Journal Moments - Feb 5 - Feb 11

Another edition of journal moments for you...

2/5/09 (Thurs)
• Olivia’s been doing a lot of head nodding lately. Now when sometimes when she’s doing things that we’ll say no to (like opening the kitchen base cabinets), she’ll shake her head “no,” anticipating our response. Sometimes she’s a little ham. She’ll just come out and laugh—I think just to be funny.

2/6/09 (Fri)
• Sharon reports that Olivia was sitting in her high chair this evening and said something that sounded like “I want.” To this Sharon replied, “You want?” and then Olivia said “That!” and reached for something on the table. Seems like she may be an early talker.
• Earlier today I offered Olivia a mini-marshmallow and asked, “Do you want this?” To my surprise, she shook her head yes. After eating the marshmallow (in my arms), she pointed to get me to walk over to the upper kitchen cabinet where the marshmallows were kept, pulled the door open, reached in and grabbed the bags of marshmallow, and did her best to open the bag up. Very cute, O.
• In general, Olivia’s had a very healthy appetite lately. Sharon says she eats more than Robby or Jenna ever did. Yesterday for breakfast she ate a whole pancake and a whole banana.

2/8/09 (Sun)
• O has a tendency to want to pull items out of the garbage. We locked up one kitchen trash can, but the other one is difficult to make inaccessible. Today she walked out of the kitchen with a piece or orange rind in her mouth, while holding the top to a yogurt container. This was not bad compared to all of the goopy egg shells she dumped on the kitchen floor a few days ago. Sharon’s decided to get a child barrier to put up at the entrance to the kitchen.
• Yesterday, Sharon and Olivia were tipping a pillow so it would fall over one way and then back the other (onto O). Olivia thought it was great and had a contagious giggle. Sharon said, “I love babies at this age.”
• Tonight we put Jenna’s pink boots (formerly belonging to cousin Molly) on Olivia for kicks. It was an amusing sight—they went up to her knees practically. I’m not sure whether they made Olivia feel like a big girl or were annoying since they made it harder to walk and keep her balance.
• It was cute today at church. There was a vocal soloist and Olivia was waving her hand very convincingly as if directing the singing. I’ve seen her do this now on a few different occasions. Apparently she understands that someone if often waving their arms during that type of music. It was very cute, and it’s fun to see her starting to make those kinds of connections.


2/11/09 (Wed)
• I had fun snuggling with O tonight. She fell asleep on the sofa next to me while I was watching a two-hour special about Lincoln, the second Lincoln show I’ve watched this week on PBS. ‘Tis the season, given the bicentennial of the president’s birth tomorrow. Lincoln was an amazing man—one of my heroes.