Holy Jumping Bean

Olivia's newest passion seems to be jumping. She is finally getting the hang of her Joanie-Jump-Up. The challenge is that she wants the jumping to continue before and after she is in this hanging concoction. This means whenever she is being held she is bouncing and wiggling because she wants the person holding her to lift her up and down as if she is jumping. The good thing about this is that I don't have to do any additional arm exercises. The disadvantage is that I think I am getting carpal tunnel syndrome in my left hand from lifting her so much. It is so darn cute that I just can't resist her non-verbal requests. Even when she was still in the womb I could tell she was going to be an active kid. I can't wait to see how this develops. Olivia has been struggling quite a bit with what we assume is teething. It feels like there is a little tooth trying to pop through in the middle on the top row of her mouth. Once we figure out that her crying isn't caused by hunger or being tired, and therefore probably a painful mouth, Tylenol usually does the trick. It just takes a little while to kick in. Unfortunately for Yale, I was away for a few hours playing volleyball during her worst night. As soon as I walked in the door I could hear her wailing. Poor Yale was patiently rocking her with an exhausted look on his face. She had screamed for most of the time while I was gone. Luckily breast feeding seemed to finally calm her down. That night was probably the first time Yale really wished he had breasts. Another new interest of Livi's is our cats. We have two of them. Gertie has grey, luxurious long hair and is quite friendly and easy-going. The black cat, Cyrus, loves attention but can be quite aggressive. Unfortunately, Gertie, the more predictable, mellow cat is terrified of Little O. It only took Olivia grabbing a fist full of her hair once for her to realize she doesn't want to have anything to do with her. Cyrus, on the other hand, is such an attention hog that even being bapped on the head seems good. He just tries to position himself so that Olivia's flailing arms can most efficiently pet him. I am glad they are becoming friends, I just hope Cyrus realizes that although he has gotten away with biting me on occasion, biting our precious daughter will not be tolerated. So far, he has handled it all quite well. Who knows, maybe this is the beginning of a life-long friendship.

Confession

The other day Yale said to me, "Don't you want Olie to stay a baby forever?" The logical and kind-of-in-denial half of me wanted to tell him that was riduculous and of course I didn't want this. I am excited to see her grow and develop, to see her become a contributing human being. The emotional-yet-timid side of me thought about just how much I would love it if she could stay a baby forever. Instead I said nothing and just stared at him blankly. Last week I stopped by work to pick up some books for a girl I am tutoring. I ran into a co-worker who is an enthusiastic grandma. She asked how old Olivia is. When I told her 5 months she said, "This is when they start getting to be really fun." I sincerely told her that I thought it had all been fun, and sheepishly whispered that I'm not ready for her grow up. These two conversations have lead me to think about why it's so hard for me to imagine Little Miss Liv growing up. I am sure part of it is that everyone loves babies, just like kittens or puppies. Babies are so cute and cuddly. We have people offer all the time to baby sit our daughter, but I would doubt that will be the case when she is seven. I suspect not many of my adult friends will be begging to hang out with her when she is hormonal and 13, and not because she won't still be a great kid but because that is human nature; we love babies. I think that there is more to it than just loving babies. At least for me, and I think this might be true for Yale, too. I think part of it is that we both feel like we are pretty good parents right now. We are decent at handling the baby stuff, and we aren?t so sure we will be as good at the toddler, kid or teenager stuff. What about when discipline becomes part of the game? How will we rate as parents then? Will we be able to let her become her own person? How will we handle it when we see her picking up on our own bad habits and neuroses? The other factor is that Olivia thinks we are pretty great, too. Her face absolutely lights up when we enter her line of vision. I think it will break my heart the first time I have to discipline her and she gets mad at me. If I am remembering correctly from my child development classes, it is at about 10 or 11 that most kids start to truly realize how imperfect their parents are. That?s when they start to feel embarrassed around their parents and friends become more important. I am not looking forward to that whole transition. Who knows, that is a long time from now. Maybe by then we will be ready for the independence. Maybe we will see the benefits of having your children break away. Then again maybe we will decide we want to become foster parents for babies after our child (or maybe children) fly from the nest.

Squeals of Delight?

I continue to be amazed at how quickly babies (i.e. Olivia) progress. She is becoming quite active for a supposedly immobile little being. She often has this look in her eye that says, "I am ready to be on the move. You just watch out when it happens." Right now she has two ways of moving around. One is to roll over, sometimes a couple of times to cover some ground. The other recently started. When she is lying on her back she uses her legs to push herself backward across the floor. Yale calls her a spawning salmon. Needless to say this doesn't seem to be helping the bald spot on the back of her head. Olivia has also taken an interest in experimenting with her voice. Usually she makes cute little sighing or whimpering noises, but sometimes she will make this high-pitched squealing noise that if done hour after hour can make a person feel a little crazy. The worst is when she has been screeching all day and no matter how much I love her, I am about to lose my mind and then Yale comes home from work and says, "Oh, isn't that cute how she makes that little squealing noise." Olivia has taken to solid food enthusiastically. Her favorites seem to be winter squash and applesauce. Next week we are going to try some oatmeal. She still isn't sleeping through the night consistently. She will make it through the night maybe once a week. I am hoping oatmeal with really fill her up and help her make it through the night more often.

O's First Christmas

Olivia had a busy couple of weeks over the holidays, and she really seemed to enjoy it. Christmas Eve was spent with our friend Matt and Laura, and Olivia got to hang out with her friend Nathan. I think she was disappointed that he had an early bedtime because that cut into their play time. Christmas Eve she got to see all of her cousins, both sets of grandparents, and all of her aunts and uncles with the exception of Ashley and Jason (who are living in Germany). She spent Christmas morning being passed around at my sister Gaye's house. She seems to be really interested in watching other children, so her 8 cousins kept her entertained. We left her house in Fort Collins to pick up Yale's parents at the airport. Yale's folks got to stay for about 5 days, and they got plenty of Olivia time. I think she went through a little attention withdrawal after they left. A highlight from their visit was a hike we took the day after Christmas. Olivia was in her off-road stroller and there was more snow than we expected. Gary, Yale's dad, seemed to have a grand old time pushing her around the trails. At times he had to lift the two back wheels off the ground to push the stroller uphill through the snow. I think he enjoyed the workout. I know Olivia loved every minute of it because we could hear her squealing and laughing the whole way. Olivia seems to prefer to be a part of the action instead of napping, so she was running on minimal sleep for most of that week. The day after the Kaul parents left she slept like 20 hours.