Today Olivia's friend Jaxon came over to play. At one point I put Olivia in her crib because she needed a time out. Well, next thing I know I hear Jaxon in her room. I even hear him in the crib with her. And then she suddenly is pulling on me to get my attention to tell me something. Jaxon taught her how to climb out of the crib!! She's two, almost three, and until yesterday had never climbed out of the crib before. It was a mixed emotion for me. On one hand I was happy she had finally come to this milestone. On the other, I knew exactly what it meant. My worst fears were confirmed when I put her to bed and she climbed out and came out three different times for three different reasons. Now the real bedtime battles will begin.

The other day Olivia told me she wanted to read me a book. She told me to sit down on the floor, while she sat on the ottoman to her chair. She picked up the book, I don't remember what it was. She looked at the pages, then turned the book around so I could see it, pointed to something on the page, and said "What's that?"

I responded to whatever it was, and she would say "That's right," then turn the page, and repeat the process. Apparently that's how we read books to her!

She does have one book she really does read (well, I guess she has it memorized)--"Hurry Hurry." She will read the entire book to you. So cute.

She has this thing where she's a little compulsive about wipes and cleaning herself. She'll get hold of a wipe and wash and wash and wash herself with it, wiping her face and hands. She thinks wipes make great toys.

The other day she was coloring--she drew a black circle, with long tentacles reaching out from it. "Spider" she told Wyatt. I don't know who showed her how to draw a spider. But she did. Yesterday she was coloring on her magnadoodle, and drew a little girl--a head, with eyes, a mouth, and hair. I was very impressed. She's not even two and a half yet! I don't want to be one of those parents who thinks their child is the next Picasso, but at the same time, she definately is both observant, and coordinated in her coloring.

She loves planes--she's always making them with her blocks. She'll fly around, arms outstretched like an airplane. And she repeats--"Mommy go on airplane"--a leftover thought from my recent trip to Texas.

She is such a little sponge too. Anything you say, or anything that happens, she will repeat over and over again. She still tells me once every couple days about the time she got soap in her eye (about two months ago), or whenever I'm on my bike, she'll say "Mommy Crash" (about a month ago). Any new words we say seem to stick to, because it will be weeks later that we will revisit something, and she still remembers the vocabulary of it.

It's actually really fun to watch her little human brain and personality develop.

That's what I hear echoing down the hall every couple hours. 

That's right. We're back into potty training. I thought I'd give it one last go before the weather got nice, and I couldn't bear to be locked in the house for weeks on end. We started three weeks ago. I thought if I could get her trained in two weeks, before I left for Texas, we would be ready to go for summer. 

The first two and a half days were pretty bad. Olivia didn't seem to get exactly what she was supposed to do. Somewhere on the third day, she finally went "pee-pee in the potty." (My potty language is pretty rudimentary these days) After that it was probably another week where she would go potty if I asked her to, but if she needed to go, and I didn't happen to ask, she wouldn't volunteer the information. We were about 50/50 in our success/failure. 

Finally, a day or two before I left, she started going to the potty on her own. She still wouldn't tell me, but she would disappear into the bathroom, and minutes later I would hear the chant victorious: "I DID IT MOMMY! I GET A TREAT!" -- (I've been scrambling for treats. It seems what ever potty treat I buy for the girl, her daddy eats. He thinks he should get a treat for all the years he's been going potty!)

Then yesterday, the biggest break through of all. In all this time, Olivia has never gone "pooh-pooh" in the potty. She only poops once a day usually, so if I didn't catch her at just the right moment, and she had an accident, we'd have to wait until the next day. Without going into too much detail on the scheduling of my daughters bowel movements, let's just say we have been pathetic in getting her poop and the potty together. 

Then yesterday she had once again disappeared. I hear movement in the bathroom, but it's been longer than previous visits. I go in, suspicious, and find that she's pulled the toilet brush out from the cabinet. In the midst of my scolding, I look over to see a long brown poop sitting in beautiful contrast to her lime green toilet. 

"HURRAY!" I shout, "You Did It!" I grab the phone. We call daddy. "Heaven must be smiling on us" he says, with a hint of relieved exhaustion in his voice. We look to find the best treat ever. There are none to be had. Daddy has eaten them all. We shout "Hurray!" some more and break out the fruit snacks.

I know we still have a ways to go. But it seems we've reached the summit.

This is my first article posted to Andrea's site. So there I was just working away at the office doing an economic value added analysis for a rental property when the phone rang. Andrea was way excited and told me to listen to Olivia, then whispered in her ear, "I pee-pee in the potty, daddy!" All of a sudden cap rates didn't mean a thing since for the last two years, I have changed 95% of diapers for both our kids. It just so happened that all I wanted for Christmas was for Olivia to be potty trained. I just know that Santa saw how good I have been all year and decided to bring me Christmas early. Now, Olivia tells us that she needs the potty all the time even when she doesn't. She does a little dance before she uses it (for obvious reasons) and a little dance of joy after as she munches on her candies for using the potty. I'm hoping that in less than six months, there will be no more diapers for our big girl- that and a new GPS Navigation system for the car!! That's all I really want for Christmas!

So there we were, totally minding our own business, in Sacrament meeting today, and there's a musical number. So this guy gets up to sing "O Holy Night," and he has, seriously, the best male voice I have ever heard in person. He hit every note perfectly. It was beautiful. So we're listening to him sing. And Olivia is TOTALLY INTO IT. She is ENTHRALLED. She sat perfectly still, her eyes on him. Wyatt tried a few times to distract her with smiles and toys, but she wouldn't have it. She was completely entranced. So he sings this beautiful song, and when it's over, the piano guys stands up, and the singer closes his book and starts to walk away, and Olivia, realizing the song is over, yells at the top of her lungs, for all in the congregation to hear . . . "HURRAY" Needless to say it broke the spell of enchantment that had come over the room, as everyone tried (not very successfully) to stifle giggles at Olivia's enthusiasm. I laughed (silently of course) so hard that I cried. What a doll.