Food preferences

Olivia has always been a fan of broccoli. She seems to prefer it, though, to anything else on her tray. Moments ago, with crackers, turkey and a banana still on her tray, she sweetly requested "More brock-ee, pease?" She loves her broccoli.

She has also developed a preference for Grandpa's homemade pear sauce (like applesauce, but with pears). She calls it "Nummies", which is her word for "yummy". "Nummies, pease, Mommy! Pease? Nummies?" Pear sauce is quite a bit messier than broccoli, but she loves it so much that I can't much resist. We also mix it with oatmeal for breakfast, and she LOVES it.

With her two most preferred foods being "Brock-ee" and "Nummies", you can imagine what diapers have looked like lately.

Olivia has recently become very attached to her "Up-Up Elmo" doll. She carries him everywhere. I came into the kitchen yesterday to find this.


She's so proud of herself for buckling Elmo in for his nummies.
Happy Holy Thursday!

Toddler-inspired innovations

Several months ago, a local clothing store was going out of business. At their liquidation sale, they had these huge bins of t-shirts that advertised the 2001 Japan tour of a now-defunct band. They were something like 15 for a dollar, so I picked up a bunch of child-sized small and medium shirts.

The shirts are big for a toddler, but I bought them thinking that they would make good smocks for mess-inducing activities. I was inspired by my sister-in-law's efforts during my niece's birthday party. They had an outdoor messy party, complete with paint, glitter, glue, and decorate-your-own-cupcakes. They also had a pile of old t-shirts that the kids could wear if their parents wanted to protect their clothes.

I never thought I'd use them like this, though.

Olivia pulls off most bibs now, but she's still a messy eater. So covering her up with a bigger t-shirt is perfect! Today, she protected her red shirt from the beans and sausage she was eating. That is, until she reached the end of her food and tried lift the plate and pour the remaining handful of beans into her mouth. She ended up with a face-full of beans and two messy shirts!

Shiner

My husband and I have eased into an experiential learning model of parenting that just came naturally to us. I guess from our own growing up years, we learned that children have to experience certain hazzards in order to understand the need to avoid those in the future. Either that, or we just realized that there was no way we could keep up with our very active child in order to keep her away from every possible fall or bump. She leaves us wondering where they find those children who sit quietly and play with the toys in front of them. Do they really exist? Or do they just sedate those toddlers and babies who are on sitcoms on TV?

In the course of learning to pull up and walk along furniture, Olivia has had her fair share of bumps and bruises. They are usually pretty minor since we've removed most of the hard-edged furniture from the play space in our living room. But as active as she is, we'd have to bubble-wrap the entire living room and remove most of her hard plastic toys to keep her from all bruises. I can't tell you how many times she's been bobbing her head to the music on her stand-up keyboard and then whacked her head on that same keyboard because she got a little to wild with the head bobbing.

Anyway, yesterday I walked into the kitchen to put away the dishes. Since our living space is pretty open and flows from one room to the next, Olivia usually crawls after me, through the dining room and into the kitchen, and then she likes to stand up and hold onto my legs until I pick her up again. Occasionally, she'll get distracted by the dining room chairs, and I glanced over to see her standing up and holding onto one of them. "No, Olivia, don't climb. Come here." She has, in the past, tried to climb the vertical slats on the back of the chair, but she knows the word "No" and usually will abandon the idea of climbing and examine the tablecloth or something for a few minutes.

I heard a WHAP and looked over. She had pulled the chair down on top of herself. It took her a second to react, but when she did...OH BOY. It was one of those breathless type of cries when a baby is REALLY upset, one where she was sobbing and all like "Mommy, how could you let that mean old chair attack me? Did you see what happened? Did you?" Of course, babies have very short memories, so five minutes later, she was playing happily again. She was left with a shiner above her right eye, though.

"See my bruise? Also, here's a shot of my teeth coming in on top."


"The chair attacked me, honest."


Now that we've entered the glorious realm of 8 months, Olivia is enjoying eating more food with her hands. The homemade baby food site recommended cutting soft-cooked foods into small pieces and letting her eat with her hands. It also lists some new foods she can have, including broccoli.

I didn't really think Olivia would enjoy broccoli. She does love to eat with her hands, though. So, we gave it a try.


She LOVED the broccoli (and little pieces of green beans too). Of course, we had to hose her and her high chair down after this little episode, but she thoroughly enjoyed her eating experience.

Social eater

What is up with the baby of ultra distraction? Up until about a month ago, eating time was all business. She was ravenous and downed bottles like we were starving her.

Now, even at her morning bottle when she's gone 7 plus hours without eating, any little sound or activity going on in the room is enough to make her drop her bottle, sit up and look around. She is, of course, livid if you remove the bottle from her hands, but she's not exactly interesting in eating from it right this moment.

Today has been a good nap day, and I got so much accomplished during naps that I actually decided to lay down and take a bit of a nap myself while she was still sleeping. That lasted all of ten minutes. I think she has some sort of sense about when I'm wanting to nap and decides it's time to get up. Not that I get a lot of time to nap these days.

My husband had an out-of-town work obligation last night for the first time since we brought Olivia home. So I haven't seen him since yesterday morning. And everything went really well, but I'm starting to jump out of my skin here. Thank goodness he'll be back tonight. What are we going to do for those more-than-one-night business trips?

The baby has finished her bottle and is now talking to it. She says "bye computer people".