April 21-28

Olivia says "oval."  I'm not sure she'd recognize an oval if it bit her, but she knows how to say it.  She's also begun to attempt other words that we say, although if we ask her if she can say a specific word, she just replies with, "okay."

Oh, and she says "no."  It's still pretty cute when she says it, although I'm sure we'll get sick of hearing it soon enough...

Singing in the car is required (won't that make our trips up to see my parents even better...).  It starts with a request for "wah wah wah" from the back seat, which means Wheels on the Bus.  Actually, "wah wah wah" is what the babies say in Wheels on the Bus, but she wants the whole song.  From there I usually get to choose whatever song I want, as long as I accept the veto when it comes.  It comes often, but I refuse to sing the Wheels on the Bus more than once an hour.  I hit on a pretty good alternate the other day: If You're Happy and You Know It.  With a little creativity, one can make up endless verses to that song and the toddler gets practice following directions.  It's brilliant.

Tuesday our basement drain started backing up.  I called my mother (of course), and she said to get a plumber out to our house to snake the drain as soon as possible.  When Bryan came home from work, we talked about it and decided to see if one could come out that night.  You never know when you might not be able to let someone in because you're busy having a baby.  Someone showed up at our house to fix the problem around 9 and he was gone by 11:30 (although apparently if he'd run into serious problems he could have been there up to seven hours...).

Good thing we got the plumbing taken care of when we did, because Tuesday night we made a trip to the hospital so that Gretchen could be born in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  Watch for a back-dated bonus post about that exciting adventure.  :)

On Wednesday, Olivia came to see us in the hospital.  She liked petting Gretchen and even held her for a minute or so before hopping off the bed, saying, "bye bye baby," and proceeding to check out the room.  She thought the buttons that raised and lowered the bed were pretty cool.  We did get a couple of cute pictures, and then Olivia went to Grandma's house to stay until we got home.

Thursday we were allowed to leave the hospital, so we were home around dinnertime.  Grandma and Grandpa brought Olivia to us and we all hung out for a while before bed.  Olivia was at least accepting of the fact that the baby apparently lives at our house now.  She tried to share her chicken nuggets with Gretchen, and when we said prayers that night, Gretchen had to kiss every icon (a couple of Olivia's stuffed animals have also kissed every icon).

Friday was Gretchen's first doctor appointment.  She's doing well and they want to see her again next week to make sure she gains back the weight that she lost.  Olivia panicked a little when the doctor came in the room, but we assured her that this visit was not for her and she calmed down.  We spent the rest of Friday letting Olivia smother Gretchen with love while trying to make sure she didn't actually smother her.  Truth be told, Gretchen was in more danger of getting her head accidentally bashed in by Olivia's typically toddler complete lack of body/limb awareness.  Smothering was less of a problem.

Thursday night Gretchen was up about every hour and a half to eat, but on Friday night she slept much better.  After being fussy from 11 to 1, she slept from 1-5 and then ate and slept until 7:30.  !!!  Probably a fluke, but I'll take it.  Of course, Saturday morning, she required constant holding until about noon.  As I told Bryan, I'll hold her all day if it means I get to sleep at night.  :)

On Saturday, Olivia and I did dishes and made bread.  Bryan had to finish the bread while I fed Gretchen, so Olivia showed him what to do.  Once the broom came out to sweep up the flour that had fallen on the floor, Olivia confiscated it and proceeded to sweep the great room.  It looks like we brought Gretchen home and put Olivia to work.  :)

Olivia is adjusting well.  She loves to give kisses to Gretchen and to help me pat Gretchen's back to burp her.  She gets sad when Gretchen is sad (which is better than making Gretchen sad) and is irritated when we won't let her hold Gretchen (although that's diminishing already as she learns that there are some things she can't do).  She shares her things well, so Gretchen was gifted a book to read while I changed her diaper the other morning, and she's had several toys thrust at her when she's fussing.

Pictures:

Bonus Post: Introducing...

Gretchen Bernice Barhorst

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

3:29 am

8 pounds, 0.2 ounces

21 inches

Sunday, April 21, I reached my due date.  With still no baby in sight and beautiful weather outside, Bryan, Olivia, and I went walking.  It worked with Olivia.  :)  Still nothing, though.  Jillian informed me that I was to do no more walking until Tuesday, and then I was to walk six miles (the library and back, plus a little) so that the baby would follow in Olivia's footsteps and be born the following day.  Someone must have picked Wednesday as the due date.

Monday I had an appointment and the doctor was getting antsy.  After all, according to his charts, I was now at 41 weeks and they like to induce between 41 and 42.  I talked him into waiting until the next Monday to induce, and he agreed after discovering that I was already 4 cm dilated and 90% effaced.  That's good, for those of you that don't know.  :)  He seemed sure that this baby was pretty much going to fall out.  Nevertheless, I did have to schedule an ultrasound for Wednesday, a non-stress test for Friday, and an induction for Monday morning.

Tuesday came, and Olivia and I walked to the library for storytime.  Jillian was pleased, although I'm sure she wanted me to get another mile in, just to be safe.  Mom told me that Jillian would be less pleased if said walking didn't produce a baby within 36 hours.  Tuesday afternoon I discovered water in the basement.  Our drain was backing up, so we called a plumber.  That night I called my mother to inform her that we'd followed her advice and were having our drain issues cleared up as we spoke.  Both Jillian and Dad were excited by the phone call, and Mom kept saying, "It's just about a plumber."  I assured everyone that, similar to last time, Bryan would send a text when we were at the hospital and the expected phone call would come some hours later.  When the plumber left, I went to bed.  Bryan stayed up to play a computer game and crawled into bed around 1:30, waking me up enough to send me to the bathroom before I went back to sleep.

I didn't go back to sleep.  I blame Bryan for this, as he was saying prayers and specifically mentioned the desire that our coughs clear up (we've been afflicted with persistent coughs as of late), especially his wife's, as "she will be going into labor soon, we hope."  Not ten minutes later, at 1:40, I had a contraction.  As I'd had several days of mild contractions that were few and far between, I didn't think much of it.  At 1:45, there was another one.  Two in a row isn't really enough to call a babysitter, though, so I rolled over and waited.  1:50 and along came the next one.  I got up to walk around for a bit.  Bryan was asleep, and I figured I'd get through the first hour or so alone before waking him up.  I went to the kitchen, thinking I'd make a batch of bread or something.  That bread never did get made.

By about 2:05, I'd decided contractions were strong enough and consistent enough to call a babysitter for Olivia.  So much for waiting an hour.  I woke up Bryan and told him I was going to call his mother after the next contraction.  Of course, the next one took longer to come since I'd made my decision.  :-P  At 2:12, I called Murry and told her I'd been having contractions for about half an hour.  She said she'd take the dogs out, grab her stuff, and be on her way.  I assured her that we could wait the hour it takes to arrive from Sidney.  At 2:27, she texted to let us know she was on her way.

2:40 rolled around, and the contractions were strong enough that Bryan and I decided maybe he should call someone in Springfield to come stay with Olivia until his mom arrived.  I let him make that phone call and tossed a few remaining things in my bag.  I had a few more increasingly stronger contractions on the couch while waiting for a lady from church to dash across town.  She arrived just before 3, and then things started getting interesting.  A side note: I went to bed wearing purple striped fuzzy socks.  I apparently found it very important that I not wear said socks to the hospital.  Bryan found me a pair of plain black sweat socks to wear instead.

Pretty much as soon as Beka walked in the door, I had another contraction, only with this one, I felt like I needed to push.  I said as much, and Bryan said, "no you don't, no you don't!"  Beka told me to breathe through it, they got my shoes on, and we were out the door.

At 3:07, we got to the hospital.  In the middle of the night, you go to the emergency room entrance, so we walked in and told the nurses there that I was in labor (Bryan said he's not going to know what to do if we ever go to the hospital during the day).  Bryan mentioned my urge to push, and they offered me a wheelchair, but I told them I was happier walking.  They summoned another nurse and she allowed me to walk to the birthing center, though not without much trepidation.  She was very concerned that I might have the baby on the floor in the hallway.  She delivered us to the labor and delivery desk with a sigh of relief.

The nurses at the L&D desk were much less concerned.  They had me fill out a sheet listing vital information.  Bryan says he tried to fill it out for me and I waved him off.  I have no recollection of this, although in hindsight, it was a wise move on my part because he didn't know many of the answers anyway.  We moved down the hall to triage so the nurse could check my progress.  She gave me a hospital gown and left the room to get something.  I remember having a contraction and complaining to Bryan, "Why won't anyone listen to me, I have to push!"

The nurse came back, checked me, and said, "Yep, you're complete."  She stuck her head out the door, grabbed another nurse, and went to find the doctor and an empty delivery room.  They covered me with a sheet and wheeled me down the hallway to the last empty room.  Apparently it was a big night for babies.  The doctor joined us, jogging next to the bed and pulling on gloves.  I felt like I was in a scene from a movie.

They weren't sure they'd be able to get me onto the delivery bed in time, but they managed between contractions.  No time for an IV, though, let alone an epidural.  Just time for a couple of pushes and then Gretchen was born.  3:29 am.  Talk about cutting it close.  They plopped her on my chest, let Bryan determine the gender and cut the cord, and proceeded to do all sorts of after-the-birth stuff.

After Gretchen was cleaned and weighed (8 pounds, 0.2 ounces), I was issued my patient bracelet.  The nurse noted as she put it on that Gretchen was an official patient of the hospital about 15 minutes before I was.  :)  I apologized for making their last 45 minutes so frantic, they joked that next baby we should just live in the parking lot for a few days, and then they left to let us get some sleep.  We called parents and Bryan sent out a mass text letting people know that Gretchen was born.  So much for my earlier assurances that a text would come first.  :)

A few hours later as she wheeled us to the recovery room, the nurse said she needed to fill out some paperwork.  Even if it was too late for some of the questions.  Was I strep B positive?  Didn't matter, the baby was born.  Did I want an epidural?  Irrelevant, for the same reason.  I spent the next couple of days with various people coming into the room to tell me that for some reason they didn't have this or that form.  When I mentioned that it was probably because we didn't have time to fill any out, they'd double check my name on the sheet and say, "oh, you're THAT patient."  Bryan asked one nurse what the fastest labor she'd experienced was, and she replied, "you mean besides this one?"  I'm a legend.

Excitement aside, Gretchen and I (and Bryan and Olivia) are doing well.  We checked her crib card when she was brought back, and she's 21 inches long.  She scored well on all the tests they did and she's just as beautiful and perfect as Olivia was, albeit with slightly less hair.  :)

April 14-21

My Blogger dashboard thinks that 119260 people +1'd my March Madness post.  I think that my Blogger dashboard is mistaken.  Unless my 30 or so authorized readers just REALLY love March Madness.  :)

The lost remote control has been found!  It's been missing for months.  I looked in all the usual hiding spots, moved all the furniture in the living room (I felt very clean and accomplished after that day), and finally gave it up as lost for good.  Then...  Tuesday night Bryan and I sat down on the couch to watch a movie.  As I squirmed around trying to get comfortable, there was a thunk.  Followed by three more thunks.  Bryan started laughing, because he thought I'd knocked over my glass of water.  I had not.  When we looked behind the couch, though, there was the remote!  Also Olivia's cell phone (my old phone), a bouncy ball, and a doll bottle.  Olivia shoves things in the crack in the back of our couch.  Since we have the kind of couch with recliner pieces attached, most stuff falls right through to the rug pad underneath.  Periodically I fish around behind the cushions (which are not removable) to see if there's anything else in there.  She must have gotten these four things really wedged in well, though, because they've been missing for a long time.  And it's not like we never use this couch.  They fell out of my spot.  I have no idea how they managed to stay hidden for so long.  Anyway.  The toys were returned to her bin for her to discover in the morning, and the remote now has a velcro strip on the back to keep it attached to the top of our TV when we're not using it.

Olivia can say "bubble", "apple", and "bowl" now.  All three sound very much like "blue."  She's not very distinct with her words yet.  Maybe if she picked a few that were composed of different sounds...  :)  Also, I've recently heard her say "happy" when reading a book about Elmo being happy.

Last week I made a sling with which to carry Reggie.  I was going to get one online, but they didn't have good reviews and I figured I could make one for less money.  Justine was nice enough to lend me the one someone made for her and after getting some swimsuit fabric and borrowing a walking foot from Steph, I was good to go.  Once I had all the proper supplies, it was really pretty quick and easy.  I used the leftover fabric to make a sling for Olivia to use with her dolls.  Partly because I didn't feel like messing with measuring her, and partly because she'll grow (and dolls don't get bigger, wiggle, or get hurt if you drop them), I made her sling with some snaps on it so that it's adjustable for when she gets bigger.  :-D  I'm so proud.  We don't use our slings yet, as there's no baby for me to carry and Olivia doesn't know what to do with hers, but when we do start using them, I'll post pictures.

Still no Reggie as of the writing of this post (Friday afternoon), but it should be soon!  The doctor is getting impatient, especially since the ultrasound-based due date was this past Monday.  I'm doing pretty well since the due date I've had in my head the whole time is April 21.

Pictures:

April 7-14

Olivia has at least one eye-tooth coming in (I know, it's short for incisor, but eye-tooth is so much more fun and the internet accepts it, I checked).  It's hard to tell if the other three are also coming in since she doesn't hold still long enough for me to check.  In a related side note, she can identify her teeth by name.  Also her fingers, weirdly enough.  Other body parts, not so much, although she can locate most of them if asked.

Bryan has decided that there are certain things that are vital to a complete and fulfilling childhood, so one day last week we set out to find a cozy coupe (the official name of the little red and yellow car) and some sidewalk chalk.  We also had a brief discussion about how some people *cough his wife cough* manage to have a complete and fulfilling childhood without some of these items.  He understands, but thinks they're nice to have around.  :)  Anyway.  The cozy coupe has some assembly required, so Bryan set out to put it together while Olivia, Murry, and I played with chalk.  Once the cozy coupe was almost done, Olivia happened to glance back and recognize that this thing behind her was A CHILD SIZED CAR!!!  Oh, the excitement.  She eagerly "helped" Bryan finish and then climbed inside.  She then proceeded to drive backwards, because that's the only correct way to drive one of those cars.  Otherwise you scrape your heels.

A moment of brilliance during chalk time: Olivia can identify E, O, and T.  I haven't tried giving her too many choices mixed in, but when presented with only those three letters, she knows which is which consistently.  Also, she was playing with my phone one day and happened to press the 0 button.  When the 0 appeared on the display, she excitedly looked at me, pointed to the 0, and said, "O!"  She's so smart.  Also also, when we sing the Phonics Song, she can make the sounds for B, C, D, G, and H and sometimes A, E, F, S, and T.  When we sing the Letter Sounds Song, she can do G, N, and U.

Wearing a winter coat and carrying a one-year-old tends to disguise a pregnancy a bit (although I didn't think it was disguised THAT much as my pea coat has been getting rather snug lately -- I can still button it, but only if I haven't eaten recently!).  With warmer weather, though, the coat came off.  Add to that the fact that I've been letting Olivia walk in stores and parking lots more (she needs the practice!), and suddenly my pregnancy becomes much more obvious.  I've had probably two strangers comment on my expectant state in the whole 8 1/2 months so far, and then on Tuesday I had no less than 7 separate people say something to me.  I only went to three stores.  :)

I realized after my appointment this week that Reggie will be here soon.  Somehow that slipped my mind.  :-P  I've discovered that while I feel calmer and less anxious about this baby, I'm way less prepared than I was for Olivia.  Except not really, because we already have a lot of the basics.  Of course, the clothes and diapers are still in the attic rather than down in the nursery where they belong.  By 38 weeks with Olivia, I was ready to have the baby.  I was bored and uncomfortable, the nursery was ready, the hospital bag was packed, Bryan and I talked about how soon we'd be a family of 3...  With Reggie, not so much.  I blame the one-year-old running around, taking up everyone's attention.  I'm not bored, I'm not uncomfortable (that's good, though), my hospital bag is... half packed, kinda.  Bryan and I don't so much talk about how there will be two children soon as have sudden realizations that, hey, in a couple of months there will be two of them.  Except it's a couple of weeks now, and we haven't adjusted our mindsets.  :)

And speaking of Reggie, he can't come until Wednesday.  Or at least Tuesday afternoon.  Wednesday or later would be better, though.  I have things to do!  My calendar looks so full; there's no room for a baby on there!  Luckily, most of it won't suffer from being put off indefinitely, and we are excited to finally meet Reggie.  Just not until Wednesday.  Seriously.  (I told this to Bryan, and he asked if I'd informed Reggie.  He though the least I could do was send an email memo or something.)

More pictures:

March 31-April 7

Olivia can open doors.  Sometimes.  Her grandparents have a few doors with horizontal handles, and she got a couple of those open last weekend when we were visiting.  We have regular knobs at our house (old ones), and apparently she opened the bathroom door on Thursday night and almost escaped teeth-brushing. Bryan caught her in time, which wasn't a problem because she actually likes to brush her teeth.  He was surprised, though, and I'm now wondering if I should invest in door knob covers and/or little hooks.  I'll probably do the latter, since we don't have a lot of doors she isn't allowed to go through (partly because about a third of our doors don't even close completely).  Mostly I don't want her getting outside or into the basement or attic without me knowing.

We had some exciting moments this past week as the Klein baby prepared to make an appearance.  I was the on call babysitter for their toddler, so Olivia and I were packed and ready to go at any time.  Easter weekend was filled with false alarms, but I was able to stay and visit with Bryan's family the whole time.  Olivia and I finally went out Monday night just before bedtime and her friend Eva had a new baby brother by lunch the next day.  Olivia and Eva had a good time alternately playing with each other and ignoring each other.  Occasionally they'd gang up on the dog, sending him back an forth between his bed and the couch.  I think he was more relieved than I was when naptime arrived.

Tuesday night, my parents and James came to visit.  They all have the week off school, so they went touring, stopping to visit Justine, Joseph, and William before coming to our house.  Bryan entertained them Tuesday night (since I was still babysitting).  I hear that there were several games of darts, at least one of which was won by James.  On Wednesday, Olivia and I came home and spent the next two days enjoying their company.  Olivia was pleased to discover that both Oma and Opa would read her books for as long as her little heart desired.  She also had fun playing with Uncle James, although she wasn't always sure that she liked him being in charge of picking the activity.  Later in the day, Mom and I went shopping for material (so that I can make a sling for Reggie) and Easter candy (because it's on sale), leaving Dad and James deeply engrossed in a series of epic battles involving x-box racing games while Olivia napped.  Thursday was nice enough for a walk, albeit a chilly one, and then they took off after lunch.

Pictures and Video:

March 24-31

Happy Easter to my non-Orthodox readers!  ...Happy second week of Lent to the rest of you.  :)

We're Eastering with Bryan's parents this weekend (right after we second week of Lent for a couple of hours Sunday morning).  Murry is excited to spend a few days with Olivia since she (Murry) was sick last week when Bryan and Olivia visited.  I sent them away so that I could get work done around the house and then poor Murry was too under the weather to play.

Olivia has been learning how to jump recently.  One day a couple of weeks ago, I decided to see if she could jump, so I showed her how.  As it turns out, she can't, really, but that doesn't stop her from trying.  She winds her little self up and then lifts her heels while throwing her arms in the air, looking immensely pleased with herself.  On the rare occasion that her feet come completely off the ground, she falls on her rear upon landing.  I've tried multiple times to get a video of it, but every time the camera comes out the jumping stops and the whining starts...

We officially have sentences on the talking front.  For the most part, Olivia has two understandable sentences: "Where are [they, mama, dedah, doggie, etc.]?" and "There's the [mama, dedah, doggie, etc.]!"  All her other sentences are composed mostly of gibberish, at least to my ears.  I've decided her first complete sentence was a little over a month ago now, when she pointed at her rubber ducky in the bathroom and said, "There's the quack quack!"

Olivia's newest words include hungry, ball, blue, girl, and star.  She uses them all at semi-appropriate times, although "blue" is always a question ("bwooo?") about what color crayon she's holding up for me to identify, and "girl" ("guul") refers to all genders indiscriminately.  "Star" and "ball" are accurate, but she cannot say any other shape names right now.  "Hungry" is quickly becoming her most frequent word.  She chants it in the morning when I get her out of bed, whenever Bryan comes home (he's Olivia's version of Pavlov's bell, since he comes home at lunch and at snack time), and uses it frequently throughout a meal to let us know that she's not done eating, just done with whatever we're trying to feed her.  It often accompanies her "sending us back to the kitchen" finger.  I know I talked about that in a previous post; 5 points if someone wants to figure out which one and let me know so I can add a link.  :)

We tried Babytime at the library on a couple of occasions, and were never very impressed.  (Side note: I thought I discussed that in a recent post, too.  5 more points to whoever finds that one.  A word of warning - I might be imagining that I actually discussed Babytime in a post.)  The dividing line between Babytime and Toddler Storytime is 18 months, though, so we decided to give the older group a shot last week.  It was so much better!  The same lady runs both of them, which doesn't thrill me, but her obnoxiously high "I'm talking to little kids" voice is somehow less grating when there's a room full of toddlers instead of four infants.  Also, she mispronounces words, but toddlers say "wif" instead of "with", too, so I don't notice it as much.  Anyway.  Where Babytime had a maximum of 5 kids every time we went (and never the same 5), Storytime had at least 15, and a lot of them seemed to know each other and the routines, implying regular attendance.  Olivia is definitely one of the youngest ones there -- with the exception of actual babies tagging along with older siblings, the rest of the kids have real hair and all their teeth (not that Olivia's hair isn't real, it's just still baby hair).  She seems to like watching all the "about her size" kids doing activities, although she does periodically look at me with this little "look how silly everyone else is being" smirk on her face.  We went back this week and Olivia participated a little bit, going up to get a scarf and holding it while she watched the other kids dancing and waving theirs around.  When prompted, she even gave the scarf a little jiggle before resuming her holding and watching.  Since she seems interested and I like seeing people occasionally, we're going to try to make Storytime a weekly outing.

Did you see Olivia's March Madness guesses?  Her bracket looked doomed from the beginning, had a spark of life in the first round, and then imploded.  She called exactly zero of the sweet sixteen games correctly.  To add insult to injury, the only 15-seed that she didn't expect to beat the number 2 was the one that actually did.

Also, it's not too late (as of the writing of this post and, one assumes, as of the posting of this post) to get your guesses in about Reggie's birth stats!

Pictures (well, one):

Bonus Post: March Madness

Bryan came home from work a week and a half ago with paper brackets to fill out.  One for him, one for me, a master copy, and... one for Olivia.  Of course.  Then came the hard part:  How was Olivia going to make picks?

We started with mascots.  Bryan would pull two mascot pictures up on the computer, and Olivia would choose the one she liked best.  We made it all the way through the first round in the Midwest and one game in the West before she tired of this game.

Next attempt: We got fridge magnets and put initials in front of her to choose.  She did about two more games this way and then wanted all the letters.

So Bryan carried her over to the calendar and had her point at numbers.  If she pointed at it, that team won in the South.  Four points later (two of which were the same), she was done.  After an action filled first day full of predicted upsets, we put the bracket away.

Thursday morning, Bryan sent me a frantic text message:  "Olivia needs to finish her picks!  Find a way!  I believe."  Luckily, Olivia had just gotten out her crayons.  I wrote down her remaining choices, handed her a crayon, and whichever school she hit first won.  First round down.

As it was lunchtime, we moved the next choices to the table.  I wrote down the numbers 1-8 (corresponding to the number of teams left in each region) in varying order 4 times (one for each region) and covered them all with Cheerios.  I thought I'd just take the ones she ate first and call them the winners.  Unfortunately, she eats her Cheerios very methodically (I should have known), so after she picked the first four out of the last column, bottom to top, we moved on.  She finished her Cheerios first, though, still working her way from bottom to top in each column from right to left.

Since the Cheerio method was working so well, I arranged my numbers more randomly and let her continue picking up Cheerios.  Second round done.

Lest you be too amazed, Olivia did not draw the red circles.  Those were mine so that I could keep track of which team she hit first with her scribbles.

Rounds one and two.

For the third round, we found a calendar and I put Cheerios on different days and let her choose that way.  At this point, we reached the final four.  The choices had diminished enough (and were spread out enough) that I just put the Cheerios right on her bracket.  Her final four were Valpo, Gonzaga, Minnesota, and Montana.  Gonzaga and Montana advanced to the championship.

The Final Four

I already knew that Gonzaga was the bulldogs (from our mascot picking a few days before), but I didn't know Montana's mascot.  I texted Bryan, hoping to draw the two choices and let her pick.  Then he told me Montana was the grizzlies, and I can't draw a grizzly.  In fairness, I can't draw a bulldog, either, but I have a passable dog that I was going to use if I could also draw a bear, but I couldn't.  On to plan B: I needed to find pictures of a dog and a bear.  I managed to find an actual grizzly bear, but only assorted dogs.  It had to do.  I couldn't risk losing her interest again.

The Championship

It was a difficult decision, but the dogs won.  All of them.  The grizzly put up a good fight, probably because it's pretty cool looking, but Olivia finally decided on the doggie.  And the doggie.  And the doggie...

I let Bryan know that we'd finished, albeit a little after the games had started.  It's okay; Olivia and I aren't watching them.  :)  She was already in bad shape, though: Valpo (one of her final four) was apparently down 13 when Bryan got my message.

Olivia's final bracket (if you click on the picture, you might be able to see it better).  She also picked a score, in the event of a tie-breaker.  Gonzaga 80, Montana 46 (more calendar pokes, with some multiplication by me (I believe it ended up being 16x5 to 23x2)).

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:

March 10-17

Naptime has gotten a lot better in the past month.  Olivia gets to have all three of her babies in the crib with her, and there's a soft book that lives in there, too.  I put her in bed and she scoots over to sit in the corner.  Then I cover her lap with the blanket, hand her the babies and the book, and leave.  She "reads" to her babies for probably two minutes before (I assume) going to sleep.  Whatever she's doing, she's happy and quiet and gives me two-ish hours of peace.  :)

We've had snow a few times this year, but each time it either melted too fast or Olivia was sick.  Last week, though, we got about nine inches, followed by some more mild days, so Olivia and Bryan went outside to explore.  I stayed in the warmth and took pictures through the window.  You'll notice from the pictures below that it took some persuasion to get Olivia to walk in the snow; once her feet were planted, that's where they stayed.  You can also see the spot in our backyard that gets the most consistent sun -- and that's in the winter when our trees are missing leaves!  This is why I don't have a garden.  Olivia enjoyed throwing the snowballs that Bryan made for her and also got a chance to touch the snow without any mittens on.  I'm sure that was followed by a "brr!"

I don't remember dusting being something that was common in my house growing up.  Now, though, I seem to have numerous surfaces that require at least periodic dusting.  Not my strong suit.  I've discovered two things.  One, I don't so much dust as occasionally sweep the baseboards and vacuum the corners of the walls (with the hose, not the vacuum part).  Two, if you have something that gets so little use that it needs frequent dusting, perhaps it's time to rethink your ownership.  :)

Olivia's usual jammies were in the wash one day, so Bryan decided it was time for her to get her very own "used to be daddy's" PJ shirt.  It's a little large, and she thinks the Tasmanian devil is a kitty.  :)  Pictures below.

Helping with laundry:

She decided her babies and animals needed diapers:

An outfit from someone at church.  The beret never stood a chance:

Why were we hiding all these great things in the cupboard?!

Experiencing snow:

A new jammie shirt:

Stomping on bubble wrap:

March 3-10

If you haven't seen it yet, head on over to the Bonus Post about baby predictions.  You could get so many points!

Olivia has a face she makes when she listens to me make lists.  As I list off items, she'll open her mouth in excited surprise, happy for whatever it is we're going to do later in the day.  There's a video below.  Since it was staged, my list is less than inspiring, but you get the gist.

I got my Infantino stuff in the mail last week, and Olivia and I got together with some friends to try it out on Monday.  They sent me more than I was expecting, which was exciting.  Unfortunately, most of the extra stuff they sent probably won't see much use at my house because it's meant for very small batches and isn't as durable as one might prefer.  The squeeze station, which is the item I was hoping to win, is great once you get the hang of it.  Olivia is kind of over pouches right now since she can eat real food just fine, but she did like the fruit blend we made.  I anticipate using it much more this summer when fruits and vegetables are in season and again when Reggie is old enough to start on solids.

We had a card club to celebrate Happy March on March 2.  Joe and Alison came down to help us make up three full tables and then stayed for the weekend.  This was probably our most successful card club yet, which pretty much means we had an appropriate number of people and we weren't faced with any delays of game due to the babies present.  :)

Olivia's monkey sound has deteriorated.  She used to say "ooh ee ooh ee" and then progressed to "ooh ee aah," but now she slurs it all together and says "ooeeah."  It sounds a bit like "oh, yeah."  In animal noise progress, though, I found out on Wednesday that she can do a rooster.  Not sure where she picked that one up.

Also on Wednesday, I discovered that Olivia can correctly identify a star, a circle, and a square.  Also the letter E.  She's so-so with triangle, heart, I, M, O, and T.  I think she picked up the letters from her "Tickle Time" book, where the words "Tickle Time" are spelled out in big, colorful letters that she always asks me to identify (usually backwards, so it ends up being emit elkcit).  She's also become very interested in exactly what color crayon she is putting away, so colors could be next on her list of accomplishments.

Pictures and Video: