20 Months Old

Olivia turned 20 months old this past week and I know I say this every time I write a monthly update, but where does the time go? Olivia is an active, expressive toddler now. We can hold conversations with her and she will answer our questions.

Here is a little bit of what Olivia is into:

Singing: As evident by the last blog entry of Olivia singing Jingle Bells. By far, Jingle Bells is her favorite song to sing but she also learned a song at PMO she sings repeatedly, complete with a dance (but we can’t make out what the song is). She also sings “Take me out to the ballgame and buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks.”

Snowmen: Olivia’s favorite part of Christmas is the snowmen. She loves pointing to them all. I cut out some numbered snowmen using the Cricut and she likes to color them and count with them.

Counting: Olivia is into counting. She regularly counts from 1 to 8 and sometimes goes to 9.

Decorating: Olivia has loved decorating for Christmas, from her tree in her room, to the foyer tree, to the big tree in the living room. She likes to move around the ornaments. She especially loves all the decorations at Kulu and Gramps’ house.

The potty: Nana purchased a potty for Olivia that has brought much fascination. In the last week or so she has gone from playing on it and opening and closing the lid to sitting on the potty to almost using the potty. We don’t plan to rush her into potty training, but we do want her to get used to it.

Routine: It is so true what they say about toddlers liking routines. Everyday Olivia looks forward to "prising" dada when he walks in the door, taking dada's hand to get him to "play beans" the minute he gets home, and carrying one piece of mail from the mailbox.

Tantrums: Around the time we started getting rid of the pacifier (still a work in progress) Olivia discovered tantrums, complete with the arched back and kicking legs. The tantrums are not often (thank goodness) but enough that we are quickly working our way through some discipline books and determining what triggers these outbursts.

Reading: Olivia still loves her books and more and more likes to read to us. I posted a few versions of Llama Llama earlier, and here is a short video of Olivia reading an Elmo book.