School days are back

Now that Kyle and Jenny are back in school we have to find other ways to entertain ourselves, especially when Mom needs to get some things done around the house. Olivia loves to play with Misty and this picture was so cute, like they are having a deep conversation on what trouble they can get into next. Misty taunts Olivia to get her to chase after her. It's good exercise and helps improve her walking and balance. Misty loves the extra attention too.

Olivia has three new teeth. A total of four on the bottom and three on top, as far as I can tell. We have really settled into a nice routine now and Olivia is thriving. We will need to go in for her 15 month immunizations and check up soon and will get an updated weight on her. Some days she sure feels heavier than others! She is still eating really well and likes all kinds of food. She had to have gained a few pounds since the last checkup.

She is still working on new words but for now just likes to imitate everything I do. She also babbles more everyday and uses a lot more expression in her babbling.

For now our days are filled with playing and learning reading book after book after book and of course, more pictures........

15 Months Old

Olivia is 15 months old today and you can see by the "then-and-now" pictures how she has changed so much from the sad, tired, scared, very limp, weak and unresponsive baby she was at 11 months old on Gotcha Day, May 14th.

Today she is remarkably stronger, so active and a very happy baby. The catching up she has accomplished came pretty easy for her since she is very determined and seems to concentrate so much on whatever her latest goal is.

Olivia is trotting around the house on her own and loves to be outside, although I've discovered what I had heard about Asian babies and bug bites is true with her. A mosquito bite can last forever on her and gets very red and sore so we are careful with that and waiting for the cooler weather to get here and slow down the bug population before spending too much time out there. She can entertain herself with her toys and is starting to sort of play-pretend with her kitchen set. She is also getting much more interested in books and is always bringing one to me to read. She won't sit and listen to an entire story but wants us to hold the books so she can turn the pages, point to pictures and we make up a shorter version of the story as she goes back and forth through the book many-many--many times.

She is also babbling all the time now, knows what Hi and Bye mean and everything else is "Ba". We can't wait for her to really start communicating (or can we?). She can be so goofy sometimes and once she finds something that makes everyone laugh she knows to stick with it.

It's pretty hard to remember what life was like before she came into our lives just four months ago. We're enjoying every minute!!

All Caught Up

Olivia's Physical Therapist, Dawn, has been very impressed with the progress we have made in the past 7 weeks. We have reached the all the goals we had set. When we started Olivia couldn't sit up without help and now she is standing up by herself and walking all over, getting into everything. She is drinking from her sippy cup and is now starting to experiment with talking more everyday. She now says "bye", while making her hand motion. Her personality is coming out more every week and is still a very happy baby. Dawn will be coming this week yet, just to sign off on paperwork and give us a few things to work on at home but then her therapy is done. We feel she is caught up to any normal American 14 month old baby.

Our next project is steps. Going up and down safely. Today she climbed all the steps from the basement to the first floor almost completely by herself. I just stayed behind to catch her while Misty nipped at my ankles. The two of them fight over my attention everyday. I will now work with Olivia on how to turn around and slide off of furniture on her belly instead of her idea of going down head-first. This will also help her in going down steps safely. She is so determined with everything I want her to learn it makes it pretty easy for me. Also, climbing up the steps is a really good way to tire out a very ambitious toddler.

Amazing!

Our goal of standing up without anything to climb up on has been reached already! On Thursday when Olivia's physical therapist was here she still didn't have the strength or coordination to get her feet under her and push herself up to stand from sitting down. So that was our task to work on for the week. Well, on Friday I took her out to the front lawn to play. She likes the grass and pulls it out. As I stayed across the lawn picking weeds and watching her from the corner of my eye she stood herself up all by herself and walked over to me. You can imagine the pride in her face for her new accomplishment. She just amazes me every week. She is so determined to work on her next goal and keeps working on it until she gets there. Then we all clap and cheer and she is thrilled. The pictures show the proof.

P.S. the last picture is not her being really snotty, for those who don't know, it is her version of "what a cow says". Her hands are doing "itsy bitsy spider" but her mouth is doing a cow. She thinks this picture is hilarious!!