Baby Casanova

Olivia got her first kiss the other day.

Sister Annie responded that "she gets more action than me!" Sorry, sister. If you want to come to the library with us the next time you visit, perhaps you'd have some luck, too. ;)



Olivia and I were at our weekly visit to the EGR library, a land filled with toys and fun. There were 10-15 little kids playing around at the various stations. Olivia likes to just walk around it all a lot, stopping momentarily to talk to a child who interests her, or to try to take an interesting toy from that interesting child. So I spend my time walking closely behind her so that I may teach her that it's not okay to take toys from others, etc.

O had tried playing with a girl her same size (and perhaps age) with bright red hair. She first started chattering to her when they were near the fishtank. O just strode right up to her and strung off a mouthful of jibberjabber. The girl was nonplussed. She gave O a blank stare, so O shrugged her off and moved on. Poor O! She was trying to make a friend!

Later O spotted her again and tried to strike up some fun. But upon Olivia's arrival at the girl's table, the redhead scooped up all the toys within reach and hoarded them to herself, giving Olivia a meanish look. She didn't like sharing, I guess.

My girl got up and was walking by the ice cream stand when a little boy (about 3ish, who I later heard addressed as Jack) said to his mom, "Look, a beebee!" (Even though there were a few other little beebees there, too, but perhaps they weren't in his peripheral.)

The Bird kept cruising until she stopped at a little table with a wooden puzzle on it. She has three of these at home and really enjoys them. Immediately the little boy comes over to see the puzzle, too.

I had crouched down to help O identify the animals on it. The boy named every animal I pointed to, such as the alligator and giraffe. Another girl came over to be part of the fun, too. I think I was the only adult interacting with the children. Parents of older toddlers were sitting on comfy chairs and reading, trusting their children to practice the manners they had been taught. Parents of little kids were hovering in the background in various parts of the library, but not as closely as I was to O. Maybe I'm just anal about my kid treating others nicely. So I think when the kids saw a grownup talking and playing with THEM, it looked pretty exciting.

As we were playing with the wooden puzzle, O tried to pick up some puzzle pieces to check out. The little boy started talking to her and suddenly smiled and said, "Nice beebee! I'm going to give her a kiss!" I wasn't sure whether to let him or not, for fear of the communicable diseases they could share, such as INFLUENZA and wretched COLDS. Fortunately he kissed her forehead, and not her lips.

Olivia didn't think it was a very big deal, as everyone she knows kisses her all the time. Right after he did that, the redheaded girl comes out of nowhere and snatches the elephant puzzle piece right from under them and runs for it. The boy took off to regain the lost toy, and that was the last we saw of him.

I don't know what his fascination with Olivia was, though considering the surly nature of the redheaded "beebee," perhaps Olivia's general happiness was like a breath of fresh air to that kid. Or, perhaps he kisses ALL the beebees he sees, and O is just another forehead on his list.

Putting things In

One of Olivia’s new pastimes is to put things into something else. Placing her graduated plastic cups into one another, collecting her alphabet magnets into a pot to make alphabet soup, putting shapes into the Tupperware Shape-O Toy at Mark and Marian’s house, etc. Until I realized how much she did this, I had some trouble locating some of her toys. I had begun to think I was losing my mind one night, as I was certain that I brought her Weebles into the kitchen for her to play with. But they were nowhere. I eventually found them in my large dutch oven pot. In the lazy susan.

This afternoon I was trying to get some craft time in. I usually do it in the morning during O’s 40 minutes of Sesame Street, but was too busy today.

My goal was to cut one rectangle out of a piece of material. ONE RECTANGLE, people.

In that very short period of time, Olivia covered a lot of ground. She read a few books aloud in the living room. Then she crawled over to the large crock that sits by the fireplace. It looked like just the kind of thing to put things in to. So she crawled back to her pile of toys, and brought over a few things that went into the crock. (Note to self: when I can’t find a certain toy of Olivia’s, look in crock.)

Then she came into the dining room where I was working. She tried reaching a ceramic chicken on a shelf (she's pulling herself up now). Realizing that it was too high, she set her sights on the red ceramic pot of mums. Too high again. Take THAT, curious baby! Then she crawled under the dining room table to do her daily grunting alone, where I couldn't see her. (Do anyone else’s kids do that? Go to a quiet place to take a crap?)

Once that was done, she was off again. I had finished cutting the third side of the rectangle when I caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye. She was sitting in the kitchen, next to the dog bowl. She was waving her hand at me. Her shiny wet hand.

I have been teaching her NOT to splash the dog’s water or eat the dog’s food. So she knows better, and that was why she was looking at me with her hand in the air like that. As if to say, “yes, I put my hands in the water, but you didn’t SEE me doing it, so I’m not in trouble.” I came over and told her no, and that was when I noticed it. The two pink baby socks chilling in Lucy’s water bowl. Olivia had deemed the water bowl worthy of “putting something in” and pulled off her socks, since she didn’t have any toys at hand.

I admire her intelligence, for realizing that you can put something into something, even if something (like water) is already in it.

But I’d really appreciate it if she could wait until craft time is over. My gimpy rectangle is still laying on the table, waiting…

Tropical Bird

Olivia turned 6 months old on Saturday, so here is an update.

1.) Olivia is JB's child, as she loves watching TV. Every day for 30 minutes she learns about "World Animals" on her Baby Einstein DVD. One of the animals she learns about is Tropical Bird. The way the little boy says "Tropical Bird" (three times during the video) gets stuck in my head. Instead of a song playing over and over again in my mind, I hear, "Tropical BIRD!" I've also started to call her Tropical Bird instead of just Bird. Then it gets shortened to Tropical a lot. "Hey Tropical!" I'll say. "Wanna play with your toys?" Or, "Tropical, you're really flying in that Johnny Jump Up!" Sometimes I wonder if she knows her REAL name, as I don't use it very often in the course of a day. Fortunately others in her life, like grandparents and JB, call her Olivia.

2.) She eats big girl food and drinks from a big girl cup (well, "medium girl" cup, as it is a sippy, though she can do a real cup with assistance).

3.) She sits up on her own for long periods of time.

4.) She often prefers dog toys to her own, and gets upset when I take them away. The other day I heard her breathing heavily while she was laying on her mat and knew she was trying to get at something out of reach. Then she started making very happy sounds and I looked over to see that she had scorned the sea of toys on her mat in favor of Lucy's squeaky ball. And it wasn't enough to simply hold and admire said toy. No, she had to TASTE IT. A LOT. (Similarly, Lucy prefers baby toys [especially Moby Dick] to her own. She is constantly testing me to see what I'll do if she gingerly puts her mouth around a baby toy. A few times she has tried to hide the toys to see if I notice. I'm guessing that if I do not, she will consider it license to eat.)

5.) She is waaay more fun than when she was a newborn. Pregnancy is really a yearlong endeavor, if you ask me, because the first three months a baby is here is more work than fun.