It always amazes me how Olivia can just make herself comfortable wherever she goes. This week, we went over to our friends’ new house for a play date. Olivia instantly made herself at home, and was so genuinely excited to explore the new environment. She even chased her friend Blaire’s cat around saying “Beow, Beow” until it sat still so she could pet it. She was the same way on vacation, running around giddily. And these days, she really wants to be independent and explore – whether it’s at the park or in the supermarket, where she begs to be let down and barrels down the aisles at full speed until we secure her back in the cart – and doesn’t have much time for hand holding. O has also become more comfortable with the stairs, crawling up the set of three very quickly. She stops at the landing, stands up, turns around and reaches for my hand so she can step down like a big girl, even though I try to show her that she can get down on her own by crawling backwards.
This week, Olivia:
- Loves to play with wood chips. She picks up a handful, then arranges them on the ground, one by one.
- Recognizes flowers, says “flower” and leans in to smell them. Not sure why she calls leaves “bananas”, though 🙂
- Likes to lay her head on her special pillows (aka the couch pillows). She won’t do it on any others.
- Says “potty”. We haven’t started training her yet, but we got her this pink Baby Bjorn Potty Chair
, which we keep in the bathroom, and she knows what it is and can sit on it. She just doesn’t know what it’s for yet 🙂
- Consistently says simple sentences like “mama, up”, “all gone”, “hi, you”, “hi, [insert parent/stuffed animal name]” and “i love you” (although she doesn’t say this one unprompted as often as she used to).
- As much as she is enjoying her independence, whenever I’m doing something in the kitchen, she clings to my legs and asks me to pick her up. It makes me so happy <3
- Continues to take longer to fall asleep during her second nap. Could this be a sign that we should transition to one nap?!
