingers with a specific number.  Her Uncle Joseph pointed to her thumb and asked if she knew what it was called, and she responded with, "five!"

The other day, I was getting Gretchen's zucchini from the microwave after heating it up a bit.  I stuck the spoon in the container and began walking to the table.  Gretchen, who was in my arms at this point, saw the spoon sticking out of the food and grabbed it, aiming it towards her mouth.  All the zucchini that had been on the spoon ended up on the floor, and the spoon changed course halfway to her mouth and ended up crash landing on her forehead, but it was pretty funny anyway.  Since then, I've been letting her carry her own spoon to the table, making sure to keep anything that might spill well out of range of her flailing attempts to locate her mouth.

One day at lunch, Gretchen was watching me eat and began tipping her head back and opening her mouth as I brought food to my mouth.  Then she started bumping my arm with her hand, apparently (we decided later) trying to get me to drop food in her mouth.  I did drop some, but it landed on her shoulder instead.  As we found a snapkin to clean her up, she threw all subtlety to the wind and lunged forward, managing to grab a fistful of Mexican chicken off my plate before Bryan and I were able to capture her limbs and clean her up.  Perhaps I should put out some steamed veggie sticks or make some of that zweiback that Justine used to give William.

Every now and again, Olivia decides that she's going travelling.  One day after we got out of the car, she gathered her baby into her arms and began walking down the sidewalk.  I asked where she was going, and she replied, "Manga Bahga's house."  For those who don't speak fluent Olivia, that means "Grandma and Grandpa's house."  Usually we're inside when she decides it's time to leave, so she picks up her purse (or some other bag that's lying around), gives kisses all around, and heads to the door.  When we visited Justine and Joseph, she packed some treasures ("Hop on Pop" and a ball) in a lunch box and took off.  Luckily for everyone, she can't reach and/or operate deadbolts, and she always announces when she's leaving.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on the blog, but Olivia is a very neat toddler.  She might be the tidiest toddler in the existence of toddlers.  Well this is good news for me right now, I see it backfiring later in my life.  Never again will I have a child this concerned about being clean.  I love that Olivia hates being sticky and gross almost as much as I hate her being sticky and gross, and it makes me sad to see her occasional bouts of grossness and know that it's only getting worse from here.

When Steph and I did all that canning a while ago, we put a card table in the kitchen to give ourselves more counter space.  I liked it so well that the card table kept living there even after we were done.  The problem with the card table, though, was that it was a little TOO big.  We couldn't completely open the door where we kept pots and pans, and navigating through the doorway was trickier than we wanted it to be.  Then one day I realized that this is why kitchen islands exist, and I started looking things up.  I needed something affordable, preferably with shelves, that was both large enough to give me some extra counter space and small enough to not be in the way.  I selected my island (which I think was actually referred to as a "baker's rack"), ordered it, waited impatiently for it to arrive at my front door, and put it together in a slightly different way than the manufacturers intended to obtain a perfectly acceptable solution.  :)

Pictures:
The cousins:

Olivia decided to help me make granola.  That's steak spice in my granola syrup.  :(

Olivia's ponytail:

This is what happens when you take it out:

Gretchen:

Following Jacque's advice, I made a Russian-style head-covering for Gretchen:

My kitchen improvement.  The first picture is how you're supposed to assemble it.