June 17-24

The Promised "Day in the Life" Post:

6:45 - I get up and savor a few minutes of quiet.  During these minutes, I remember that I want to do a "Day in the Life" post, and grab my camera.  It's Thursday, for those who care about WHICH day in the life this is.

7:00 - Olivia wakes up in her room seconds before the alarm goes off in our room.  She is content to play in her crib until she hears Daddy walking to the bathroom.  "Other people are out of bed, I need to be out of bed, too!"

7:10 - I go in to rescue Olivia from her crib; she does her good-morning march from the corner nearest the door to the corner nearest the curtain that I always open before picking her up.  After a quick breakfast ("No pictures now, I'm famished!") we head over to the basket of diapers and ponder our choices.  Black it is.  Apparently this is a "shake before wearing" diaper.  Who knew.

7:25 - A new shirt for Olivia and then we're on our way to my bedroom.  We got distracted when we discovered Daddy brushing his teeth in the bathroom.  Okay, NOW to my bedroom.  Olivia explores while I get dressed.

7:35 - The three of us head downstairs for prayers.  Then we all go outside so that Olivia and I can wave while Daddy drives away.

7:45 - Time to make the bed and then write a brief shopping list.  Bryan had mentioned to me that he would be bringing a coworker home for lunch, so Olivia and I decided to walk to Kroger to get some salad makings.

8:00 - Shoes for me, pants for Olivia, and into the wrap we go.  (Side note: I don't like mirror pictures.  I find them difficult to take and unsatisfactory to look at.)  No pictures of the walk because I didn't want to bring the camera and my phone was dead.  Here's a satellite image of the route we took, though, courtesy of Google.

9:00 - We're back from our walk and one of us is cranky.  No time for pictures, just straight into bed for a nap.  I tidy up the house a bit and then head to the computer to check email and start the blog post.  I also pan fry some chicken for lunch and try out a new recipe I have for Yogurt Cake.

11:30 - After her longest morning nap ever, Olivia wakes up, ready to play.  I rescue her from her crib once again and we head to the kitchen to sample the yogurt cake.

11:40 - Time to play!  The best game is throwing a ball, pointing at it, and then chasing said ball.  Also fun is seeing how many different rooms one can explore in thirty seconds.  Bonus points if you explore the rooms while chasing the ball.

12:00 - Bryan thought he'd be home for lunch around 12:15, so I head to the kitchen to make some salad dressing and get all the toppings out.  My faithful puppy daughter follows me and plays with the refrigerator magnets.

12:05 - They're here early!  We meet Rafe and it's time for lunch.  Olivia's typical maneuver is to eat the Cheerios on her tray and toss everything else on the floor.  She'll eat whatever I put in her mouth, but she will only feed herself Cheerios.  In an odd turn of events, she will also eat things she finds on the floor while playing, even if those things aren't food.  Today, however, she eats raspberries, chicken, and yogurt cake off her tray in addition to the Cheerios.  She tries a lettuce leaf, but spits it out and then throws it on the floor.  Hey, you can't like all the food on the first try.  Your parents might get ideas.

1:00 - Olivia is being surprisingly crabby seeing as she just woke up from her last nap an hour and a half ago.  I clear the table while Olivia explores the cupboards in the kitchen.  She can't understand why some of them won't open for her.

1:15 - We go into the middle room to play for a bit.  She pulls all her books off her bookshelf.  Twice.

1:30 - The crabbiness cannot be put off any longer.  A snack and a nap seem in order, so I take Olivia into her room and put her in bed.  She plays happily for a bit, which is normal.  Generally this is my sewing or reading time, but I tend to wait until she falls asleep, especially if I'm sewing.  I read and wait and read and wait and read and wait...

2:30 - Nap still un-taken, but in a decidedly better mood, Olivia decides she's had enough of her crib.  There's only one thing she can really reach, and she's already emptied the whole basket of burp cloths onto the floor.  Time to be out!

2:35 - To the front door to check the mail!  It was not as picture worthy as I might have hoped, but Olivia always enjoys the daily adventure to the mailbox anyway.

2:40 - We head back to the kitchen where Olivia helps me unload the dishwasher and then plays Godzilla to the juice bottles' Tokyo while I reload the dishwasher.

2:50 - I have a few dishes to hand wash, so Olivia head back to previously explored cupboards and discovers a green bib to play with.

3:05 - Kitchen chores done, it's back to the middle room for some playing.  Olivia plays with her books, pull all the scarves off the bottom shelf of another bookshelf, chases some duct tape around the room, and discovers that the rubber bottom comes off of the 3-hole punch.  She also learns that those little circles that fall out aren't nearly as tasty as they look.

3:55 - We snuggle up on the couch for a bit. Olivia is worn out because she skipped her nap, so she is content to nurse and then just hang out on my lap while I read for a while.

4:30 - Enough snuggling!  More things must be explored!  For example, how do these wooden blocks of Daddy's taste?  And would you like to try one?  Also, I think Mommy organized this cupboard wrong.  Then it's more chasing balls around the living room.

5:00 - Time to go outside and wait for Daddy to get home!  We head to the porch to sit on the swing and enjoy the fresh air.

5:15 - There's the car!  And there's a foot.

5:16 - There's Daddy!  He and Olivia play a little bit before he goes in to change out of his work clothes.

5:20 - We follow Daddy inside and Olivia discovers him in the bedroom where she sits on the bed and promptly begins her late afternoon ritual of dismantling his wallet.  She's getting pretty good at pulling things out and handing them to whoever happens to be sitting nearby.

5:45 - Daddy brought a tuxedo cupcake home from work.  It is sugary and delicious.

6:00 - Time for a bath and then a little more playing with Daddy before bed.

6:30 - One tired little girl goes to bed.  Bryan does computery things while I make dinner.  We eat, watch some How I Met Your Mother, and wait for our overnight guests to come (we have some friends who live in North Carolina and crash at our house when they make the trip to Michigan to visit their families a couple of times a year) so that we, too, can call it a night.

June 10-17

Last Saturday the three of us went to check out the Farmers' Market here in town.  Not bad, but not spectacular either, although we were surprised at the number of baked goods booths (as opposed to vegetables).  While we were there, we went next door and visited the Friends of the Library Book Sale.  More about that later.

After the Farmers' Market, we headed to Sidney where Bryan and I played in some Lehman Alumni Association softball games.  Our team lost both games, but we had a good time anyway.  There's talk among the team of having more organization next year (which means we'll find out more than 2 days in advance and not have to borrow players in order to field a complete team).  Olivia handled her first non-relatives baby-sitting (baby-sat?) experience well.  A teammate's mother volunteered, and when we got to her house she pulled out all of the toys she keeps around for her grandkids and Olivia didn't give us a second glance.

The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful.  I got some baby-proofing supplies, padded the corner of one end table, covered all the open outlets, and put rubberbands around Olivia-level cabinet door handles.  Bryan stained one of our auction bookshelves, and Olivia and I spent time rearranging the middle room now that we have all that extra shelf space.  :)

Oh!  The Friends of the Library Sale!  Backing up to Sunday once more...  On the last day of the sale, it cost $1 to fill a bag with books.  OR you could buy their bag for $3 and get unlimited refills.  This part started at 1:00, and we decided we would go see if there was anything good.  Unfortunately, Olivia decided to take a nap on my lap at 12:45, so we (meaning I) resigned ourselves to not going.  Then Bryan volunteered to go check it out himself as a sort of challenge/adventure.  So off he went.  Apparently he got there at 1:05 and that was much too late.  The line was around the corner and inside was packed.  He lowered his shoulder, pushed his way through the crowds, and started scooping books into bags.  He came back with one complete set of Wildlife books, a bunch of random New True Books that look like they all go together but have wildly different subjects, an assortment of children's books, a couple of books for himself that he's already forgetting exist, five books for me (1 "I saw the word 'assassin' and picked it up", 1 "The cover looks like something you would read.  Also, it has 'shadow' in the title", and 3 "I wanted to get you a series, too, and these were all together" (numbers 3, 4, and 7)), and one Martin the Warrior by Brian Jacques.  I felt bad telling him I already own that one.  All in all, though, not bad.

Yesterday we had the parish picnic in Sidney, and today we're visiting my dad for Fathers' Day.  Since I'm actually writing this post Friday morning and just pretending that it's currently Sunday, any stories from those events will have to be in next week's post.  :)

Here are some pictures of Olivia.  She's looking out the screen door, being a nosy little busybody.  :)  I had grand plans for a photo-filled "day-in-the-life" section of this week's post, but kept forgetting to grab my camera early enough in the day.  Maybe next week.

June 3-10

I have a big scary sewing machine foot called a ruffler foot that I used for the first time ever this week.  It's supposed to make a nice even ruffle AND attach it to other material at the same time.  How exciting!  I decided to test it on the curtain I was making to cover the crawl space in the basement.  Since it was my first attempt (and only a basement curtain), I decided not to get too fancy: I would simply make ruffles in my existing material without bothering to attach the ruffle to other fabric as well.  After reading the back of the package three times and consulting a sewing machine accessory book, I finally figured out how to attach the foot to my machine, fed some fabric in, and... no ruffles.  Something is wrong.  Enter the internet.  Google is wonderful, and directed me to a site where I discovered that I had to hook part of the foot over the needle shank so that it can properly count stitches.  Of course.  That done, I tried again, but immediately stopped because I couldn't actually figure out where I was supposed to be feeding the fabric.  How hard can it be?  You try it.  There are at least three plausible choices.  Anyway, Google to the rescue again.  This time I found a youtube video where someone demonstrated how to shove the material in at the back and thread it through the prongs at the front and voila.  Ruffles.  Not so hard, I thought.  So I left the video up, just in case, shoved my material in at the back, threaded it through the prongs at the front, and tentatively pressed the foot pedal.  Lo and behold, there were loud noises, and I was getting ruffles!  I was so excited that I stopped immediately and went to get Bryan so that he could witness this marvel.  After ruffling the curtain, I put hooks up downstairs, attached grommets at appropriate intervals (good thing I bought two packs, because I ruined about every third grommet), cut out a hole for the large square metal thing on our basement ceiling, and hung the curtain.  And that is the story of how the basement curtain came to be.  :)  Pictures of the curtain and Bryan's bumper pool table after the break.

Okay, now that you've read my curtain story, here's the Olivia update:

Now proficient at standing, sitting, walking along furniture (parents, walls, baskets, etc.), crawling, and spinning in circles while seated, Olivia is a force to be reckoned with.  This precocious young lady is into anything and everything, especially the things she's supposed to stay away from, such as mom's library books or the box that hides all the computer cords.  Stubborn as her mother, she doesn't take "no" for an answer and is quick to tears at the thought that she might be denied access to something.  Ever mindful of her audience, she is also quick to stop the tears and smile endearingly up at her parents, especially if she thinks she might gain something by such actions.  She enjoys exploring the house during the day and playing with Daddy when he comes home from work in the evening.

Olivia has toys.  I promise.  You'd never know it if you watched her moving around the house, though.  Her "toys" of choice -- that is, the ones that she holds on to and doesn't immediately discard and is reluctant to relinquish -- have thus far in her life been an odd, but rather ordinary assortment.  A cup.  My old cell phone with the battery removed (to keep her from throwing my current cell phone and/or calling China -- although she DID try to text Danielle once while I was on the phone with Justine, and that could have been fun).  Her toy box.  No, not the toys, just the box.  And, most recently, one of her wipes.  For clarification purposes, it should be noted that we use cloth wipes, so she's not carrying around a WetOne, just a square of material that is essentially a baby washcloth.  She even took it to bed with her the other night.  The good thing about the wipe is that we have about three dozen and only three different colors, so when the green one she's using gets dirty I can just fish out another green one to give her and she's none the wiser.

Little girl dresses are short.  For some reason, manufacturers think that a dress should just barely clear the butt of a baby.  And when you have a tall baby, that's even shorter.  So Olivia's 12 month dresses fit perfectly except that she has an 18 month t-shirt that's longer.  Don't get me wrong, she IS pretty cute with her little cloth diapered butt sticking out the bottom of her dress, especially if I'm on top of things and manage to color coordinate somewhat.  But I thought perhaps she should have something longer for church. Enter the 10-minute Onesie Dress.  It took me half an hour, but that's because a certain little girl woke up from her nap when I was three minutes in.  I just used some leftover fabric that, coincidentally, matches my kitchen curtains.  Okay, not coincidentally.  It is my kitchen curtain material.  I had extra, and it's cute.  Of course, this led me to channel Captain Von Trapp and proclaim, "Do you mean to tell me that my children have been roaming about Salzburg dressed up in nothing but some old drapes?"  Why yes, yes they have.  And they look cute in those drapes.  :)

We have a sheer curtain that separates one side of our house from the other.  When I carry Olivia through the curtain, we go THROUGH the curtain.  I usually don't bother moving it to one side.  When she's on her own, though, the curtain must be moved before she can get through the doorway.  I find it amusing to sit on one side and watch her concerted efforts to move the curtain out of her way (after she finishes using it for peek-a-boo, of course).

Naptime has gotten more interesting, because sometimes Olivia is content to sit quietly in her crib and play after waking up.  And sometimes she is upset about being down for a nap, and plays for a bit out of protest before falling asleep.  Unfortunately, there is little to do in a crib.  Ever the improviser, Olivia has managed to find a few things to keep her busy.  For instance, here is what her room normally looks like:

And here is her room after a nap:

Note the completely unrepentant look on her face (also the burp cloths in the crib with her):

 And, lest you think that she only causes havoc when already behind bars:

We've used room darkening curtains in Olivia's room ever since we discovered that she slept better in the dark.  Now that she can move the curtain, however (see above picture), she's caught on to our plot.  Wednesday night I went in to check on her after putting her down for bed and saw her standing up.  That in and of itself is not unusual, as she is often standing up in bed.  Typically she's standing in the corner closest to the door, though, so as to better position herself for rescue.  On Wednesday, she was standing over by the window, holding the curtain open and crying at the daylight.  :(

Also this week: On Friday, Olivia cut BOTH top middle teeth!  No wonder she was cranky Thursday night.

Pictures and Video: