Mother's Day

This was my third Mother's Day. I got lots of cards, phone calls and texts telling me how loved I am and encouraging me to keep on keeping on. It was a high tech day; not only did I receive text greetings for probably the first MD in my experience but I also decided that I am going to document them with video so that I can enjoy them for as long as I can work my way around a computer. I'm kinda sentimental like that.

It was the most relaxing day that I've had in a long time. Chris made a brunch that was out of this world for my mom and me. The omelettes were light and full of flavor and the pancakes were strawberry-licious! And speaking of pancakes watch the video to see how Liv feels about syrup.

The evening ended with me spending some girl time with my favorite ladies knitting and chatting.

Talented from head to toe

Olivia's creativity is without a doubt one of her greatest assets. She is an avid dancer, singer, story teller and artist.

A few months ago while I was on maternity leave I noticed a drawing on her chalk board. I assumed Chris had helped her draw it. A few days passed as Chris and I were both deeply involved in Violet's feedings, diaper changes, medication and doctor visits. I kept looking up and seeing that drawing on the chalkboard and finally found myself in the same room with Chris for a few moments. I asked him if he'd helped Liv with the picture on the chalkboard. He said no; he thought that I'd helped her with it. When we realized that neither of us had helped her we were both in awe and got up to get a closer look at her work. She'd drawn a nicely shaped circle and filled it in with straight and diagonal lines that impressively stayed within the circle.

A few days ago she painted two pictures of Mickey Mouse. And it looked just like the Mickey Mouse icon that you see at the beginning of Walt Disney movies. First of all, it's amazing that she remembered what Mickey Mouse looks like. We don't let her watch much television and she doesn't see many movies. I think she has seen maybe one half hour episode of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and a few other times we've pointed out pictures of Mickey to her. The pictures she drew had one large circle in the middle of the paper and two slightly smaller circles on the top left and top right of the large one. They were mostly black with some red and green. The first one she drew had one of the ears touching the head. Neither Chris, Christine or I said anything about that but as she showed her work to Grandpa Jim she noted that she'd made a mistake and pointed to that spot.

Olivia sings a lot. She makes up her own lyrics to familiar tunes but also makes up her own songs entirely. And most of her dancing routines have a fantastic finale of her on the floor in some kind of spinning move ending with a leg lifted in the air. One of the cutest things I've seen her do is to slap her tambourine on her hip while dancing. That girl's got some moves I tell ya!

This morning while sitting at the table she pointed to the fourth seat that didn't have any oatmeal or smoothie and said "What about Emily?" I said "Emily who?" She said "Emily, Clifford's girl." Her imagination is powerful. Chris and I have even learned how to use it to our advantage too. When she asks for something that we don't have (or don't want to give her), like a cookie, expensive phone or camera, we'll pretend like we're giving it to her. And you'd be surprised how often she says "Thanks" and pretends to take it from our hands without skipping a beat. Of course this can backfire. Like tonight when I was in a rush and needed her to wash her hands. I said "Liv, where's your stool?" She reached an empty hand to me and said "Here it is!" I think the theater is in this girl's future.

A few funny quotes from Olivia

After eating 5 pancakes at Grammy's house Olivia turned to Grammy and said "I don't really like pancakes."

While painting rocks to look like ladybugs she said to Mommy "Don't make your mistake face."

After sneezing on her library card she said to Mommy "I bless youd on my card."