Olivia has six teeth and she likes cleaning them whenever she sees her toothbrush. And apparently thanks to them she makes funny faces. She claps her hands when I say “clap clap” and she dances when she hears music (and she tries to dance even when standing alone). She likes throwing a ball and then catching it climbing over everything that comes in her way. She can say Mom and show Daddy whenever she hears him or is looking for him.
Well, we really “enjoyed” last week. Olivia obviously found out that she needs other teeth after all and now it seems that they sprout out all at once. The top right one is already out. When I ask her to kiss me, she leans to me with an open mouth. She can put her hands behind her head and loves to play “baram baram buc”. When she finishes something or she doesn’t want to do it anymore she shows it’s done with her hands.
Olivia finally sits while she is playing and it’s really nice to watch her. She can get angry when things go wrong and she turns her nose up at anything she doesn’t want. At her grandparents’ house she learned to crawl up the stairs. She also went four steps down upside down and then back up snarling that it didn’t go quite well. At home she already tried it sideways, so I think it’s getting better.
I think Olivia doesn’t understand unwrapping Christmas gifts yet, but she likes their content very much. To my great joy she started to use sign language eg. the light is turned on, she finished eating and she is going to wash her hands, hand waving bye bye, how tall she will be and her grandma taught her to rotate her hand when she asked how she is. Successfully, she goes on a potty several times a day and enthusiastically watches flushing a toilet.
I’m able to get our baby dressed only while she’s standing. I can force her to lie on her back only a very short time while I’m changing her nappy. Once she has a new one , she rolls over on her tummy, grabs the nearest toy and at the first opportunity she stands up. But she already gives us little hugs and kisses, so I cannot really blame her for anything :).
Olivia is fascinated by everything that causes some action i.e. switches, buttons causing the sound, she is very interested in the traffic lights and she looks curiously in the elevator. And when she is excited about something she squeals loudly (e.g. when she listens to her favorite music, when we go outside and then back home). Everything that moves is interesting as well like cars and bicycles. Recently, a painter was at our home.
I recently painted a tree on the wall in Olivia’s bedroom to make it cosier. I painted with watercolors so I could wash it in the worst case. But it turned out pretty well so I maybe paint there some animals later on. We already thought about moving Olivia to her own room when she stopped sleeping in the bedside crib, but there were two things that discouraged me to do it.
Among her friends, who she plays with, she is the only one who can stay, has a lot of hair and no teeth. She is going through another growth spurt and so it’s a little bit more difficult to put her in sleep. Most recently, we play hide and seek games and she laughs a lot and we all crawl throughout our home. Today, she was finally brave enough to crawl under the table and chair.
In conversation, I found the most difficult to be able to look at the topic from the perspective of the other person, to learn to listen and see the other one positively. It’s called assertive communication and it has fascinated me for a long time. It’s difficult to learn but I have to say that Olivia is the perfect trainer. She cannot speak, so in this sense I cannot misunderstand her or be offended.
Olivia is not standing on her tiptoes anymore but the whole feet and she starts cruising. She just lacks some kind of a survival instinct, because sometimes while standing she stops holding the object with her hands and then she looks surprised when falling down onto her back. Once she stands up, she doesn’t really want to sit down. She only kneels or sits down when she is pretty tired and she cannot stand any longer.