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.