Rock and Roll All Night and Potty Everyday. (well, maybe once a day)

If you're not careful, the expectations and pressures from everyone around you can drive you mad. When it was close to the milestone we were constantly bombarded with people telling us we needed to put her on her stomach as she would never crawl. Then everyone seemed to want to drag her around by her arms trying to make her walk. Now I've noticed that there are lots of people that take their baby's bottle away from them at a very young age, and I'm not sure why? I was even told "Only babies drink from bottles". Well, what is 2? A teenager? In this day and age where we are so afraid of kids growing up too fast, wouldn't it be good to be more relaxed about this type of thing? I mean she's not 8 walking around sucking on a bottle? Now we're reaching potty training time and I've been told:

1) Lazy parents have babies who potty train late or slow

2) Reward her with treats like a dog. One person (who shall remain nameless...you know who you are!) even said she used this tactic because that's how they trained RETARDED kids!!hahahahahahaha

3) You have to make it a full time project or she won't respond. What -will she poo in her pants forever if I don't teach her? All I know is I don't like to poo my pants. Do you?

The ridiculous thing about this parenthood job is, even though it's one of the hardest projects you will ever have, human beings are pretty amazing and evolved. It seems that everything she has needed to do, she has definitely done in her own time and not outside of the regular scope of what "they" say is "normal" (who are THEY and what the hell IS normal?....do I sound like Andy Rooney?hahaha)

And breastfeeding. Please don't judge. I'm not going to be one of those moms who pulls my boob out in the middle of a store or restaurant, I'm very conscious of it and she doesn't really want it that much, but I am choosing to wean her slowly. (regardless, this isn't any of your business, those of you who seem to have an opinion) There have been so many different trends and generations that are so vastly different. Really whatever works best for people should be tolerated. Why does it have to be such a big deal? I know from family members I get offside comments when she asks for "Bo" (her word for boob) that she's too big for that. Just stop already. YOU are too big for it so stop acting like somebody should stick a boob in YOUR mouth!!! DOH.....is that my outside voice?

Should I tell you how I REALLY feel?

On a lighter note, and playing on the other part of the title - Rock and Roll is something Olivia says daily. She dances daily to KISS. While I don't have a video of her with that music, here is one with the Dixie Chicks from a while back. (she's over them now and refuses to dance to this song, although if I sing it she identifies it as Dixie Chicks)

Parental Bias?

So, I used to roll my eyes as a dance teacher when people told me their child was "gifted" or "special" (clap-clap). And now, here I am, a parent......and I fight saying something of the sort about my own child. I don't want to be one of those bragging parents. I still remember being in the hospital, the day after Olivia was born, hearing Bill tell someone on the phone "She's a smart baby" and thinking, What the hell? How can you tell how SMART she is? Her eyes are barely open!? But then as the day wore on, this little tiny person had such an intense stare. It was like she had some extreme purpose for being here right from her first breath. If you look back in our blog, you can see that she was put in intensive care where she promptly ripped a feeding tube out of her nose letting everyone know what she would stand for. This kid has spirit, let me tell you. And as much as it makes things challenging, it is the most unbelievable example of life to me. Yes, I'm exhausted and no, she doesn't sleep very much. But I wouldn't have it any other way. She is one of the most interesting, intuitive, funny people I have ever met. (my mom says she's restless because I tapped danced too much while I was pregnant!)

She is surrounded by dynamic, open minded, cool, artsy people and it is only adding to this. We are so lucky to have such cool people in our lives and she feels very social with them all . Anytime I answer the phone she says "Mama, who dat?". And then she picks up the extension some of the time and says "Come over". Her new thing is trying to hold hands with everyone. She has also taken it upon herself to introduce us all at the park, "This is dada (or a few times "Bill") and Mama", and then she points to herself, "Olivia!".

One of the things she really loves is coming to the "Tappy" studio. Here is a clip from a while back of her tapping in her party dress. (yes, how annoying - dance clips of my child. Well, you're here reading, aren't you?)

Jennifer

Colours!

This is one of Olivia's favorite videos right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aimaqnRJPM. It's called Peep of a different color. Birds find cans of paint and change their own colors.

Olivia knows red, blue, purple, yellow, and pink. We started calling them Elmo red, Big Bird Yellow, and Abby pink, etc. She was saying this last January in Maui. There was a big flower by our room outside. She would say "Elmo red" every time we passed it.

Now she's painting and getting to know colours even better!

Hanging on the patio

We have a patio that is almost the same size as our apartment inside. It's 500 square feet, and is totally saving us right now with Olivia. We have a water slide (it hooks up to a hose and sprays water down the plastic slide) from Susinn Macfarlane, a Barbie blow up wading pool (our neighbour, Christine, brought home from a corporate booze up - the beer was in there), a "step 2" wagon from David Marr and Kathleen Barr, a "little tikes" toy riding car (from Aunt Faye), and a "little tikes" table (also from Barr/Marr) full of poster paints and brushes. Right now Olivia is sitting with her DVD player and a stack of 19 DVDs. You're probably thinking, "she shouldn't be watching DVDs". So what. I wouldn't be writing in the blog if we were doing any of the other activities on the patio. She is watching one DVD for 30 seconds, then changing it herself, and watching another DVD for another 30 seconds, etc.

Donna, the neighbour upstairs hangs over her balcony and talks to her frequently. She often calls "DONNA!" like Romeo to Juliet. Donna comes out most of the time. It's a great setup, and makes it hard to find a place bigger (with a bedroom for Olivia) that has the same patio.

OK, that's it for today.

Bill

OK! We're back!

It has been 15 months since we wrote anything here. It probably means that those months are the most difficult in child rearing, because it has gone by in a flash! Olivia's 2nd birthday was last Friday (See photos). I wanted to make sure we recorded two things at age two: 1) her height (pediatritians and new age types say that if you double a baby's height at age two, you will find her adult height), and 2) what she can say an do at age two.

1) Her height is 2' 91/4" which means she will be exactly 5' 61/2' when she is full grown.

2) Songs she sings: Elmo's World Theme, Jingle Bells (sung with one word from the Elmo show. The first song she ever sang was "Sky Sky Sky" sung to the tune of jingle bells. She even called Elmo "Sky" for about 12 months), March March Robots, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Songs from Mary Martin's Peter Pan: (I'm flying, Tender Shepherd, I gotta crow), Caillou Theme, Hold out your hand, Gumby Theme Song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Thomas the Tank Engine Theme, Ring around the rosy, Barney's Theme song (I love you, you love me) .... there are more, but these are the main ones. You can tell we let her watch DVDs. So what.

Word vocabulary: Take it. NO! Toys? Phone. Bath. Car. Mama's Car, Dada's car, Uh oh, Hug, That one, bee, baby, bug, (Sesame street characters) Abbey, Oscar, Cookie Monster, Grover, Elmo, big bird, Ernie, etc., what's that? Gumby and Pokey, ice cream, oh thank-you mama, real thomas the train, grandma, grandpa, Laura, Mike, Faye, Marsha, Byron, Betsy, Kathi, Christine, Virginia, Emily, Teryl, Londyn, Saige, Brooke, Sanders, Cailin, Matilda, Amelia, Barb, (sorry if I missed anyone). Mama's at work, bottle, Dora (the explorer), what are you doing? where are you going? hockey, who's that? (she says this alot when we say hi to a stranger), want to go to the PARK? Baby do it. Olivia.

Physical: she can jump with both feet off one stair onto the ground without wiping out. Open an umbrella (but can't close it), dance to "rock 'n roll all night" by Kiss, yoga, jumping in place, tap dances with shoes on, spins, pour water from one cup into another only spilling about half, climb into her car seat, climb onto a high stool, sit on the stool and eat dinner (instead of her high chair),

OK, that's enough for today. The intention is to write here more often. Let's hope it happens.