20 months

Olivia is 20 months old this week! I can't imagine how 20 months have passed, but I can't imagine that there were 29 years that passed before I officially met her...29 years, and 5 days to be exact. It's hard to remember life without her. Here are some new things for her:

• Serious Elmo obsession. She is bored by all tv characters, with three exceptions:

1. "Melmo"--She whines for "Melmo, Melmo, Melmo" way too much. I have a current ban on Sesame Street, because she'll whine to watch him anytime she's grumpy, and throughout the whole episode if we do turn it on, she'll whine through any part during which Elmo isn't front and center-- apart from one other short segment, which brings me to #2.
2. "Cookie" or the Cookie Monster can usually hold her attention, and she'll even try to growl "Cookie, Cookie, Cookie" the way he does.
3. Olivia the Pig, which she doesn't even attempt to pronounce. She's primarily interested in the theme song, which makes her come running in from another room if she hears it start, and laugh out loud every time it's complete. In case you don't know it, the Olivia the Pig theme song literally only sings "Olivia" over and over throughout. It must be vanity that reels her in. She has about a 5 minute max attention span for the show itself after the song ends.

• She has many more words, and she'll occasionally combine two. We can sometimes get her version of "I love you." out of her. Otie has gone from "Oh" to "Oy".
• She's still good at giving hugs and big open mouth kisses, but she's getting better at little pecks, too.
• She learned how to roll in Gymnastics or Kickin' Athletics, as they call it at school. They just have a teacher come out to the school and put out tumbling mats in their class and work with them. I've seen her practicing at home. It's not a forward roll, but more of a side roll as if she were rolling down a hill.
• Speaking of her roll, we were playing in the backyard for an hour or so after school on St. Patty's day (when I took all of these pictures--the weather was fabulous!) and she was being very testy with the stairs. I probably told her 30 times to either sit down to climb them or move away from them, but as she was taking a swig of milk, she took one big step too far and tumbled all the way down the 6 or 7 steps on the longer side, right onto the stone at the bottom. I was right there but couldn't grab her quick enough, and I screamed like a little girl. Thank God, she was totally unharmed. Not a scratch or a bruise, and I think my scream scared her more than the fall. She's a very tough girl.
• She's very independent. Wants to feed herself with a spoon/fork. No help, thank you. This creates a pretty big mess, but I'm learning to deal. We usually just take off her clothes after dinner til bath time.
• She's still quite the fit-thrower. She always has been, but the independence thing has amplified it. She will LOSE HER MIND if she isn't allowed to do things exactly her way on her own time. She also gets very frustrated when we can't understand what she wants.
• She's a fantastic cuddle bug when she wants to be. But even when she's not feeling cuddly, she prefers to sit ON TOP OF ME, rather than next to me, and she doesn't just sit, she climbs all over me. She does this to Colin, too, but not to the same degree.
• She's still so blankie obsessed. We've gotten in the routine of me saying "Let's put your blankie in your bed for tonight" each morning because EVERY time I pick her up from bed, she scoops up at least 1, sometimes 2 or 3, of her blankets and tries to take them with her. As soon as I put her in bed at night, she grabs her "lovey" to snuggle her face into, and I cover her up with a big one.
• Bedtime's moved back in the last couple of months from 7:30 on the dot, to 8:15-ish. She just wasn't ready for bed as early, and was waking up too early if we let her cry herself to sleep at the usual time, so it was obviously a needed change.
• Her hair has finally grown out enough that she has lots of curls in the back. I love it. And we've gotten more comments on how much she looks like me lately. We still have plenty of people who think she's Colin's Carbon Copy, but it's nice to be recognized in her occasionally!