Adventures of a toddler

This is basically the second half of February. The end of that month really warmed up and showed us what spring is like in Fresno (which we were very happy about!). The only bad thing is that every week or so it would snow in Oregon, reminding me of what I'm missing back home. I can't even express the anger I have about missing the snowiest year of my entire life. Oregon's weather better make it up to me when we make it back there.

So we start out with Valentine's Day. It's so funny to me to do all of the minor holidays with just our little family, especially with just one kid. I'm so used to the piles of candy and miscellaneous toys/gifts that it always seems silly buying just one little thing. In my house Valentine's Day was always a candy-centered holiday, but there are so many little toys and things that I want Olivia to have that I look for any opportunity to give them to her :). Thus the cleaning supplies. I'm sure there is a snarky comment in there somewhere about showing the girl in your life how much you love her with a broom and dustpan, but for this girl it totally did the trick. Olivia loves to help mommy, and this way she can still take my broom, but I at least have her half-sized one to do the trick!

Another new tradition in the making is holiday breakfast. I remember every holiday beginning with Cream of Wheat with a colored sugar design on top (red heart for Valentine's, green shamrock for St. Patrick's, etc). Some of my siblings will carry this tradition on I'm sure, but I won't be one of them. I happen to despise Cream of Wheat, and will probably never have it in my house, with the possible exception of using for baby food. I chose to do Jello hearts with nutella toast. Not especially healthy, but it works for me.

Couldn't help but post this extremely weird picture that I captured later in the day. I just told Olivia to say hi to Grandma, and this is what I got :)

Alex made a wonderful dinner (manicotti with salad and some other vegetable), but the real treat for us came after bedtime, when we had our official innauguration of the fondue pot. Yummy! We ate way morethan we could handle, and are about to pull it out again for a yummy treat date night soon.

During the end of January, Olivia transitioned from two naps each day to one. This has been wonderful for us, and allows us to do all sorts of things in the morning without rushing to be home by 10:30. It also means that I don't have to wake her up if she sleeps past her normal 8:30, and we don't have to go out between every nap for just one or two errand. However, one nap sometimes means a long morning, especially on tired days. One of these tired days came just a few days after Valentine's, on a Thursday. Just for reference, Thursday is 'song and dance' day at the library, where there is a lap sit infant/toddler time that we love. This goes until about 10:45, and on this particular day, Olivia sat on my lap, even declining to 'shake her silllies out' when the song came on.We had a couple more short errands to run before lunchtime, so i pulled out the mommy-daughter Great Harvest date as a last ditch effort to get some energy into her. This picture doesn't show anything, but it totally worked! During our time there (I get a fruit bar, she gets a free slice of bread), a woman came in with two dogs, and Olivia just perked right up and begged to play with them. After that she was super talkative, pointing out every animal she saw, from sides of trucks to packages at the grocery store. I'm not sure why this story stuck with me so much, except for the fact that I love Great Harvest, and I had a successful mommy moment :).

Olivia has turned into quite the shopping helper these last few weeks. She loves the grocery store (especially the donut that she gets to share with mom sometimes), and is always helpful when it's time to put the groceries away at home. I've had to strat being careful which bags I let her empty however, because she loves trying whatever she comes across. Most of the time it's a quick taste of a dirty potato (yuck!) or a lick of a kiwi (too fuzzy!), but this particular day she found something she loves...the tomatoes!

Guilty face...

Very protective of her new treat, she wouldn't even let me take the sticker off. P.S. I love the eyes in these pictures

 And what I was left with. The entire side is demolished, with most of the juice and seeds sucked out. I finally had to take it away because she was dripping and refused to sit still or go to her high chair, so I stripped her down and let her go play in the living room while I finished.

When I went to check on her, she was practicing her DJ skills! (Yes she really did this by herself, and no I don't normally let her run around naked...)

Discovered 'rossss' by our apartment, she loves to try to flip them over every time we leave the house.

First official corn on the cob (I think). Very successful, she loved it and chewed on it for a good ten minutes. It takes a lot to beat a hamburger, but corn apparently does the trick.

And we close out the post and the month of February with a little game of 'Oh, the places you shouldn't go'.

First, the toy buckets. She dumps them out to use as chairs regularly, especially her little people.

The sweep pile. This is my fault completely, because I've started telling her that if mom sweeps something up that she wants to keep she has to go get it before I finish. This totally worked the first two or three times, with her pulling out her fridge magnets or an animal or two before losing interest. Now, however, she goes into the pile and finds random old food from the corners of the kitchen and eats them...YUCK!

I honestly don't remember why or how this happened, or why she even tried sitting in this bowl, but it was super cute that she got all the way in. The cuteness ended a couple minutes later when she tipped over and hit her head on another metal bowl...oops!