A Day Out With Thomas

On Sunday we trekked out to Baldwin to go ride on a larger-than-life Thomas the Tank Engine. Well, more accurately, a train pulled by Thomas. Or at the very least, a train that appeared to be pulled by Thomas. Both Milo and Olive loved it. Freaking LOVED it. They loved seeing Thomas in all his blue glory, they loved boarding the train and choosing a seat, they loved the ride, they loved the scenery. They loved the ticket puncher and hearing the choo-choo and the whistle.

Beyond the train itself, there was a whole little festival of fun. Milo gravitated to the bounce house and a bouncy climbing thing with a slide at the end. Olive liked the block tables and the petting zoo. There were also a bunch of train tables, a fire truck to climb in, temporary tattoos, food vendors, photo ops, and a tent full of merchandise (of course). We had a great time, and probably would have stayed even longer if we weren't all getting hungry (and we had to head back to Shawnee for lunch since Milo had filled his cotton-ball reward jar and we were due for Fritz's--it was a day full of trains) and Olive wasn't starting to look sunburned. Bad Mommy for forgetting sunscreen. I did have the kids in sun hats, but somehow still forgot to put sunblock on them. At least we remembered water cups and diapers.

Now, some photos! (Unfortunately I did not get any photos of the petting zoo. I guess I was too busy trying to make sure the goats didn't bite Olive's fingers off.)

Olive is 16 Months Old

She's not a baby anymore, people. The other kids at daycare have even (for the most part) dropped "Baby" from her name. For a long time, she was Baby Olive. Now she's mostly just Olive. I guess that's how you know she's arrived as a legitimate toddler.

The most amazing thing about Olive this month has been the incredible explosion of language. She's been great with language from the start, but I can't even keep track of her words. And sentences! The girl puts two and three words together to form sentences. Commands! Exclamations! She says it all. Notable words: truck, big truck, grapes, apple, Thomas, train, airplane, fork, big, up, milk, hug, Zadie, on, stuck, it's stuck, cow, blocks, potty, pants, shorts, shirt, yum, car, yay, uh-huh, spoon, hat, hair, nose, teeth, paci, cereal, Cheerios, no, hello, hi, byebye, all done, boom, kaboom, duck, poop, light, cheese, book, No David, bang, thank you, A, outside, bath, Momo (for Milo). And probably lots more that are slipping my mind. I know she understands so much more. She knows to start tickling when she hears that word. She will appropriately answer uh-huh or no to questions (only rarely seeming to get it wrong).

Her hair is getting noticeably longer and thicker. I debate cutting bangs, but the process of growing them out seems awful. I just want her hair to get long enough that it naturally falls to the sides instead of directly into her face. Barrettes and hair ties don't stay in for long.

Olive climbs, throws her body around, wants to go where the big kids go, and wants to go where even the big kids don't dare go. Like throwing herself face-first over the big wheel and onto the street, for example. Let's just hope she makes it to her second birthday without any broken bones.

She has an adorable giggle, sort of throaty and deep. But she also has high-pitched shrieky laughter that comes out unexpectedly. She's ticklish, especially on her toes and thighs. And her knees.

Still has six teeth. 

Loves her paci. For awhile there she got even more addicted. She had some kind of virus (we think) called roseola that gave her a fever then made her super cranky for days and days. Cranky and needy and constantly wanting to be held. We gave in a lot and let her have her paci all day, when normally we just give it to her at sleeping times. She was not happy when she started acting like herself again and we didn't let her have the paci. "Paci?" she'd ask, repeatedly. When we said no, she would a) throw something, b) hit us, c) glare at us, or d) all of the above. If you guessed d) you are a winner! (Sadly, though, we were not.)

Olive and Milo love to chase each other around and play. Sometimes they wrestle, though that rarely ends well. Lately Milo has been really sweet to her, sharing his toys and offering to bring her things. She returns the favor by smacking him or stealing his other toy. Sigh.

Olive is into stacking block towers and knocking them down. Great fun.

She also likes reading books. No David is a particular favorite.

She plays with cars and trains and trucks, and pointing out trucks she sees on the road is perhaps her favorite pastime. 

She occasionally cuddles her baby dolls or carries around her blankets, but these comforting gestures are pretty brief.

When she's tired, she's ready to sleep. As soon as she is laid down in her crib, she's out. She seems to hit her tired wall around 6:45, and is easily angered from then until she actually goes to sleep around 7:30.

She does enjoy bathtime and doesn't get cranky in there. Unless you tell her to quit drinking the bath water, anyway. She doesn't like to be told no. But seriously, drinking the bath water is gross. There's just no need for that.

That pretty much sums it all up. My little ball of fire continues to burn bright and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Of Course

Last week I was on my way to the dentist when I realized I had forgotten to grab my phone off the kitchen counter before heading out the door. Dang. I considered turning around, but there was no way I could have gotten to the dentist on time, and then since I was already going to be so late to work, I decided I could do without it for a day. "Remember ten years ago, when I didn't even have a cell phone?" I reminded myself. "You can get through one silly day without it."

I got to work and emailed Andrew, Tara, and Kristin, saying that I had forgotten my phone, so here was my work number and of course they could always email me--I am rarely far from the computer during the workday. An uneventful morning passed.

Around noon, Andrew called my work number. "Well, you've missed an exciting morning," he says.

Um, what? What do you mean by that?

He went on to explain that he and Olive were now on their way back to Tara's house (side note: normally Tara comes to our house, but since our gutters were being replaced that day, Olive was at Tara's house) after having lunch at Winstead's after Olive had to go to the EMERGENCY ROOM.

Uhhhh... panicangerheartracingomgwhatthehellwhydidn'tyoucallmeearlier?

Lots of things racing through my mind, primarily, oh my god, my baby just went through something terrible and I was not there for her. Seriously, of all the days. The ONE DAY I forget my phone is the FIRST DAY Olive has to go the ER. (And yes, I said "first day" because I am certain she'll end up there again. Girl is cray-zay.)

It turned out to not be so bad. She fell into a barstool and cut her chin, just below her lip. Her teeth cut her somewhere inside her mouth. Her lip was swollen and there was lots of bleeding. Tara tried to call me (this was before I had been able to email about the lack of a phone), then reached Andrew. Because of the excessive bleeding, Tara thought Olive should go to the hospital, maybe needed stitches. But by the time Andrew even got there, it had stopped bleeding. But you know, better safe than sorry and all that, so he took her anyway.

She did not get any stitches, just some neosporin, basically. By the time I saw her after work, the cut was barely noticeable. She was fine, honestly.

But I was kind of a wreck. I felt horrible that I wasn't there. And I felt horrible that no one was able to reach me. I did let Andrew know that in the future, if something like this happens and I don't answer my phone, please please please keep calling until you reach me. Call every number, email, text, call someone else who might be able to reach me. If I had heard that he was on his way to the hospital with her, I would have dropped everything and rushed to my car so I could be there. Olive was perfectly fine with Daddy, but Mommy wasn't fine without Olive.

Andrew reassured me that everything was fine and that Olive really enjoyed her butterscotch shake at Winstead's. It took me much longer to calm down.

The whole thing was good practice though, for when Olive climbed over the top of Milo's big wheel and face-planted on the street tonight. Andrew brought her inside, blood dripping out of her mouth, and calmly said, "Mommy, can you help us out? Olive hurt her mouth again." And we got her all taken care of. No trip to the ER required.

Guilt

There are a lot of things I was completely unprepared for when I became a parent. Everyone had said there was no real way to explain what being a parent was like, and I always scoffed at it. How hard to explain could it be? And then I had a baby, and thought, oh. I get it now.

But of all the things I was unprepared for, there is one that really surprised me. I had no idea how much guilt I would feel. Almost every day there is something to feel guilty about. Maybe it's just society and marketers and etc. etc. making me feel inadequate and blah-dee-blah. But for the few people who still follow this blog, you know how rarely I post anymore. And I feel awfully guilty about that.

This blog is it in terms of memories. I keep no baby book. I don't organize our photos (though I do take some). I have a terrible memory, so if I don't write things down, I know the details of this time of our lives will fade away. It kills me that Milo and Olive aren't going to remember anything from this stage of their lives. We have such good times and share such sweet moments, but the memories will melt away like an ice cube in summer.

Here's my plan. The list of occasions and moments I want to remember has become staggeringly long, and therefore I have been avoiding trying to tackle it--because where does one even begin?--but all that will begin to change. I have been spending a lot of time lately on an entrepreneurial adventure, but in a week or so I will hand most of that off to my business partner. I found time to work on that business when I would have said before that my schedule was full. Now I need to turn those hours into blogging hours (at least partially). No excuses, right?

To make myself even more accountable, here is the list of things I want to blog about:
Halloween (I know, I know, it was over six months ago. Yikes.)
Christmas
Olive's first birthday (How can I have missed documenting my daughter's first birthday?!)
Gymnastics
The Gender Reveal
My sweet Milo
Our trip to Branson
And probably hundreds more will come to me over time.

It's crazy to think how much I've missed. But I'm going to try to do better. I can't promise the writing will be stellar, but at least my kids will have some clue about what their early childhoods were like. I love those two more than I can even explain, and I hope that someday they'll read all these entries and maybe begin to understand that just a little. Here we go...

Olive's 15-Month Update: She's Not a Baby Anymore

First, I just want to congratulate myself by saying that I wrote this on the 8th, but chose not to post until after Olive's 15-month check-up so I could include her official height and weight statistics. See? I haven't completely given up on being timely.

• Height: 30.5" (50th percentile)
• Weight: 23 lbs., 2 oz. (75th percentile)
• Head Circumference: 18" (70th percentile)

Olive is fifteen months old, which is one of the most awesome ages for a toddler. She's all fists of fury one minute, cuddles and kisses the next. She's amazing, and so much fun to hang out with. It's wonderful to see her figure out new things every other minute.

This girl has no fear whatsoever. She climbs, she explores, she pushes the limits and tests boundaries. She falls, she picks herself back up.

She fell down the stairs a few days ago. Terrifying. She has this new game, where the instant you turn your back, she runs toward the stairs and heads up. She climbs up maybe five or six steps and sits down and waits for you to find her. When you come looking, she grins at you and continues to climb up. So the other day, we were in the midst of this "game" and she was two-thirds of the way up. Milo had tagged along and was sitting on the bottom step, playing with his pizza truck. I was standing at the bottom, watching Olive and trying to coax her back down. She grinned, obviously still messing with me. Then turned and stood, facing the bottom. Then she just tried to step down. She lost her balance or tripped or who knows what and fell. Face first, literally flipping entirely over, then going for another round when her head bonked into Milo's. She was sort of flung backward into a sitting position. Her eyes got wide, and then the screaming began. Already on my way to try to get to her, I grabbed her and held her. Milo was also crying because he had been bonked in the head. I tried to give him a hug while also holding Olive. When Olive calmed down a little, I started crying. My knees were shaking. It was awful, watching her falling and feeling like there was nothing I could do. And I thought that being right there at the bottom was enough, that I would get to her if she slipped. Nope, not even close. It all happens so fast. Later we made a big deal out of how Milo saved her and stopped her from falling all the way down. He was pretty proud of that. (She was fine, for the record, and continues to play the stairs game. The fall obviously has had no impact on her whatsoever.)

Olive's hair is long enough to always be in her eyes but her barrettes or hair ties always fall (or are pulled) out.

She likes baths, books, story time, eating, running, being silly, snuggling, and Milo. She doesn't like teething, having her nails clipped, losing her paci, or not getting what she wants.

She knows what she wants and is very vocal when she doesn't get it. Or thinks she isn't getting it. For instance, when Andrew puts his shoes on in the morning, she starts screaming her head off because she thinks he's about to leave and isn't going to take her with him. It doesn't matter that four days out of five he does take her with him down the street when he drops Milo off at Miss Kristin's. Maybe Olive just really likes screaming.

She loves her paci and we have unwittingly walked into the nighttime paci retrieval trap. She cries; we don't want Milo to be woken up; we go in and find the paci. Once I walked in and found Olive with both legs stuck in her crib slats all the way up to her thighs. So part of me worries that she's stuck again when I hear her crying in the night. She plays us like a fiddle, I swear.

Olive has six teeth with more on the way. Four on top and two on the bottom.

She knows lots of words. Meow, paci, now, done, cheerio, bike, fork, book, brrr, truck, outside. All the words I mentioned last month. Girl knows a lot of words. "Paci" is definitely the one I heard the most in the last month. That and "up." She also learned how to say "cheese" when someone is taking her picture. How did she learn that one? Too bad, now she'll have a weird smile in all the photos I try to take of her. At least the ones in which she knows her picture is being taken.

Olive has been on her first camping(ish) trip. We went to Branson with my in-laws and stayed in a cabin (with a full bathroom and two bedrooms, but it had cheap linoleum so I call it rustic). We cooked our meals on the fire, and I was terrified that one or both my kids would end up in the ER with burns. But it was all fine. Olive also had her first trip to Silver Dollar City, which was great fun.

We had to get her new shoes recently, and I bought these summery sandal-like tennies. And then it was in the 40s and snowed and rained for two weeks. So Olive rocked the sandals-with-socks look. But now the weather seems to have warmed up finally so her fashion choices are better. She wears a size 4.5 wide, I think. But I also bought her size 5 sandals because they were cute.

A lot of Olive's clothes are hand-me-downs, which is nice for money-saving, but sometimes I'm bummed that I haven't picked out all kinds of cute outfits for her. But then when I do shop for her, I can't get myself to spend $50 for an outfit that I know she'll outgrow in a matter of months. Practicality wins again.

Olive is a little ball of fire. When she wants something but can't yet express what, she waves her arms or claps really emphatically and grunts. Or screams. Or throws her head back while screaming. It's maddening, but also impressive. I like how much enthusiasm and passion she shows for the smallest things, like wanting another grape or not wanting to share her space on Mommy's lap with her brother. OK, I don't really like the fits over those things, but I think it is showing me a part of her personality, and I hope she keeps that fiery spirit as she grows.

I adore her so much. I savor her snuggles and soak up her kisses. I just like watching her do her thing, from digging in the dirt (she loves dirt. and rocks. and mulch.) to flipping through a book to inexplicably bending over and resting her forehead on the ground. She fascinates me every day. Love her.

The photos in Olive's room are officially a thing of the past. She won't sit still long enough for me to capture anything in her tiny room. So monthly photos will be random from here on. Enjoy.

No fear.

My 15 Minutes

There is an open editor position on my team at work, and I have been able to sit in on some of the interviews and meet with the candidates. Earlier this week, I went in to meet with a woman who was interviewing for the position. I shook her hand and introduced myself. Her eyes got big, and she said "Oh my gosh, Megan Langford! I am so excited to meet you! I've seen your name everywhere! Oh, wow, it's like a brush with celebrity!"

I kid you not. She said those things. I just laughed and said I was hardly a celebrity.

I have to admit though, it was awesome to have somebody recognize my name. I'm sure it wasn't so much that she is a Hallmark Books Superfan or anything, but more that she has been doing her research to prep for the interview. And I have written a fair number of books at this point. But still, I never think of myself as a big famous author or anything. It's fun to write books, but it's part of my job, you know? (But I love that I have a fan.)

My littlest baby (that would be Olive, for those of you keeping track at home) is 14 months old

Let's see... No official height/weight stats this month, but I'm pretty sure she's sticking to her generally "large" sizing, likely hovering around the 80th percentile still. She just looks TALL, barely shorter than Milo. Of course she must actually be quite a bit shorter than him, but it seems close. She's got her adorable baby belly, and I love how it sticks out in the most un-self-conscious way. Aren't babies great that way?

Two new teeth, her canines (?). Total of six teeth now, four on the top and two on the bottom. She's got kind of a gap between her top teeth, and I'm curious to see if it remains there as her teeth grow in. I always had a gap between my front teeth until I had a procedure that may or may not have been called a frenectomy. I wonder if she is going to be my mini-me in that sense.

Speaking of mini-me, I was showing Milo some photos of me and Andrew as babies/kids, and there was one of me when I was about 15 or so months old. I said to Milo, "Who's that?" and he said, "That's Olive!" And even I thought it looked suspiciously Olive-like, except with redder hair. So crazy to see a resemblance to yourself.

Olive's hair is getting longer, so that we really should clip it back every day. But her clips always come out, so more often than not she just has hair in her eyes. Her hair in the back curls a little, and I think she may get the Carlson/Jones hair trait of being straight in some places and wavy in others. You're welcome, Olive.

Words, words, words. Sentences, even. I don't know if I could possibly list all the things she says off the top of my head, but let's see if I can start. In no particular order, Olive can say (and use properly): shoes, socks, eye, nose, teeth, hair, hug, kiss, mommy, daddy, kitty, cat, meow, cheerios, banana, book, pop, light, up, all done, no, uh-uh, belly, No David (the book title), bye, hi. She puts words together, like: Up now Daddy (when she wanted to get out of her highchair).

She is a great communicator without words, too. She brings her shoes to me when she wants to go somewhere. She understands so much, it seems like everything I say she responds appropriately too. She'll spit out her paci when you ask her for it. She'll give you a kiss when you say "kiss?" She nods yes when you ask if she wants food. Ask her where the lights are, and she'll point to the ceiling. When I say "bonk" (like when she falls or bumps into something) she playfully smacks herself on the head. I have to admit, it's a fun game.

She climbs. All over everything. She's been found on our kitchen table more than once. She climbs on stepladders and over the sides of chairs, onto the fireplace and up on the coffee table. No fear. I'm shocked she hasn't climbed out of her crib yet.

Olive likes to play a game where she flings herself backward. It's not a great game.

She runs into things all the time. She literally has four big bruises on her forehead at the moment because she's constantly slamming into her surroundings. I once saw her walk right into the refrigerator. How can you not see the refrigerator? (And no, her eyesight is fine. She'll wave at me from down the street.)

I love coming home and getting greeted by Olive. She runs over (well, walks as fast as her legs can carry her) to me with a huge grin and outstretched arms and simply falls into me. She holds the hug for a few moments, then is off. She just wants to say hi and is happy to see me. It's awesome.

When she's mad she shakes her arms up and down and pouts. She shrieks and cries. When she wants something, she wants it NOW. She is very insistent and persistent.

She falls and loses her balance when she's tired. She also gets incredibly irritable and cranky when she's tired.

She loves books. LOVES them. She'll go get a book and bring it to you to read to her. And then she'll want you to read the same book over and over and over. Recently, we've read No David, Goodnight Moon, and Are You My Mother? a bunch of times. I adore how enthusiastic she is about her books.

Sometimes I think she's on the verge of getting a lovey, a blanket (any blanket will do) but it hasn't really stuck. Miah, our nanny's little girl who Olive hangs out with three days a week, has her blanket loveys and Olive adores her blankets. But she doesn't seem interested enough to carry it around all the time or anything.

Olive isn't attached to any particular toy either. Sometimes she'll get into a baby doll or the play kitchen or the microphone for awhile (like 15 minutes) but she doesn't go back to any one thing over and over.

Likes: yogurt, cantaloupe, waffles, cereal, kettle corn, chocolate, peas, pasta, chicken nuggets, hummus, any type of bread, carrots, ham, berries, bananas, applesauce, oatmeal, french fries, cheddar cheese, pizza, peanut butter. Most things.

Dislikes: broccoli, swiss cheese, rice, peppers, spinach.

Once again, I've practically written a novel. A poorly edited, probably typo-ridden novel. I can't help myself. This girl of mine is too full of life and quirks to write much less. I do love her so.

Ack, my poor photography skills have led to a photo where you can't see Olive's hair. And that's honestly a damn shame. But oh my goodness, look how tall she is!