The only thing better than seeing these gorgeous butterflies at the Henry Doorly Zoo? Watching Olivia’s reaction.
Archive for the ‘Olivia’ Category
2 May
Overheard: Painfully cute edition
Mom: “Olivia, I love you.”
Olivia: “I love you, too.”
Mom: “You’re so sweet.”
Olivia: “Yeah, I so sweet.”
1 May
Olivia, fixed.
When I was little, I believed my Grampa could fix anything. (Actually, I still believe that—he managed to fix my stove several years ago with a fuse he just happened to have in the toolbox in his trunk, thus saving my first Thanksgiving.) But, as a child, I was absolutely sure there wasn’t anything he couldn’t tackle. Upon seeing my balloon pop, my three-year-old self noted, “That’s okay, Grampa can fix it.”
Olivia was having trouble with her skirt last weekend, and her Papa had the perfect fix—a clamp!
29 Apr
Garden girls
After digging up what seemed to be 15 square feet of solid spearmint two weeks ago, the girls helped us put in the garden. A few heirloom tomatoes, sugar snap peas, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers and herbs (NOT mint)…just a short season away!
22 Apr
Sleepy sisters
After five years of doing everything by the book (or by all the books I can get my hands on), I don’t think we’ve made much headway in the sleep department when it comes to Ava. And, now that Olivia is out of her crib and into a toddler bed, she’s (literally) harder to contain.
I have decided that super rigid routines don’t seem to make much of a difference, and so I’m done fighting battles about bedtime. I don’t care where you sleep; I don’t care who you sleep with. Just GO. TO. BED. Someone’s bed…anyone’s bed. If you’re in mine, though, I’m going to move you back to yours at some point in the evening.
And, when I came upstairs last night, this is what I found in my bed. The girls like sleeping together, though they often have a bit of a hard time settling down at night when they are side by side.
Do you think they fell asleep mid-snuggle or mid-struggle?
14 Apr
Livie Lou’s new ‘do
There’s far too much crying at our house every morning.
Ava, who stayed up until 10:45 the night before just to remind us that we can’t actually control when and how much she sleeps, is pitching a fit about having to wake up “before it’s even morning time.”
And Olivia, who is still suffering from pacifier withdrawal, screams and fights when you approach her with a hair brush.
I might not be able to do much about the lack of sleep—and really, I don’t want to undo that plan that will prevent Liv from packing a spare paci in her kindergarten knapsack, but I can solve the screaming that comes from having to drag a brush through a nest of curly hair that seems to be inexplicably matted (even after bath night—I don’t understand it!).
The downside is that I’m the one who’s now teary-eyed.
I don’t know why I had such a hard time taking the girls for their first real haircuts, but with Olivia, I knew it was time when even Gramma Great’s ultra-gentle approach was rebuffed.
That said, it wasn’t an easy decision. Olivia’s hair spilled over her shoulders and burst into little ringlets along her back. It was gorgeous—when it was clean and brushed. The rest of the time, it was piled on the top of her head in an effort to keep it that way. She had taken to calling the little rubber bands we used for her hair, and then the pigtails themselves, “cutes,” because I’d say, “Look how cute!” every time I finished her hair.
Olivia was very excited about getting her hair cut, but when it came time to sit in the stylist’s chair, she panicked. Bryan commented that her hair wasn’t exactly even on both sides. The stylist did the best she could.
Hopefully, it will be the last time Olivia sheds tears over her hair.
5 Apr
Tinkerbell!
Meeting Tinkerbell was on the top of Ava’s Disney to-do list. She’s been a big fan for quite a while, even dressing as Tinkerbell last Halloween. She insisted that we pack the costume my mom made for her, and she donned it the morning of our first full day in the park.
We arrived at the entrance to Pixie Hollow relatively early that morning, and there wasn’t even a hint of a line. So, when Ava wanted to take time for a bit of face painting, I didn’t argue.
It was at this point that I realized I had been looking at the exit to Pixie Hollow—not the entrance—which explained the lack of a line.
As we made our way around to the entrance, we found a line filled with toddlers and preschoolers that appeared to be at least 2.5 miles long. (Disney has mastered the queue–Bryan and I debated if queuing was an art or a science, but either way, there must be a significant amount of research that goes into how people determine that 75 minutes is indeed a reasonable amount of time to meet a fairy.)
I don’t have any photos of the wait, mostly because I spent the entire time trying to prevent Olivia from ingesting the hand sanitizer provided at every turn in the queue. She had disinfected every inch of exposed skin she could find, not stopping at her own. (By the way, Doug bestowed the nickname Stinkerbell on Liv this weekend–pretty appropriate, don’t you think?)
After almost an hour and a half, we reached the first fairy in Pixie Hollow. None of us could remember her name, but the mere sight of a Disney character made us feel as though we were making some progress. The girls hugged her in celebration.
By the time we rounded the next bend, Olivia could hardly contain herself. When she caught site of Tinkerbell, we literally had to hold her back so she didn’t crash through the rest of the people in line.
Finally!
In the end, Olivia was too shy to commit to a hug. Ava, on the other hand, would have listed to Tinkerbell preen over her costume all day.
Olivia warmed up just as we were ready to move on and allow the 1,200 people behind us a chance to meet Tinkerbell.
Ava, who had been on the lookout for pixie dust all morning, received just enough from Tinkerbell to find herself on Cloud 9 the rest of the day.
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