Bonus Post: Baby Guesses (Reggie Edition)

Time to make some predictions!  What are your best guesses for Reggie's BIRTH DATE, BIRTH TIME, GENDER, WEIGHT, and LENGTH?  One guess per person per category.  Make your guesses in the comments section below.  Don't forget to leave a name so I know which comment belongs to which person!

You can make your guess at any time between now and when we arrive at the hospital for the birth.

Points will be awarded as follows:
~Correct guess - 2 points - Per category, to any and all people that guess it
~Closest guess - 1 point - If there are no correct guesses in any particular category, to any and all closest guesses
~Better Than Half bonus - Reggie's birth "day-of-week" in points (Sunday = 1 point, Monday = 2 points, etc.) - Awarded if you receive at least one point in exactly three categories
~Great Guesser bonus - Reggie's birth month in points (March = 3 points, April = 4 points, etc.) - Awarded if you receive at least one point in exactly four categories
~Got 'em All bonus - Reggie's birth date in points (April 15 = 15 points, April 20 = 20 points, etc.) - Awarded if you receive at least one point in every category
~The Random bonus - Reggie's birth hour in points (we work on a 12-hour clock; none of that 24-hour military time) - Awarded to one randomly chosen guesser: each guesser will receive a number (in order of guesses) and I'll use a random number generator to pick the winner.

I've made a table listing all the pertinent information I could remember; if you think I forgot something, let me know and I'll add it.

	Olivia	Reggie
BIRTH DATE	August 3
My Calculated Due Date	August 3	April 21
Ultrasound Based Due Date	July 30	April 15
TIME BORN	12:58 pm
Arrived at hospital	4:00 am, Wed (same day)
GENDER	Girl
Bryan thinks/thought	Girl	Boy
Johannah thinks/thought	No strong feeling	Girl
Cravings	None	Chipotle, pizza with ranch, both once
Aversions	Cream of Mushroom Soup	None
Sweet or salty snacks?	Salty	Both
Fruit or meat?	Fruit	Fruit
Weight gain	All in front	All in front
Complaints	Pain under right ribs from 4.5 months on	Shortness of breath from 6 months on
WEIGHT	8 lbs, 5.8 oz
Johannah beg. weight	132	124
Johannah weight @ 30 wks	144 (+12)	141 (+17)
Johannah max weight	148 (+16)
LENGTH	21 ¼ in

February 24-March 3

As of today, we will have two kids running around our house (well, one running and the other lying) in less than eight weeks.  Reggie's official due date is either 6 weeks or 7 weeks from today, depending whether you believe the ultrasound tech's numbers (6) or mine (7).  By eight weeks from now, the office will push for an induction if we haven't seen a baby yet.  Saying "eight weeks" makes it seem so much closer than saying "two months" or even "April."

Since we're getting so close to Reggie's birth, I decided it's time for some guessing.  Watch for a bonus post going up this Wednesday that provides background information as well as rules and point values for predictions.

Olivia spent this last weekend with her grandparents.  Bryan and I wanted to go out to dinner, and Murry suggested she just take Olivia for the weekend so we could get stuff done during the day, too.  We finished up some things around the house (Christmas lights FINALLY came down off the roof!), played some board games in the middle of the floor without having any pieces stolen, did some toddler-free grocery shopping, and generally had a very relaxing couple of days.  We were updated with pictures throughout the weekend; they are below.

We've put big girl bed training on hold for a while.  Last week's aversion to the big girl bed continues, and Olivia gets slightly panicky and begins pointing adamantly towards the crib if she thinks I might put her down in the bed instead.  Since we won't need the crib immediately upon Reggie's arrival, we've decided to try again in a month or so.

Last week, one of us spent some time locked in the basement.  I'll give you some hints: Bryan was at work, and I know how to unlock the door to let people out after I've locked it.  That would leave Olivia as the locker, and myself as the lockee.  She didn't want to come downstairs to help me do laundry, so I went down without her and she shut the door behind me.  No big deal.  She can't get the door open to fall down the stairs, and the upstairs is Olivia-proofed enough that she'll be fine for the five minutes or so it takes me to switch the clothes.  Except...  She CAN work the lock, apparently.  But she doesn't know how to unlock it. Luckily, Bryan was due home for lunch within the hour, and Olivia was content to sit outside the door and listen to me sing songs to her.  Forty minutes later, Bryan came home, released me from the basement, dried Olivia's tears, and figured out which key unlocks that door so we can make a copy and hang it on the basement side.

I don't remember Olivia being particularly active at certain times before she was born.  She'd move when she felt like it and wouldn't when she didn't.  I DO remember that she was rather reluctant to move whenever she thought someone might want her to.  Decidedly not a performing monkey, she would move around happily until someone (usually Murry) tried to feel her kicking, at which point all movement would stop for some time.  Reggie, on the other hand, has definite times of day designated for activity (to Murry's dismay, these times do not lend themselves to observation any better than Olivia's stage fright).  Reggie's favorite times to move are in the morning after I wake up, but before I get out of bed; around 9:00 at night, provided I'm sitting still; at night after I go to bed, but before I fall asleep; and any time I get up in the middle of the night.  There will be movement at other points during the day, but nothing compared to when I'm resting at the beginning or end of the day.

Pictures:

February 17-24

I was one of the winners in the Infantino giveaway!  Thanks to everyone that voted for my idea.  Check the comments of the previous post to see if you got your points for participating.  :)

My OB's office doesn't allow children in the waiting room.  Luckily, my mother-in-law lives only an hour away and is more than happy to have an excuse to come hang out with Olivia whenever I have an appointment.  As we approach my due date, though, appointments get closer together and it seems silly to have Murry drive out once every week or two.  One night Bryan and I were discussing this problem:

B: I could come home from work for a couple of hours and make it up later that night.  Then my mom wouldn't have to come out so often.
J: The other option is to see if someone from church could come babysit some weeks.
B: What did we do with Olivia?
J: ... ... ... What do you mean, "what did we do with Olivia"?
B: When Olivia was born, who wat... oh.  Nobody.  She wasn't here to watch yet.

It would appear that Olivia gets up earlier after she goes to bed later.  Funny, it seems like it should be the other way around.  Given my exhaustive research, though, I've come up with a plan: A new bedtime of 4:00 in the afternoon will be strictly enforced!

For posterity's sake (and so I know the answers if my siblings/children ever ask):
-Olivia officially weaned about a month ago.
-We turned her carseat around just after she turned 18 months old.  I know you're supposed to keep them rear facing as long as possible, but she's several pounds over the allowable weight limit and she just looked so uncomfortable with her little legs crunched against the back of the seat.
-We've been working on basic potty-training for a couple of weeks now.  She's not great at it yet, but I don't have to change many messy diapers, which is a plus for me.
-Olivia has a bed she can escape from by herself.  It has a railing, though, so that she doesn't fall out when she rolls to the side (like she does every night).  At this point, she is still napping in the crib since she's much less agreeable about naps.

This week (after a beautifully easy first week), the bed thing started to backfire.  She crawls out, crying, and finds someone who will pick her up.  The chosen parent (me, if I'm home) walks her back to the bedroom and puts her back in bed.  Repeat.  After about 4 tries, I'll put her in the crib instead.  The crying stops instantly, and she is contentedly quiet until she falls asleep.

I don't know if it's the cold or if I'm shrinking (as opposed to the more stereotypical swelling) with this pregnancy, but my wedding ring doesn't fit anymore.  It slides on and off very easily and a couple of times this past month it's just fallen off while I've been going about my normal day.  My solution?  Olivia's hair tie.  She has 50 of them (that's not an exaggeration; the package told me there were 50) and she doesn't even wear them very often, so she can spare one to constantly grace my ring finger.

Another points opportunity!  You know you want them, even though they don't count!  I'm going to try to freeze some meals before Reggie is born so that I don't have to worry about cooking for the first few weeks.  Unfortunately, I don't appear to have too many freezer meals.  If you have a meal that freezes well, send me an email with the recipe (johannahbarhorst@gmail.com).  I'll give five points per recipe, with a fifteen point bonus (in May sometime) to whoever submits the recipe that Bryan likes the best.  :)

Pictures:

February 10-17

Taxes are done!  I figured it'd be good to have them out of the way before Reggie came.  Also, our refund is instrumental in paying the hospital bill.  To all of you who don't have your taxes done yet (even through no fault of your own), neener neener.  :-P

We have recently discovered the youtube channel kidstv123.  Sometimes when I'm working on the computer, Olivia gets impatient, so I used to look for animal videos for her to watch.  Then one day I discovered these, and she likes them better.  It's just a bunch of songs about shapes, numbers, colors, phonics, the alphabet...  Most of them aren't bad at all, and they keep Olivia occupied while I finish whatever I'm doing.  ...Although, some of them ARE catchy enough that I wake up singing them at 3 in the morning.  While Olivia was sick last week, she got to watch many more kidstv123 videos than usual.  It got to the point where every time one of us sat down at the computer, she thought she was going to watch videos.  So my computer time has been reduced to only what I can get done during naptime.  Luckily, I don't have a lot I HAVE to do, so this is usually more than enough time.  5:00 is Olivia's computer time.  She's allowed to educationally rot her little brains until Bryan gets home from work sometime between 5:15 and 5:30.

Olivia's 18-month check-up was last Saturday.  She's 24 pounds, 6 ounces and 32.25 inches long.  She also had an ear infection.  It seems she has an ear infection every time she sees the doctor.  They never bother her, but she gets antibiotics anyway.  I guess it's good that she doesn't have to go back until she's 2.  No ear infections until then!

Our dishwasher is still broken.  :(  Whatever Bryan did to fix it didn't work, so we're still washing dishes by hand.  The good news is that I remembered that I actually like washing dishes, at least in reasonable quantities.  The bad news is that washing dishes makes my poor fingers split more than usual.  I'm having a terrible time with dry skin this winter (worse than usual), so Bryan told me I'm not allowed to wash dishes.  Of course, if he doesn't get to them right away at night then they pile up on the counter and I end up doing them later anyway...

We implemented a toy rotation this week.  I sorted all Olivia's main room toys (except big favorites like her dolls) into four baskets and only one basket is out at a time; the other three baskets live in my closet.  I made sure to include a couple things I knew she really liked in each basket along with other toys that don't usually get much attention.  So far it's been going well.  She rediscovered some toys she'd forgotten that she had, and has been enjoying them this week without seeming to miss the ones that aren't out.  I haven't decided yet how often I'm going to rotate baskets.  Probably once every week or two.

When Olivia "reads" books to herself, she does so in a sing-song voice.  Why?  Probably because I have songs that go with about half of the books I read to her.  It looks like we got (or I molded?) a musical child.

On Tuesday, Olivia started saying "bleck."  I was trying to keep her out of my dirt pile as I swept dust bunnies from behind the couch, and told her it was yucky.  She followed me around the rest of the morning, pointing at my dirt pile and exclaiming "bleck!"  Lest we think it was a one day phase, she also used her new word to describe the egg she accidentally knocked on the floor on Wednesday.  Bleck, indeed.

Olivia's favorite new game to play is "Where are they?"  She'll hide something behind her back (or, more recently, she'll hide her fingers in a glove) and say, "Uh-oh!  Where are they?"  Then she'll get a contemplative look on her face and say, "I don't know."  Usually I'm required to make similar observations.  Then, she'll suddenly reveal that which was hidden, start laughing, and say, "There they are!"

I entered a contest to get a chance to try out Infantino's Fresh Squeezed line.  They're picking 50 people from across the country to get a free set of baby food making supplies -- including their new squeeze station, which lets you store food in the little pouches that Olivia loves -- in exchange for honest reviews once you've tested it out with your friends.  Although I assume the company has final say, most of the voting is done by facebook users liking and commenting on ideas.  If you haven't already, I'd appreciate it if you'd "like" my idea and pass it on to anyone else you think would participate.  I'll give 2 points to everyone who does it!  (You have to tell me you did, though, because I can't see WHO "liked" my post, just how many.)

Directions:

1. Go to this page: https://www.facebook.com/InfantinoMomsRule?ref=ts&fref=ts

2. Click on the Fresh Squeezed Party link

. 

3. Go through the comments until you find one by Jojo Viola (my facebook page for entering giveaways).  They're grouped by number of "likes," so I'm probably near the middle right now.

4. "Like" my comment, leave a reply if you want to, and share with your friends if you think they'll vote, too.  :)

Pictures:

February 3-10

I think I'm all updated with pictures!  I've been adding pictures to all the old posts and I seem to finally be out of pictures to add.  Most of the posts from July 2011 through February 2012 have some new photos in them if you want to check them out.  Someday I might even add words.  :)  I'll let you know if/when that happens.

You may know that Olivia is relatively neat.  Everything has a place where it belongs, and at times she can be quite distressed if we try to continue with the day before putting something in its proper place.  One morning, Bryan was in a hurry and left his clothes on the bathroom floor after his shower.  Later that day, I heard an "uh-oh!" and saw Olivia walking through the middle room.  I went to investigate, and she had picked up his clothes off the floor and taken them into our room where she deposited them in the dirty clothes basket.  Now she cleans up after him every morning, encouraged by Bryan, who heard of her exploits and decided to leave his clothes on the floor on purpose.  For Olivia's enjoyment, of course.

Last week we had some nice weather, so Olivia and I went for a walk.  She wore her tennis shoes.  We came home and one shoe fell off while she played.  I eventually removed her other shoe so that she wasn't so lopsided.  An hour or so later, we wanted to go on another walk.  When the time came to put shoes on, though, we could only find one.  I looked in all her hiding places, but couldn't find her other shoe.  Finally we tossed on her pink cowgirl boots (which are her favorite shoes anyway) and went for our walk.  Her tennis shoe remained lost all week.  We'd look for it periodically, and I kept an eye out for it as I went about the house during the day, but all for naught.  Saturday morning, Bryan finally found the missing shoe.  It was...  In the box where he keeps his shoes.  Of course.  Ten minutes later, it was missing again.  Or perhaps it was the other shoe this time.  Luckily, it was much easier to find the second time around.  This time it was in Olivia's shoe box.  At least she knows where shoes go.

Poor baby girl started catching a cold at the end of last week.  She was coughing and sniffling by Saturday but otherwise seemed fine.  Sunday morning she was coughing a lot and wouldn't eat or drink anything, so we left her in pajamas and took turns going to church.  While I was at church, Bryan managed to get food and drink in her and she was playing happily by the time I came home.  She ate lunch pretty well before her nap and seemed to be feeling okay when she woke up, so we gave her a bath and decided to keep our Superbowl plans of visiting the Kleins.  Olivia was glad to get outside and excited to play with Eva's toys.  She slept in their spare crib until the game was over, and then we came home.  Monday morning, Olivia was up early and looked miserable.  She took two baths and we read some books before she fell asleep in my arms just before 11.  Bryan came home for lunch, and I transferred Olivia to her crib, expecting her to sleep for another hour or so.  She finally woke up at 3:40 and seemed to be doing better.  She even ate a snack.  Another bath before Bryan came home, and then it was dinner and bed.  Happily, she was doing much better when she woke up Tuesday morning and she's been fine since except for some residual coughing.

Tuesday night we put Olivia in a toddler bed for the first time.  What is a toddler bed?  Well, we didn't have a twin bed, but we DID have a spare crib in our attic (a drop side from my parents that we decided not to use as a crib because it was recalled).  Bryan butchered one of the sides, cutting out five slats or so to make a hole through which Olivia can climb in and out.  The rest of the side stayed intact, to keep Olivia from rolling out unintentionally.  We didn't show her how to use the hole, just plopped her in a different bed one night.  Wednesday morning, we heard a very awake and (cheerfully) vocal Olivia around 5:45.  ...  This is not acceptable; she usually sleeps until at least 7, and lately it's been closer to 8 or 8:30.  Bryan thought maybe I should check on her, but I figured I'd let her see if she could figure out that she was able to escape.  I thought I heard her once, but when I peeked out of our room, her door was still closed.  About half an hour later, her vocalizations dropped to an inaudible level, and I thought maybe she'd gone back to sleep.  No such luck.  About five minutes after that, we heard the very distinct sound of her door opening and closing.  Guess she figured out the bed.  I listened for her footsteps to see where she would go now that she had discovered her freedom; since we have hardwood floors and she likes to take her socks off, she's usually pretty easy to hear.  Not that morning.  There were no footsteps, so I finally got up to check on her.  There she was, still in her socks (so I wouldn't have been able to hear her anyway), standing in the dark hallway in front of her door.  Apparently she discovered the house was still dark and was unsure where to go.  I showed her how to get to our room, and then we went back to her room to start the day.  She slept until 7 the next morning, so I'm hoping that the early wake-up call was a fluke rather than a product of the new sleeping arrangement.

This week, Olivia added elephant and snake to her animal sounds repertoire.  As she learns more sounds, she's more likely to blurt out the wrong one if she doesn't stop to think first.  I've found that a similar thing happens with her words.  As her vocabulary grows, her correct usage percentage goes down.  I'm sure it will even out eventually.  :)

Pictures and Videos:

January 27-February 3

Olivia knows eight animal sounds now.  In the order she learned them, they are as follows: lion, monkey, dog, sheep, cat, horse, duck, cow.  We didn't catch sheep right away, since she has a gentle lion and an aggressive sheep, making them sound very similar.  My siblings were quite dedicated in teaching her horse and duck while we were visiting last weekend.  My favorite noise that she makes is monkey; Bryan's favorite is cow (and it became even more of a favorite when I commented that it sounds a bit like a steamboat).  There are videos below which document her talents.

There's also a video below where she shows all the body parts she knows.  Right now we're working on leg, as she recently discovered that she has two of them.

Olivia no longer pulls hair out of the top of her head!  Unfortunately, she now pulls it out over her ears, so the mullet look has actually gotten worse.  :(  I asked the pediatrician about it the last time we were in, and he said to distract her whenever she's pulling on her hair.  That would be great, except she only pulls it out in her crib at night.  Right now we're hoping she'll grow out of this phase completely once the hair above her ears gets too short to pull.

Every now and again, Olivia decides that she is going to use her own utensils.  This means she takes longer to eat, since she won't let us help her but still isn't very good with a fork.  At our house we have toddler sized forks to use and she'll spend the entire meal trying to stab food, getting food about one in every ten tries.  Whether said food stays on the fork long enough to make it to her mouth is an entirely different matter.  Eventually she gets frustrated and/or hungry enough that she'll let us feed her, so she doesn't starve.  At my mom and dad's this last weekend, James couldn't find any Olivia sized forks, so he provided her with only a spoon.  Of course, this caused problems: her spoon skills are worse than her fork skills, she wouldn't accept a big fork, and this was one of the times she was determined to feed herself.  So there she sat, valiantly trying to stab her egg noodles with a spoon.  :)

I have decided that kids should be like software upgrades.  Reggie should be just like Olivia, only with fewer glitches.  It sounds good to me.  All the good, and less of the bad (not that Olivia has ANY bad, of course... :-P).  Bryan thought this was a great idea, pointing out that by kid eight we should have a professional athlete who cures cancer.  Then we were struck by a sobering thought: on kid 9, there will be a total interface overhaul.  We'll know the upgrade is supposed to be better, but we won't know why and we won't be able to figure out how to work it.

Pictures and Videos:

January 20-27

A while ago, Olivia suffered a stair regression.  She was perfectly capable of climbing stairs, but refused to do so, preferring to be carried.  I am pleased to report that in the last few weeks, she has reremembered how to climb stairs and now does so willingly.

Olivia is officially drinking milk.  I let her try a glass back when she first turned one, but she had issues with it, so we went back to just water.  This last week, though, we've been giving her a glass of milk with dinner every night and she's been fine.  I guess her system just needed to mature a bit more.  Friday we moved her milk time to breakfast instead so that she can finish it later in the day if necessary.

On Tuesday, Olivia helped me unload the dishwasher the way she usually does.  Generally she unloads the silverware one piece at a time and hands it to me to put away.  About a month ago, I tried putting out the fork and spoon bins for her to put silverware into, and she just picked out all of HER silverware and walked away.  Tuesday, though, I tried again, and Olivia sorted forks and spoons into their proper containers as she unloaded them.  She got them all right until she got impatient with the last handful and just shoved two forks and two spoons sideways into the spoons bin.

We have names!  Bryan and I do, I mean.  Olivia calls me mama and she calls Bryan deeda.  Whenever she says "deeda," I say "daddy," and then she refers to him as "dada" for a while instead.  Her default name for him, though, is deeda.  Olivia doesn't really use either name to get our attention, but when she sees pictures, those are the names she uses.

We have a bathroom cupboard that is just Olivia's size.  In it is the trash can and various extra bathroom supplies.  Usually Olivia leaves this cupboard alone, but the other day I discovered her diligently pulling things out.  3 points to the person who can tell me what she got into.  There's a picture below; don't forget the brand!  After the first incident, I put our supplies in plastic tubs.  It slowed her down a bit, but she did figure out how to get one lid off (that's the second pictures below).  Luckily, there's not really anything that's a problem in that cupboard.

Last Saturday we visited the Kleins to help them rearrange rooms in anticipation of their little one's arrival.  The boys carried furniture while us girls went shopping.  :)  In fairness, it was easier to move things without the babies underfoot, and we needed to go to the store to get ingredients for lunch.  When we got to Kroger (side note: They have the most amazing Kroger I have ever seen.  I have Kroger envy.), we decided to put the little girls in one of those car carts instead of pushing two separate carts around the store.  They were super cute, and even made it through the whole trip with no problems.  Eva did bend down too far in the checkout line, getting her head stuck under her steering wheel, and we heard a chorus of "uh-oh!"s as Olivia tried valiantly to rescue her by pulling on Eva's jacket.

This week our dishwasher played "washing machine" (it's a common game; I'm surprised you haven't heard of it) and stopped draining.  Bryan ladled the water out, looked stuff up online, tinkered around a bit, and thinks it might be fixed.  Unfortunately, we have to run it to find out, so I'm saving that for next week's project and just did dishes by hand for a few days.

Pictures:

January 13-20

I forgot to mention in one of my Christmas time posts...  Olivia won an ugly Christmas sweater contest (in her age group) at the Barhorst Christmas party.  This would be fine, except she wasn't wearing an ugly Christmas sweater.  She wasn't even wearing a Christmas themed shirt.  Poor Olivia won while wearing her cute little koala shirt.  :(  In her defense, she was the only baby/toddler that walked, so she kind of won by default.  She generously gave up her prize to a second cousin who was at least dressed in some sort of Christmas outfit.

Last Friday, tragedy struck.  My washer stopped spinning.  This doesn't seem so bad until you realize that I wash diapers twice a week.  And a load of towels every other day (since Olivia has been sleeping naked).  And clothes at least once a week.  Then it gets a lot worse to have a broken washing machine.  We tried to check and make sure nothing was caught in the basket, but washing machines are magical contraptions that cannot be taken apart.  All their screws are inaccessible.  We were out of town visiting Bryan's parents over the weekend, so Monday I called repair people, and by Wednesday our machine was fixed.  The problem?  Apparently the factory doesn't put locktite (glue, as close as I can figure) on after the nut that holds all the important parts in place.  I guess only about half the machines they sell have problems with things falling apart because of this.  As our machine was in that half, our pulley was loose and the belt fell off (at least, that's what the repair invoice says).  Luckily, it's an easy fix, and the repairman secured everything with locktite when he was done.  I threw in a load of diapers as soon as he walked out the door, and we were back on track.  :)

Shortly after moving into our house, we bought a coat tree to put near our front door.  Actually, I seem to remember carrying the coat tree in one hand and Olivia in the other, so it must have been a little later in the year.  Probably closer to winter, when our coats would have made an appearance.  Regardless.  We had a coat tree.  Several months ago, one of the branches on our tree broke off.  No problem, we have five more.  Then another one fell off last month.  And then suddenly, our branches were dropping off like leaves in the autumn.  We decided to replace our denuded tree with a much more practical coat rack.  Did you know that coat racks are incredibly hard to come by?  After searching area stores with no luck, Bryan said he'd make one.  We went to Home Depot to buy wood and lo and behold, they had an 8 hook coat rack that you can hang on the wall.  It would have cost more to buy hooks and make it ourselves, so we bought theirs.  It's less intrusive than the tree and looks like it should last longer.  I don't know why we didn't think of this in the first place, but I blame my family and their beautifully sturdy coat tree (that they replaced with 2 coat racks apparently sometime after we bought our tree).

Pictures:

January 6-13

A friend recently asked if I've noticed any difference between this pregnancy and the last one.  After a moment of thought... no.  However, I have noticed things that I forgot about returning to haunt me once again.  For example.  About halfway through my pregnancy with Olivia, I was thrashing squirming about one night trying to get comfortable.  Bryan asked what was wrong and I told him that my legs were too awake for me to sleep.  He suggested that I do a couple rounds of 6 inches to tire them out.  This worked, but took longer (and more ab muscles) than I wanted.  After that, I took to doing a few squats by the side of the bed whenever my legs bothered me.  As I was generally up to go to the bathroom at some point anyway, I'd just toss in between 10 and 20 squats before climbing back into bed.  With Reggie, the restless legs hit last week.  I had forgotten about them, but the memory quickly returned.  In an attempt to stave off the need for 3 am squats, I added them to my tooth brushing routine.  You should have seen Bryan's face the first time he saw me doing squats while I brushed my teeth.  :)  I told him about my restless legs, and he, too, had a moment of recognition.   My squats were approved as a suitable solution, and he decided it wouldn't hurt for him to do some, too.  So now squats are the exercise of choice during tooth brushing.  You should try it.  As an added bonus, you can tell if you brushed long enough by how sore your thighs are the next morning.  :-P

Olivia is now as close to running as short toddler legs with a diapered behind can get.  She walks very fast, and it's not exactly the same motion as her normal walk.  As a result of all her movement, Olivia is losing her baby fat.  We can't tell when we look at her (especially right after a meal -- she's still small enough that you can tell if she's eaten or not just by looking at how fat her belly is), but she definitely looks fatter in pictures from a few months ago.

At what age do kids start posing for pictures?  I didn't think it was until later, but Olivia is to the point where I can tell her to hold still and smile for the camera and she will.  She's not old enough to have a goofy smile yet, either.  See below for a posed picture or two.

I am now the inferior parent.  I used to be the favorite, but now I am associated with only bad things.  Diaper changes?  Mom's domain.  Bedtime?  All mom.  Not letting kids do fun things like eat crayons, have cookies for dinner, or climb on the back of the couch?  Mean mommy strikes again.  Bryan, on the other hand, is associated with playtime.  When he comes home for lunch or at the end of the day, Olivia immediately brightens up and runs (or crawls) to the door, screeching excitedly.  When I'm gone for a day and come home, I get greeted with "meehhh."  No, you probably didn't say that right.  Try again, with more whine in your voice.  I regain my favored status at church on Sunday, when I am the only correct choice and must hold Olivia for at least 85% of the service.  It must be in the fine print of my contract.

Olivia has this thing she does: if she's no longer satisfied with the food that is being offered for a meal, she shakes her head and imperiously points towards the kitchen.  The implication being, "go find me something more worthy of my consumption, minion!"  Sometimes it works (mostly when dad is home), sometimes it doesn't (more often when mom is in charge).  She tries anyway, though, in hopes that she won't have to eat whatever she has deemed inedible.

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December 30-January 6

On the 1st day of Christmas...  We opened presents with Bryan's family.  Bryan got tools, I got cooking things, and Olivia got toys.  She also got a new carseat, which was my favorite gift because she's just about grown out of her old seat.

On the 2nd day of Christmas...  We drove up to visit my family and also managed to catch brunch with friends.  Olivia was displeased that she was required to SIT (in a chair, no less) during meals.  Presents were opened later in the day.  Movies, more cooking supplies for me (my kitchen will explode), and some books for Olivia.  Bryan and I enjoyed seeing if our predictions of excitement levels were accurate for each gift.

On the 3rd day of Christmas...  We hung out with my family.  Lots of movie watching and game playing.  I also took my sewing machine to a shop to see if they knew what was wrong with it.  They're going to get back to me someday.  In the meantime, I am sewing-machine-less.

On the 4th day of Christmas...  Mom, Justine, and I went shopping for granola ingredients (there's no bulk foods store conveniently close to me) and a new crib mattress for Reggie (also no Babies'R'Us, and I had a coupon).  We left the babies at home with the daddies and all survived.

On the 5th day of Christmas...  Justine and I got to play duets, Alison graced us with her presence (probably due to Bryan's incessant nagging), and Olivia felt under the weather.  That evening, we came home.  Seth and Amanda stopped by our house on their way back to Virginia, bringing their golden retriever, Apollo, with them.

On the 6th day of Christmas...  Apollo came with me to get Olivia from her crib in the morning.  Much excitement (Olivia's) and apprehension (Apollo's) ensued.  The emotions reversed when Olivia was down on the ground and realized how big Apollo was.  Our annual Eve of New Year's Eve party happened, and we got together with friends to play games.

On the 7th day of Christmas...  We slept.  And lounged around, refusing to leave the house.

On the 8th day of Christmas...  Bryan and I accidentally celebrated the New Year at midnight because we were both used to being up late from the last few days.  I was reading and he was on the computer when suddenly we heard... fireworks?  Here?  Oh, yeah, it's the New Year.  We felt old and went to bed.  After sleeping, we headed to church and then to the store to get Olivia a toy box of sorts to hold all her new toys.

On the 9th day of Christmas...  Bryan went back to work.  Olivia noticed that we still had unopened presents under our tree and decided it was probably her job to remedy this.  Will she the remaining presents make it the last 3 days?

On the 10th day of Christmas...  I finally mailed our Christmas letter.  It was written on the 21st of December this year, and some people even received their copies BEFORE Christmas (shocking, I know), but I didn't make it to the post office until today.  The plus side to doing it this way is that I only had to buy 12 stamps, because we'd seen all our other letter recipients during the holidays.

On the 11th day of Christmas...  Olivia got a new book from Fr and Presbytera (at the Greek church) that quickly became her favorite.  She actually got it yesterday, but it didn't ascend to favorite until today.  Where's Spot? by Eric Hill.  Best book ever.  She's very careful as she opens the flaps to look at each animal.  She's also learning what sound monkeys make.  Bryan says, "ooh ooh aah aah" and Olivia replies with, "ooh eee ooh eee."  Okay, maybe she's learning what sound daddies make.

On the 12th day of Christmas...  I finally finished catching up on dishes and laundry from our vacation.  I would have been done two days ago, but the 11th day was my normal laundry day and it was time to wash diapers again.  Olivia finally caught on to our "move the wisemen one step forward" routine and didn't try to exile the wiseman she was moving.

I added pictures to last week's post.  I could use some from our visit to my family (hint hint, siblings).  I also updated two of the earliest posts, July 31-August 7 and August 7-14, so feel free to go check those out.

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