Short Video

I know, I know, I need to do a complete Christmas post. (And a Thanksgiving post. And a Halloween one. Ahem.)

But here is a brief video of Olive sitting with Grandpa Russ on Christmas Day.

Olive Walks: The Video

Get this: Milo and Olive starting walking AT EXACTLY THE SAME AGE.

Yes, it's true. Eleven months and three days.

As you know, Olive has been tossing around the idea of walking for a long time, but hasn't gotten her act together to just do it already. But on Friday, she did. Andrew and I set up camp about six feet apart and helped her stand until she was balanced. Then we would let her go and the other one would encourage her to head his way. Wouldn't you know it, she actually did. She took a whole bunch of steps.

Hooray for Olive!

Funnily enough, we were at the mall. Down in that play area by the carousel. Andrew tried to take a crappy cell phone video, but he had it in still-camera mode and took a probably-blurry-and-instantly-deleted photo instead. FAIL. And also we were trying to keep an eye on our other child. (And yes, sadly, that is what we did for Friday night entertainment: went to the mall for Panera and playtime. Parenthood! It does wonders for your social life!)

But didn't someone say something about a video? Oh, yes, that.

Olive is 11 Months Old

Oh, Olive. You are such a big girl.

You are becoming more like a big girl and less like a baby all the time. Milo still calls you an "itty bitty TINY baby" (he calls one of the other kids at Kristin's house a really big baby--a kid who is closer to two than one).

You mostly eat table food. You're very particular about what you eat. If we are offering something that you like (yogurt, for instance), but you see something you'd rather have one someone else's plate (a bagel, for instance) you refuse to eat another bite of anything BUT the something else.

You are getting so good at drinking from a sippy cup, appropriately tipping it back and rarely spitting all the water out. I can't believe it's almost time to switch from formula to regular milk. No more bottles? What? I think I need to soak up some bottle cuddly time with you while I still can.

You're quite the adventurer. You climb. You test the limits. You have propelled yourself into the bathtub (and cried about it), something Milo never did. You climb into the kid-sized rocking chair and stand up, making my heart race with nerves. You climb all over our laps, attempting to stand on our legs, our stomachs even.

Still, after months of thinking it would be any day now, you are still, STILL not really walking. You have taken a few steps, up to maybe three or four at once, even, but you always catch yourself and drop back to crawling. For once, I checked the archives. Milo walked at 11 months and 3 days. Really walked. None of this "a few steps here, a few there" thing. I'm sure he crawled after that still, but I even have video proof that he had taken off by 11 months and 1 week. Not that these Two Completely Different People ought to reach their milestones at the same time. It's just that I was completely convinced that you were going to walk by eight months, and here we are at eleven.

You're wearing 18-month clothes and they're not even big on you anymore. You're in size four diapers. I don't know how much you weigh, but you're getting heavy to carry around for too long. Especially since you are always curious about what's going on below, and you lean over to get a better view, making my arms and back work that much harder.

Your hair is amazing, as always. It is starting to lay down more on top, though the back of the top sticks up as usual. Your hair is also getting thicker and really covering your scalp. Still not enough hair to stick a barrette in or anything. Let's not get crazy.

You do not like to have your nails trimmed. Unless you're extremely distracted by something, like the TV or your brother, you twist and writhe and scream and shake your hands around when the clippers come out. Sigh.

In general, you shriek a lot more than I remember Milo doing. You express yourself verbally and loudly. You know quite a few words: Mama, Daddy, no, kitty, Milo, all done (sign language), more (sign language), hi, byebye. You blow kisses. You say "mmmuh" and lean in for real kisses. You wave. You give high fives. You hug. You understand "no no," "no touch," and lots and lots of other things. (You don't like to be told no, of course.)

You smile when smiled at. You start to laugh when you see us laughing, even if you don't know what's funny. You love being upside-down and being tossed in the air (thrown while right-side-up of course).

You adore Tara, our nanny, and for this I am grateful. It does make Mommy a little sad, though, when you reach out your arms for Tara while I'm holding you. I like to think you just know that this is the transition time so you're trying to make it easier for all of us.

Sometimes you hit things for no good reason I can see. Sometimes those things are our faces. Sometimes it is your own head. Sometimes it's the table or a toy. And you hit hard. It definitely hurts when you whack me in the head.

You got a monkeys-in-a-barrel sort of toy for Christmas and you adore those little plastic monkeys. You also like the babies that came with a dollhouse we inherited. And a light-up, singing remote control is also popular. Mostly though, you don't seem crazy about any particular toy so much as you are crazy about attention. You don't like to be set down. You want to be carried around. You want to be played with. You want to chase Milo and play with him. You want us to play peekaboo and tickle you. And that is all fine by me. Unless I am trying to cook dinner.

You like petting Zadie. Thankfully, Zadie is very nice to you.

You're sweet, sometimes laying your head down on my shoulder just for a snuggle or a hug. You're funny, and I love laughing with you. You're maddening, too, as well as demanding, persistent, and loud. But I wouldn't change a single thing. Except your wake-up time, maybe (definitely). 5:45 is still too early, even though it's an improvement over 5:15. But still. Give your tired parents a break.

Being upside-down is the best.

Andrew tried again later to take Olive's picture because we didn't think we had gotten any great shots. She was tired. Big difference between a wide-awake happy girl and a very sleepy girl, huh?

Very Amelia Bedelia

We went out to dinner the other night. Andrew and I had just gotten our much-appreciated beer, and Andrew suggested a toast. He and I held up our glasses to clink.

"Do you want to toast with us, Milo?" asked Andrew.

Milo glanced at him, then picked up his toasted bread.

I'll drink to that. Cheers.

One of these things is not like the others...

Snow!

It snowed a few days after Christmas. This happened.

Me: Milo, look! Come here and look out the window!
Milo: [runs over]
Me: Look out there—what is that?!
Milo: It's snowing!
Me: Yeah, it's snowing! Yay!
Milo: [getting very excited] Is it Christmas now?!

Later we played outside. Milo was not so into playing in the snow at first. I had to force three pairs of pants and three pairs of socks on him. I kept saying, "We're going to have fun. Now, sit still." Nice. Once we finally made it outside, he literally screamed and tried to get back inside. What the what, kid?

But I went ahead and began playing in the snow and eventually he gave in. His favorite thing was having me make snowballs and then throw them up high so they'd "go splat" on the driveway. NOT on the grass NOOOO MOMMY ON THE DRIIIIIIIVEWAYYYYY!!!! Geez Louise, okay okay, driveway splat only. (Milo was kind of up and down and up and down.)

In the end, we had a lot of fun in the snow. He threw lots of snowballs at me. I got him a couple times too. We filled a bucket with snow and dumped it out sand-castle style. Then we smashed it. I built a tiny snowman and failed to produce a carrot nose. Milo got mad when I tried to make a snow angel, but later he made one (albeit he was leaning against our retaining wall at the time, so it didn't really show up). And we threw lots and lots of snowballs up into the air. Splat!