I’m loving this age. Olivia is the single most entertaining thing I’ve ever followed around for hours on end, bored out of my mind. She talks in absolute gibberish sentences and sings and reads to herself, and prances around on her little tippy toes and randomly stops and spins around in circles cackling madly. She is super snuggly and cuddly lately, with a little bit of aggression and swats to the face sprinkled in for variety. She is beyond hilarious when she has tantrums and thrashes around dramatically and with crocodile tears before becoming distracted with something else and cheerfully moving on to the next bit of entertainment. Her favorite activities are mainly snacking, preferably out of a giant bowl –

and reading the same 2 books endlessly –

and she is always down to watch the inanely annoying animated monstrosity that is Word Party. We’ve seen every episode at least 6 trillion times.

It’s sad how positively giddy Gates and I were when a 3rd season was released. We were basically jumping up and down in excitement… this is what our lives have come to. However, singing the theme song at an insanely high volume and somewhat aggressively is a little trick we learned that will shush her in the car when she is screaming, so I guess we owe the ol’ Word Party gang our thanks. Kidding, f*ck those whiney little nerds.

She also enjoys stumbling around with her snack bucket on her head.

Other current hobbies include: stethoscopes, babies, pretending to feed bottles to a small decorative doll from Mexico, stealing Dada’s baseball hats, and alternately carrying around a picture of her cousin Leo and a small ceramic piggybank shaped like a duck.

 

She knows pretty much any animal sound out there and is happy to perform them on command, my favorite one she does is “Piglet”, for which she does a sound similar to what an old man does when he is coughing up phlegm. She is learning body parts, and very enthusiastically demonstrates her knowledge whenever close enough to someone’s face, shouting “EYES” or “NOSE” whilst she surprises them with a sharp jab of authority to said parts. She’s been sleeping like a champ, despite popping in a set of molars, with a typical bedtime around 7 and a rise and shine around 5:30. She continues to be just the sweetest little friendly bug, not a hint of stranger danger in her bones, and will chirp “HI” and “BYE” and smile at every single person she encounters, and genuinely appears confused when someone doesn’t return her salutations or grins. Keep shining, my little ray of happiness – no matter how  many grouchy little rainclouds you come across in the grocery store. Honestly someone who doesn’t smile back at her sweet sticky face must be missing a little piece in their soul.

We’ve been trying to wean her from bottles completely which is not going so well due to her absolute obsession with “babas” and also our sucky willpower to just say no to her and deal with the temper. She definitely knows what’s up because she has taken to screaming “bababababababababababababababababababaaaa” whenever “nigh nigh” time rolls around and when we sigh and hand her one she doesn’t even drink it, she just cradles it like a baby but with a death grip on it and a look of absolute ferocity in her eyes. She also now wakes up and is instantly calling for a “baba” before her beady little eyes are really even open. Similar to how on road trips we are in the habit of reaching back and handing her little snicks and snacks for her to eat to keep her occupied and she is so conditioned to reaching her little paw out for more treats that she once woke up from a dead sleep in her carseat and her eyes shot open and her hand shot out and she said “MORE” like a little Pavlov pup. Hilarious.

Speaking of car rides, we have just been the road tripping family lately. Some of it for fun reasons – like going to the Dell’s to celebrate Leo’s birthday and bop around the lazy river amongst the band-aids and sugar-high crazed school children, and up to Hayward for the always fun Birkie weekend –

– and some of the trips for not such fun reasons – like another trip to Hayward to lay my Grandma to rest and a little jaunt off to Rochester to watch my dad have his scalp removed to get rid of some pesky cancer.

Rochester got absolutely crushed by a winter storm the day of my dad’s surgery so it was nice that I had planned to stay the night there anyway. And despite the grueling all day surgery he endured he came out scalpless but not humorless, and got me with one of these not a few hours after coming out of anesthesia:

Made ya look! I’m hoping his sense of humor carries him far, as this is sure to be a long road to recovery. But I’ve got no doubts that the boss of the woods will come out of this better than ever. I know we’ve said it over and over but we are truly grateful for all the love and support so many of you have shown our family throughout this little health adventure. For real. Thank you.

In other, more boring news, I’ve been crushing the DIY lately and have revamped the cat’s room, a kitchen wall, new décor for OG’s big girl bed, and I have a chalkboard accent wall underway in the kitchen as well. The biggest lesson learned from that is drywall is stupid. And drywall dust will literally permeate every single inch of your house and the animals will leave powdery white pawprints everywhere for weeks. But everything is coming together!

So much fun. And now for your viewing pleasure:

Olivia, Olivia, Olivia!

Next up: the annual Turkey Fry in which we stuff ourselves in the manner of a turkey, a quick little getaway to Boca, because, #mightaswell, a weekend in Chicago, inevitably more trips to Mayo, Memorial weekend in Hayward, and coming soon – summma summma timmmmme! Can’t wait to be able to get this kid out of the house in less than a snowsuit and enjoy our big yard!

And, finally, in celebration of the Easter season:

Is all I have to say about that.

Also this:

Amen.