Kid update: Olivia

With all the craziness of the past 9 months or so, I haven't been very good about taking time to write down all the wonderful things happening with the kids.

We are so enjoying the fun, delightful phases they are in!  So, without further ado, a little bit about our littles (and one big).

Olivia

Livvy Joy is two and a half today.  She is our little peanut, our tiny girl with the great big voice.

She has again returned to being an easy kid (thank goodness!), although she does make a point of holding her own as the littlest.  She enjoys bossing people around, and will tell you where to sit or go or what to play with without hesitation. 

She is still a momma's girl, but we've seen her branch out.  She adores Jacob, which is super sweet to watch.  She goes to church nursery and nursery at our school co-op without fuss.  She is about as sweet as they come, and is continually asking for hugs, "kuggles" (snuggles) and kisses.  She prefers to be carried down the stairs as opposed to walking by herself.  She always did enjoy being a baby, and she hasn't exactly lost that quality as yet.  

Her words and mannerisms are adorable, and I so desperately wish I could freeze time on this one.  She is funny, sweet, and absolutely adorable in the ways that she communicates.  Her sweet, heavy-footed, off-balance little toddler run makes me grin every time I see it.  The way she pronounces words; standing at the back door calling the dog to come in; the funny ways she phrases things: where me other hole? while struggling to put her undies or pants on all by herself.  Followed, triumphantly, by:  OH!  There my other hole is!  Silly Livvy!  The way she knows her mind, and will tell you what she wants and doesn't want.  No me yike dat! she'll exclaim at any offending item.  She melts my heart.

She is my little girl of song.  The child loves music, loves to dance and sing.  We began going to Music Together in the fall, and she fits right in.  Musical intelligence is definitely one of her strengths.  She has an amazing capacity for memorizing lyrics and turns much of what you say to her into a song of some sort.  

She is busy all the time.  She loves to sit at the table and work with the big kids.

And she is always finding ways to keep herself busy.  She likes to play by herself as much as she likes to play with her siblings. The phrase, yet me BE! often passes her lips when one of her well-meaning siblings tries to play with her or engage her in something they are working on.

She still does not much enjoy having her picture taken, and won't ham it up for the camera like some other little cheeseballs I know.  

She is silly, but often serious.  Her little brows will come together when she's thinking or focusing on something, and she spends much of her time looking downright angry.  But, she also knows how cute she is, and isn't afraid to use to her full advantage.

And when she doesn't want to do something... well, there's just no making her!

She potty trained in the fall, and is getting to be such a big girl that I can scarcely believe where the last two and a half years have gone.  

I'm so glad we get to spend the next 15 and a half making memories with her.

A letter to my baby girl

My precious one,

There are a few mind-boggling facts I've come to realize I'll simply never get used to.  Chief among them: I can grow humans right in my body.  It still seems like magic; too good to be true and certainly something that will prove wishful thinking when my eyes flutter open.

It's a miracle, this gift of bearing such intimate witness to something so wondrous.

It has been one year since you last lived inside me.  Since I felt your flutters and stretches, your hiccups and wiggles.  Since I wondered what you would look and sound like, and since I blessed that giant belly that housed you.

But the miracle of it all remains.  The gift of you, just as you are, is the greatest of all my life's gifts.  For the record, that does not mean I'm playing favorites.  It simply means that a mother's heart is capable of holding all her greatest loves and being lifted, rather than broken, by their weight.

My tiny treasure, you bring with you such joy.  It radiates out of you, bright and shiny, blessing all who are near.  You only care to gift them with this joy from afar; you are definitely a momma's girl.  Though you have finally begun to branch out, enjoying daddy, tolerating strangers and even going to the church nursery for the first time, you still spend the vast majority of your day attached to my hip.  We call you my little barnacle.

Can I tell you a secret?

I love it.

You have been less precocious about meeting your first-year milestones.  Where your big brother and sister could not wait to charge down that road and conquer every adventure, you are entirely content  to wander slowly through your babyhood, taking your time and enjoying each phase.

I love that, too.

You have delighted in being a baby, and I am contented by your sweet touches, shy smiles and even by how very much you still need me.  I am stretched more thinly now than ever before, but the wonder of it all is that I have never been happier or better at this difficult and uncertain job of mothering.

I think it's you who brings that out in me.

You round out our family so very perfectly.  God gave us exactly what we needed, before we ever dreamed that we needed it.  His hand and perfect timing are so evident to me each time I look at you, I sometimes wonder how I could ever have second guessed them in the past.

Thank you, my beautiful girl, for every second of joy you have brought this family over the last year.  You are a wonderful, BIG miracle.

I love you.  I love being your mommy.

With love and gratitude,

Mommy
xoxo

Weeks 2 & 3

My sweet little lady is going to be a seasoned traveler before she's even two months old.

Partly because - that's right - we are going to HAWAII in October (squeeeaaal!  More on that later).

But also because we had to do something a little less fun, but definitely worth it: we took a little road trip to Idaho to celebrate my grandma's life.  That means, at three weeks old, she has now been to three states: Wyoming, Utah and Idaho.

The trip itself was wonderful.  And horrible.  It was hard to have to really face, in that very final way memorials bring about, that my grandma is no longer with us.  On the other hand, it was so healing and fun to be around family and reminisce and celebrate her life.  I sure miss that lady.

The kids are great travelers, and do an awesome job in the car for all those hours.  And, luckily, generally they're all good sleepers anyway, regardless of where we are...

Another fun highlight of the first two weeks was a quick day trip to Evergreen Lake, where we took a paddle boat out and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.  

Livvy got to go too, though you can't exactly tell!  She's wrapped up in the Moby wrap - inside the life jacket.

She also got to go to the doctor to get pricked and poked and prodded, breaking Mommy's heart.  Third child, and it definitely doesn't get any easier to watch.  She weighed 7 lbs, 13 oz, almost a pound up from her birth weight. Go, baby girl!

She is already an amazing sleeper.  She goes to bed beautifully, sleeps about four hours at a stretch, and would be practically perfect if she didn't like to wake up and hang out from about 4 a.m. to around 5:30.

It's not my favorite time of day, but I do love that little face...

A few other photos from weeks two and three:

I know, super high quality photos.  Camera phones... what can you do?  A few other things worth mentioning from these weeks:

• She smiled her first deliberate, non-gas related little smile.  At Mommy, so all is right with the world.
• She rolled over from her back to her tummy.
• We attended three birthday parties, including Piper and Teddy Vidulich's, Cousin Grey's, and Nora Fries's - though I wasn't so much on camera duty for those.
• She was held countless times by big sis, and loved on by big bro.  

This kid.  Oh my word, how we love her.