Oh, and I know what some of you are thinking... or have heard others say.
"We didn't even have car seats and we're still alive."
True. But that doesn't mean others weren't as lucky.
Take that and put it aside though. Say everyone in our generation who didn't grow up sitting in car seats survived crashes. First, do you know what kind of cars were driven back then? I'll refresh your memory. TANKS. They were tanks. They are not comparable to the cars these days. Second, life was slower. People weren't (as)overwhelmed, (as)in a hurry, or (as) distracted. Third, there were NO cell phones!!!! I mean, that alone makes driving these days much more crazy. Much less all the other fancy devices cars have these days that take your eyes off the road.
It's your child. Outside of the law saying rear facing until 1 and a car seat until 4 and 40 pounds, the decision will ultimately be on you. I just hope you are making an informed one. Not because I'm some car seat Nazi or think I'm "better than you" or am all knowing. But because I want your child(ren) to be safe.
Hopefully this helped someone.
And, YES, Olivia is 20 months and still rear racing. We hope to keep her that way until she reaches the 40 pound maximum that her car seat allows for rear facing.
20. That's so close to 24. Sigh. I was doing good until 18 months! :) Now, each month just reminds me how old she's getting, and that she's going to be a big girl before we know it! That makes me a little sad.
So I should have planned ahead and used all of the pictures from yesterday to fill up this post. But.... I didn't. So I'm just going to share these two random videos from a week ago and give a few highlights.
Most of the stuff is the same as at 18 months. Shockingly, she can still wear some of her 18 month clothes, but for the most part she's in 24 months. Some are still too big to wear. I'm buying 24 month/2T stuff for spring and summer and hoping they'll work! I might pick up a few smaller 3T's. She's still in size 5 diapers. We desperately need to get her new shoes (on the agenda for this weekend!). She's somewhere around a size 6....WIDE!
She goes to bed around 8 (give or take) and wakes up around 7. She naps once a day and it's usually from 12:30 to 2:30. Some days are a little off, but that's our general schedule for now.
We recently added orange juice to her diet. I was pretty dead set against ANY juice. It doesn't matter how "healthy" it is, it's loaded with sugar and not great for the teeth. However, she has to take that nasty iron fortified vitamin stuff and her doctor suggested hiding it in OJ. One to hide the taste, and two because iron is absorbed better when combined with vitamin C. She LOVES it. Loves. Loves. Loves. Too bad for her, she only gets one small glass a day, and not even every day. She'd probably drink the whole jug if I let her. :)
She loves her ABC's. She says the word "alphabet" and points out words (on our shirts, on signs, on labels, etc) and says "ABCD!!". She can sing ABCDEFG. Then she stops. If I sing and stop at P, she'll pick right back up at QRS. She sometimes throws other ones in here and there, but those are what she's most consistent with. She also sort of sings, "next time won't you sing with me" but it's more like "time with me". :)
She loves anything ABC related. The quilt her Grandma made her... touch and feel flashcards her Grandma bought her... puzzles... books... DVD's. You name it.
She also likes numbers, and has recently counted to 12. Well, as long as the number 11 isn't important to you. ;) One day about two weeks ago she counted to 10 out of the blue. I had no idea she even knew how and I was a little shocked! Thrilled, but shocked! I told Michael about it. She doesn't ever do anything on demand when you want her to (like getting it on video), so I had no clue when he'd get to hear it. Well, the next morning while he was getting ready, she let him in on her little secret and counted from 1 to 10 again all by herself. Since the she's added 12 in and sometimes skips numbers like 3 or 5. It's definitely not solid, but we're getting there. Just like the alphabet, if I count and stop, she'll pick up right where I left off. Once again, I was a little impressed.
She likes colors and shapes and that is mostly from some of those dollar bin books that she got at Christmas. She LOVES books. She has more books than any toddler I have ever known and she reads them ALL. Recently her Grandma got her a shape puzzle. I put it on the ground and she immediately said "Shapes!" Then picked one up and I said, "Oval". She looked over, grabbed the diamond and said, "Diamond". I had no clue she knew diamond. I mean, I've read her the shape book many times, but I didn't know it stuck. That happens all the time. For her sake, I hope she remains a quick learner who can retain information easily!
We had a Word World Christmas DVD that was bought in the clearance bin her first Christmas. She saw it this year and has since taken a liking to Word World. She asks for it by name.
Of course, she's in love with Clifford. More so the actual dog than the show or books.
She loves all facets of art that she's had the privilege of trying--coloring, do-a-dot, stamps, water colors, finger paints, stickers, etc.
She enjoys her baby doll, but she will also make do with any stuffed animal handy. She loves them all. In fact, on any given night there are at least 5 different stuffed animals in her bed. She doesn't want a blanket or pillow, but if you try to take the elephant lovie or owl pillow out, she WILL notice. She also sleeps with Clifford, a bear she got from my dad her first Christmas and a sheep she got from my mom this Christmas. A mini Elmo and Mickey have also made their way in a time or too. Oh heck, so has a white dog she has and a pink bunny. We have plenty of stuffed animals!!!!
Feeding her is a gamble. She is a typical toddler. She will love something one day and then hate it the next. She gets what she gets though, so if she chooses not to eat, then that is up to her. No short order cook here! Things she asks for by name (favorites) are: yogurt, applesauce, hummus, banana and crackers.
While she seems to be excelling cognitively, she's a little slower with the some of her more physical (gross motor) skills. This has been the case since she was a baby. She's the only one in her Little Gym class that can't hang from the bars. She doesn't have great upper body strength, and the poor girl has a lot of weight to have to hold up. The ironic thing is, it's her favorite thing to do. Her teacher's words of consolation to me were, "But she's very verbal!" Nice! She isn't a climber either. I mean, so can climb. She just doesn't. She doesn't jump off things either. I guess maybe because she's more cautious? Anyway, it's something we're going to keep an eye on and try to encourage the best we can.
She is very orderly. This has become apparent to others in her Little Gym class. She's very deliberate about putting things away, taking her time, and liking things "just right". Her teacher jokes that she's "OCD like mommy." I don't know about that, but I don't think being orderly is a bad quality. Michael is all for it as well. :)
She is a lot of fun. She cracks me up DAILY. She is sweet, affectionate, happy, observant, calm, thoughtful, and fun. She has started the toddler tantrums here and there, and she does try my patience sometimes, but over all I think she's a pretty easy kid. I love that she's mine. Tantrums and all.
The little fashionista leaving MOPS with the beloved "butterfly for mama!"
"Painting" with water... she was so proud to have full access to the water. :)
Ha! Her face! I pulled an old toy down from the closet and it became a "new toy" for a good thirty minutes!
She loves to "hang" from the bars at TLG. She's not quite strong enough to hold her body weight though.
Worn out!
Aww... Michael got tired and was taking a nap. Olivia just snuggled right up to work on her puzzle.
CHEESING!!!!!! She cracks herself up. She says, "I'm funny" or "too funny" or "so funny" and then tucks her chin in and does this crazy laugh. She is a riot!
Although, in all honesty, this is what was happening twenty minutes before that picture....
She has taken to throwing herself on the floor for her tantrums and I almost never know what the heck she is crying about!! Ready for this phase to be over...
Silly!
One of the reasons I don't mind that Clifford comes everywhere with us.... when we get home, I throw him up to the top of the stairs. Olivia thinks it's hilarious, and it motivates her to actually climb the stairs. Otherwise she usually just sits at the bottom.
Just doing a little reading after getting her jammies on.
It finally happened. It took almost 20 months, but she did fall asleep in the middle of eating her lunch.
She woke up in the middle of the night Tuesday and was crying. It was the kind where I couldn't just ignore it and she'd lay down and go back to sleep. This happens every once in a while. Bad dreams? I don't know. But we were up for over an hour. Then she got up early on Wednesday and spent all morning at MOPS. We got home later than her normal lunch time. I tried to make it quick. She was literally talking about her lunch one minute and snoring the next. Sweet girl.
This is one of my new favorite pictures of her!! Why does she look twice as old as she is? :(
These pictures are actually from a few weeks ago, but like I said, we pretty much had two broken laptops. I couldn't get pictures loaded, so now I'm playing catch up.
Since Michael is working most nights now, we are trying to be more purposeful with our time. He is home every Wednesday night with Olivia while I babysit at the church, so luckily the most she may have to go is two days without seeing him. She usually sees him for about an hour in the morning, but that always depends on when she wakes up.
So a few weeks ago, Olivia and I headed to the library by Michael's work.
We participated in a morning story time.
We stayed and played for a bit. Olivia went right to the table and chairs.
Michael and I are wanting to get her a little table and chairs. She still sits in a W and we think this might help. Plus, she seems to really enjoy them.
She got right to work reading.
She played with the puppets a little bit. They were animals and each one had a cooresponding letter on it's tummy. She carried around the octopus.
Chilling with her puppets.
After that we headed to meet Michael for lunch.
We were going to meet at a park and have a picnic, but it was rainy.
Plan B was to meet at McDonald's. I packed Olivia a lunch and Michael and I ate off the dollar menu. Super healthy! :) We chose McDonald's because of the play place. Michael gets an hour lunch and we wanted him to be able to hang out with Olivia for as long as possible and have it be fun.
He's a trooper and took her through the play place two times.
Even though the teacher in me could totally come up with daily lesson plans for Olivia... I do not. I try to let her be the little toddler she is. I focus on having her "learn" while playing, which is pretty easy to do. I also try to reinforce the things she shows interest in. (Yes, Kathi. How very Montessori of me, huh?! :)
While she still loves animals, her interests lately have switched to colors, shapes, numbers and letters. I realize that sounds like a list from a preschool lesson plan, but I assure you that they really are her interests.
So, a few weeks ago I made her a felt mitten matching game. I use the word "game" loosely, because I didn't figure she'd understand the concept of matching. I did know that she would enjoy the activity, and she did.
I showed her how to match a few. Really, my focus was just on talking about the color names.
At the time, she only knew 2 or 3 colors and they weren't 100%.
She knew black and pink. She called blue, "boppa" and orange, "orange juice".
This is her telling me that pink is my favorite. :)
We are still working on colors.
She is pretty solid on red, orange, pink, black and white.
She gets green and purple right sporadically.
She knows the word blue, but she tends to call in boppa more often than not.
Yellow was one of the first color words she used. She use to call everything yellow. Now, she rarely says yellow, so we are working on that one.
Every year the Dallas Zoo does $5 admission for the month of January and February. The marketing tag line is something like "Cool weather. Hot prices." Luckily for us, the weather isn't too bad during this time. This is our second year in a row taking advantage of these prices. Michael and I were both super excited to take our animal loving girl to check out all the zoo had to offer and to see it and experience it through her eyes.
In order to accommodate her nap schedule and my afternoon work schedule, we made sure to arrive right as the doors were opening at 9 AM. This was great, because there were hardly any people and the weather was still a little cooler (high 40's/low 50's). That's always the best time to get animal participation! (It was 70 degrees by the time we left a little after noon... which is why Michael is in shorts.)
Olivia checking out the penguins.
How tall are you?
She enjoyed the statues just as much as the real thing. :)
How cool is that? We were watching for a minute or two and he turned and looked right at Olivia.
She said, "Oh boy! Big gorilla!" :)
Looking for lemurs
We made sure to attend the predator encounter. They basically do some
of their training with the lions right in front of the viewing area at a
certain time. They don't make the lions come, but they do use
treats for rewards so the lions usually cooperate. They practice skills
they need them to do in order to draw blood (from their tail) and give
them vaccines, etc.
After it was over, we walked around and saw a few other animals. As we were passing by the lions later, one of them started roaring. It roared a lot. This doesn't happen every time you go to the zoo, and it's one of Michael's favorite things, so he was pretty pleased.
One of the things that I do love about the Dallas Zoo is that you can feed the giraffes. Of course, they way over charge you for some lettuce, but it is cool nonetheless. Olivia loved it!
"Bebras!!"... and more giraffes.
We saw the elephants multiple times. They are on of Olivia's favorite.
After seeing all of her favorites (and more), we headed to the Children's section.
We went into the barn and saw a few horses, some fat bunnies, an owl and some pigs.
This is when Olivia turned around after hearing the pig oink. It went something like, "jigga jigga big pig oink jigga jigga". :)
More shock over the real live oinking pig.
"Fish! Glub, glub. Fish! Glub, glub."
Feeding and then petting the goats
Trying to feed the birds. They weren't too interested in us.
Our last stop was the carousel.
Twins, anyone?
It started moving and she got excited.
She was saying, "Elephant... up down...jigga jigga (seriously. this is what her "filler" words sound like)... a horsey... Oh, Boppa! Oh, Mama...Elephant, up down up down...jigga jigga..."
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