May - December

Berkeley Botanical Gardens

Three Years Old

Olivia Moon is now three, and without Mommy being gender biased, Olivia is in LOVE with princesses. She wants to be a princess and loves everything that is princesses. It is pretty cute actually. She has a pretty good grasp of singing the alphabet, though she usually skips w-z. She can write "O" and "D". She counts (aka recites) pretty well all the way through 20, but when it comes to actually counting, that is another story. She's begun scooping with imaginary objects and really enjoys going to IKEA and playing in the setups. She likes to serve me tea or cook for me there. :)
She enjoys playing with other kids every chance she gets, and would love to go to preschool. A certain training needs to be mastered before she can go though since they don't want to be changing her bottom!
Olivia loves being a big sister and helps every chance she gets, even when Mommy doesn't need her to!
My favorite part now is that she really communicates with me. She tells me how she is feeling, or what she wants. Sometimes she'll just say, "Mommy, I love you." and while she sometimes means it, I think it is her default. She wants to talk, but has nothing to say.
I also am super proud to say that I can bargain eating one vegetable for another. She loves mushrooms, so I can say, eat your carrots/green beans, broccoli etc and then you can have more. (Helps that she likes veggies too!)
My baby is growing up too fast!!!

Duckies

Some friends of ours, Mark and Lidia, gave Mommy two duckies as a belated Christmas gift. Mommy in turn has let Olivia believe they are her pets. We have yet to name them, but today Olivia got to give them a bath in the bathtub. We discovered that one of them likes to be sprayed with one of the squirt duckies and likes to be under the running water!
Hopefully the ducks will warm up to us more soon and Olivia will have some good friends!

I'm a Big Sister Now!

I am a big sister to Eleanor Joyce! She cries sometimes and I try to make her happy. I get to hold her and feed her. At first I thought she was a doll, and Mommy had to show me otherwise. I am not sure I like being a big sister yet, but I am getting used to sharing Mommy and Daddy. They are being pretty patient with me too, but I still have some trouble controlling my emotions for now. It is tough being a big sister!

Far too long since we've posted.

Olivia Moon is now almost 2 1/2. She is currently attacking Daddy while he washes dishes with spoon-daggers and being told to go bother Mommy. Thankfully our bundle of atomic energy ran singing into her bedroom or I would never get this done.

With Olivia's baby sister's birth fast approaching, we have been busy working on the bedroom they will share. Olivia now has bunk beds, and today we made a tent out of the bottom to read stories in. It is a little hard for Mommy to sit in there with the big pregnant belly, but Olivia loved it.

She is constantly asking me about the baby, and we have some pretty straight forward talks about pregnancy and how babies are born. It is all age appropriate mind you, but if left to her own devices she has thought both that the baby comes out of Mommy's belly button and out of Mommy's butt. I suppose both make sense since she knows she came out of Mommy's tummy (c-section), and of course solids come from the latter. Only liquids come from that other part right? :)

This may make some uncomfortable, but this is what I prefer to teach her. I am straight forward about body parts with names. We don't get into functions because she just doesn't understand and she really doesn't need the overload of information at this age.

I was getting out of the shower when Olivia said, "Baby come out your belly Mommy?"
"No, Olivia. You came from there (showing her my scar), but the baby will come out Mommy's vagina."
"Nooooooo." Said like I was telling her a tall tail.
"Yes, she will."
"Nooooooo!"
"Yes, I'm not lying to you. Mommy's uterus will squeeze and squeeze and then she'll come out."
"Ohhhhh." And she ran off to play.

A couple days later she tested this theory: "Baby come out your butt Mommy?"
"No, do you remember where Mommy says she'll come out?"
"Out your 'gina Mommy!"
"Yep, that's right."
"Okaaaay." and we continued getting ready for the day.

She is quite smart if you ask me. Once after saying that the baby was kicking me she said, "My baby is kicking me! Feel!" When I said, "Really? Do you have a baby in there?" She giggled and said she didn't like she was telling me a joke.

Olivia seems excited with the idea of the baby but I am sure once she is born it will be a different story for a while. I am sure we'll also be having some breastfeeding talks in the near future. For now though we are enjoying the last few weeks of "Mommy, Daddy & me" and working on using the potty like a big girl!

Exciting!

She can count to 5! :)