Holiday Card Rejects: Olive

Eighteen(ish) Things I Love About You

I love the way you always happy shriek every time you step outside, even when you were only inside for 30 seconds.

I love the way you follow bugs and insects around with an endless string of "Hi! Hi! Hi!"

I love how much you love animals, and the happy noise you make every time you see one.

I love that it happens even when it's just a picture of an animal on the cover of a book. I love how you hug and nuzzle said book because your emotions overflowth.

I love the way you park yourself in front of the bookshelves, clearing them ever so slowly as you thoughtfully study each page.

I love how you say "Awww" when you hug.

I love your love of music. I love how your whole first year you never just babbled, but always sang your babble to your own original tune. I love the way you sing along to the radio now. (Your current favorite: Some Nights by Fun.) I love that you simply cannot keep your mittens off your dad's guitar. I love the obvious thrill you get when you help him play it.

I love how your babbling includes and abundance of trilling and rolling r's, especially when you are deliriously happy. (Btw, wtf super white boy?)

I love your amazingly stinky feet, that look exactly (but smell nothing) like your dad's.

I love your often impossible to tame thick blond fro. And your curls. I want to eat your curls.

I love that your favorite toys are play silverware, dishes, and fake food. I love the way you spend countless hours setting the table and playing kitchen. I love the fact that you totally do not remotely understand the fascination other boys have for all things vehicle.

I love the way you rescue unappreciated treasures from the recycling and turn them into toys.

I love that you think that spaghetti noodles are far superior to any other noodle shape.

I love the way you try so hard to be patient and control yourself when you know dinner is cooking but omg you wanted it like 5 minutes ago.

I love the way you ask for seconds (and thirds, and so on) by presenting us with an empty plate, a hopeful expression, and "Eh?"

I love how you clear your dishes from table without ever being asked, even though your brother and sister frequently forget. I love the way you patiently try over and over on tippy toes to get your plate/bowl/cup up to the counter above the dishwasher until someone finally comes along and helps you. I love how you are happy to keep trying even when it takes us a really long time to get there.

I love the fact that you have a full catalog of iPad moves you try to use on the tv screen, even though kids aren't really allowed on the iPad and neither of your parents have a smart phone. (Again, wtf?)

I love remembering how when you were just a few weeks old you figured out how to get onto your side by lifting your legs straight up into the air and locking your knees, folding yourself into a perfect litle right angle, and then letting gravity take you down. I love how we knew if you did that right away you weren't going to fight sleep. I love how you continued to do it when we put you down to sleep even after you had mastered rolling and crawling and way fancier moves.

I love that when I ask if you are ready for milk you always giggle and take off running for your room, slaming full speed into our nursing chair, even though milk is always followed by a nap or going to bed for the night.

I love the way you love your blankies.

I love the way you love your blankies even more now that they are starting to get holes because you now have a place to hook your finger.

I love the way you walk around with a blankie hanging out of your mouth.

I love the way we can tell how tired you are by the speed and quantity of blankie you shove in your mouth.

I even love the way you always pick less than perfect moments to go on a kissing rampage, like red sauce for dinner vs. white fabric couch I've just bleached. I hope you know no one else can get away with that. (And what is it about the couch that makes it so damn kissable?)

I love that on Halloween you kept stealing boxes of Nerds from the candy bowl because they made most excellent maracas.

I love your super unwavering friendliness that makes us feel the need to apologize to strangers all the time. (But seriously, please stop asking people we don't know to pick you up.)

I love the fact that you have never been startled, frightened, or overwhelmed by loud noises. (We've had your hearing checked. Multiple times.) You are so brave and used to the chaos that is being the youngest of three.

Or crowds, even rowdy, uncontrollable ones.

I love that when I tell you "Too far" you always make an immediate u-turn and come running back.

And last but certainly not least, I love the way you stop whatever you're doing and run to comfort your sister when she is crying. I love the fact that you accidentally tackle her as you wrap huggy little arms around her neck. I love the way you come back up to check her face, and then lay your cheek down on her shoulder, and toggle face-shoulder-face-shoulder until she is better.

Happy Eighteen Months! Don't change.

At least it appears she's given up on my debit card. For now.

Tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap! Tap tap tap tap!

Grandpa: What are you doing with your mom's iPad? Are you supposed to have that?
Olive: It's okay, I'm just trying to figure out her password.
Grandpa: Give me that!
Olive: No thank you, I can do it by myself.

My Very Own Four Year Old Art Critic

I am drawing a rainbow with all 3 available colors of sidewalk chalk: red, yellow, and green. I am Blend Master.
"Um, Mom?"
"Yeah?"
"You forgot indigo and violet."

Funny

Laughter Before Coffee

This morning I was royally cussed out, in tantruming baby babble, for taking his earwig away. But then I pointed out last night's kitchen fly still buzzing around and BAM! all was forgotten distracted. So he toddled around after that, greeting it with the friendliest little "Hi!" each and every time it landed, until I turned my back long enough for him to get at the cat bowls and make cat food soup.

Life is good.

Olive on the Presidential Election

Out of nowhere ...

"Mama?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Do you know why I'm not gonna vote for Mitt Romney?"
"Uhhhh...no."
"Because when he was a kid he holded down another kid and cut his hair! That makes him a bully! I'm not voting for bullies!"

Never Forget

Yesterday a part of me almost died.

I could share with you a long list of really good reasons why it was by far the most atypical day in years, but all that matters is that I forgot to bring my 16 month old in from the car during the hottest part of the day.

Ten minutes later, when I absentmindedly asked my husband "Where's the baby?" and he bolted for the garage I was lazily thinking "Wrong way, he's going to be in G's room with a Lego in his mouth."

And while I was completely aware that the door to the garage didn't immediately open and close again signaling his return it still didn't register. When he returned with our little guy, ever so slightly flushed and just a little bit warm, but totally fine, I think I went into shock.

"Why wasn't he crying? I would have heard him crying!"
"He was."

I do not know how close we came, but I do know that while yesterday the garage was just lukewarm less than a month ago it would have been unbearably hot.

I've never arrogantly claimed that I was a better parent than that. A broken routine, a small distraction... I've read the same story dozens of times with the worst possible ending always knowing it could have been me, so pay attention Heidi.

Yesterday it was me.

Any little change, a different day or one more distraction, and he wouldn't be...alive. No baby giggles and drunken milky smiles to mix with my tears.

Lucky.

First Day of Pre-K (+ Boys and Food)

Excuse me, but weren't you just a baby, like...yesterday?

I swear it's not that I'm getting older, it's the teachers who are getting younger. (Yet still old enough to have gone to grad school and gotten married, and then taught for a few years, and then have children of their own.)

(Good gawd.)

(See young but not too young teacher?)

After we dropped her off the boys and I ran into one of my shorter friends, and after last week's most insane growth spurt ever my 9 year old is closing in on 5 feet and some adults. Pretty sure those size 12 school pants I bought on super clearance earlier this summer are going to waste.

Then after school they had like 48 snacks, including appetizers that ran into dinner, because omg they couldn't wait another 20 minutes for 5 o'clock. In less than an hour they consumed 2lbs of blueberries, 3 apples, some grapes, 2+ lbs of yogurt, 1.75 lbs turkey meatloaf, 1.5 lbs of mini carrots, and an entire Costco 6 pack of romaine hearts.

AND THEY WERE STILL HUNGRY.

But I cut the little locusts off, promising them more food in an hour, because let's just stop for a moment and give your brain a chance to catch up with your stomach, 'kay?

(Sorry dear, they ate it all. Again. Can you heat us up some soup?)

Whipped

He swore it would not happen, but I think playing Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" over and over and over again on the guitar for Olive, albeit with a metal pedal, suggests otherwise.

Fun With Compound Words

"You know what goldfish are made of? Gold! And fish!" says my son, age 9.
"You know what rainbows are made of? Rain and bows!" says a friend, age 6.
"You know what peacocks are made out of?" says my daughter, age 4.

1-2-3 Not It

I love the way she always holds her own, and fits right in with the boys.

They don't know her, and yet they never question her presence, or give her a hard time, because she is...

Olive.

Do Not Wake the Parents

"There is cat poop behind the cowch. It looks like it is fresh. If you need my help I will be in my room. 8:15"

We especially love the time stamp. Yes, we are lazy motherfuckers who sleep way past 8:15am on weekends. Yes, our life is hard.

2am

As we all piled out of the car into the hotel the baby was thrilled. Adventure!

Teeth x 3, jammies x 3, tucked in x 3.  Exhausted parents x 2.

Even in the dark in a hotel crib Callum was still having the time of his life.  Thrilling!

"AAH DA NAH-NAH!  AAH DA!  AAH DA!  NAH-NAH AAH DA!" and so on, for a good 20 minutes.

For those of you who don't speak our baby, that would be: "All done night-night!  All done!  All done!  Night-night all done!"

Giggling kids = 3, laughing parents = 2.

Good road trip times.

Olive in a Nutshell

Her:  "My angle hurts."
Me:  "Your ankle hurts?
Her:  "NO, my anGLE! hurts."

Go Ahead and Stroke My Ego

Presenting us with charts of developmental milestones for 3, 4, and 5 year olds, Olive's teachers place her solidly into the 5 year old category page after page. She is only 4 years and 22 days old.

"Honestly, both her peers and the preschool curriculum are really holding her back. She is one smart little cookie!"

(Again, NAEYC accredited school, not someone's grandma running daycare out of her living room blowing smoke up our asses.)

Which is good, because we can continue to devote all of our energy to her...ahem...behavior at home. At school she is a perfect little angel.

Living the Dream

Husband: "I love the way you dress, but I am so tired of seeing you in the same thing over and over again. Go buy some new clothes!"

Comedienne

Teacher: Olive told us a wonderful joke over lunch.
Me: She did?

Of course the punch line involves urine.

Olive on Evolution

(Used as greeting) "Did you know I used to be a chimpanzee?"

"Wow!"

(Sensing 'dult placating bullshit.) "No! Really! Gwam told me. It was a really long time ago, before Pappy was born."

"Oh! Okay. Actually, humans..."

"You mean people."

"Fine. People evolved..."

"UGH! I AM PEOPLE!"

Lessons in Object Permanence

He's always loved the bath, and diaper changes, and naked time.

He is all boy.

Eleven Months Old. Also, Hair.

Yesterday, during a diaper change, Mr. Stinkermuffin Pooper-Doodle grabbed his hair brush and was like, "Momma, this is a hairbrush, and this is how I brush my own hair. See?"

Oh, melty heart! Momma needs to write that down!

(Except that I forgot. Until the next diaper change when there was an encore presentation. And then I forgot again. And then he did it again again. Third time's a charm.)

And now a picture of the back of my kid's head.


DO NOT TOUCH THE CURLS.

I never thought I'd be that mom, but hair + teething necklace, and strangers, who always knew he was a boy before, have begun telling what an adorable little girl we have. Plus that picture is already three weeks old. Ahem, length is not helping.

So how long can I hold out? Scary question. Olive has never had a haircut, and she's turning four next week. Husband doesn't care/is scared of crazy baby-loving woman, so no pressure there.

If only they'd stop growing for just a little while.

Olive's Rules of Order

"Actually, it's not ladies first, just boys second."

Lucky

Oh March, you emotional bastard, you.

Tomorrow I will celebrate my mom on the two year anniversary of her death. The very next day I will celebrate my son as he turns nine.

Two years.

Time moves faster now. I laugh more, I laugh harder. I save less for rainy days, I eat way too much dessert. I am quieter, a better listener. I internalize more, I am less argumentative, and I do not want to talk politics with you. I try not to say "I don't know how you do it" because I know you don't know either.

I love more.

Most days I know I'm lucky to have had my mom as long as I did.

Because on Monday, a friend who'd already lost her mom to cancer, lost her dad, too.

Because two weeks ago marked the 4 year anniversary of my former brother-in-law taking his own life, leaving behind my then 8 year old nephew.

Because another of my son's friends, 8 years old with a 6 year old brother, just lost his dad to kidney failure, joining three more of his peers and their siblings who already lost their dads to cancer, all in the very small circle of people we know.

I am grateful for the thirty-two years we had.

On the hard days I look at my two youngest and I am ungraciously jealous.

There's the enchantingly feisty granddaughter she so badly wanted and didn't really get to know, who has doubled in age and has hair on her head and opinions and says something brilliant every day; my little girl, who dreams out loud about how wonderful it would be to have a grandma, just like Max & Ruby on tv. The baby, and oh did she looove babies, especially mine, who uses his security blanket and smiling eyes to drag random strangers in games of peek-a-boo from 25 feet away, who is so charmingly himself that admitted non-baby-loving people are constantly stopping to tell us that for him they'd convert. And for my almost nine year old, who told me again recently that he can no longer remember her voice, but remembers how she made him feel.


I am so very lucky for all that I have, but tonight my heart wants more.

First Words

Last week it was "up," which I pretended was my mind playing tricks on me, screw the witnesses. Yesterday it was very clearly "ballballball!"

Ten and a half months has gone so fast...

First Year Bellylaughs

In the sandbox:

Whiplash recoil. What the?!
Tilt head, raise eyebrow.
A moment to ponder.
One finger test.
Sit back, think.
Light touch, five finger test.
Reflect.
Again. And again.
Threat assessment complete.
Lightbulb!
Hysterical, maniacal laughter and squealing.

Looking to me and his brother,
OMG YOU GUYS! Did you know that our sandbox has...wait for it...a bottom?