I feel like so much happened this past year with me going back to work, Olivia starting school, and her transforming into a tiny human overnight that we can have full blown conversations with. I still can’t believe she just turned THREE. I am also so unbelievably glad that quarantine early last year allowed us to spend more time together so that I didn’t miss these incredible moments. 2020 wasn’t great, but it was kind of the best way to transition to going back to work if you ask me, as I could WFH but still got to be with my girl. Although at times it was WILD (seriously I still don’t know how we did it all) I am so thankful for our extra time together.
| STATS |
Since her last update she has had a 3 year checkup where she weighed in at a whopping 34lb (90th), was 38” long (70th), and even had a hearing test which she passed with flying colors. Also. She was such a pro. Just marched up and stood on the scale like she does it everyday, sat through her hearing test like a champ, and answered all of her doctor’s questions. Although when he asked what her favorite vegetable was she said cheese. Which is funny because she actually loves lots of vegetables but her pedi will never believe me. Also given how underweight she was for so long, it’s just blowing my mind she is in the 90th percentile. I never thought we’d see her that high. Girlfriend loves her snacks. Also she’s wearing 4T pants because her legs are so dang long the 3Ts look like capris. My parents are both tall so you’re welcome.
| EATING |
After literally eating veggie tots for every meal for far too long, Olivia is finally starting to get more adventurous with food. I’m also getting a lot more chill and have introduced (gasp!) cookies. I know. I’m a monster. Olivia and I are both vegetarian (and Derek is about 90% of the time) so I always make sure to watch her protein and iron intake. We all switched to oat milk (Oatly is our jam) and never looked back. I was tired of buying 3 different milks for everyone’s aversions so we all just made the leap to plant based milk and she just devours it. She is at preschool full time so I pack her a lunch which consists of a sandwich, cheese stick, fruit, and carrots. They provide breakfast (usually cereal) and snacks. Oh and cupcakes whenever it’s someone’s birthday. And trust me. We always know when it’s someones birthday because that girl is bouncing off the walls when I pick her up. For dinner she has a version of whatever we’re eating, but on days when I haven’t already prepped a meal she rotates between black bean and cheese tacos, chickpea pasta with plant based meatballs, mac and peas, yogurt (with alllllll the fixins), or a smoothie. Now that we’re all on the same schedule it’s so much easier to sit down and eat together as a family, and I’ve noticed that she is more likely to eat what we’re eating if we’re all sitting together. Lately she will ask for seconds or thirds which usually results in a banana or orange slices so that we can reserve some of the leftovers for our lunches at work lol.
| SLEEPING |
Olivia has been on the same sleep schedule since about 13-ish months. However, since starting school we’ve had to start waking her at 7am and have pushed her bedtime back to around 7:00-7:30 so that we can spend more time with her in the evenings. But depending on how exhausted or feisty she is from a full day at school, sometimes we skip a bath and get her in bed by 6pm ha. At school nap time is from 12:30-2:30 and she’s used to at least a 3 hour nap so she’s definitely tired when we pick her up. On the weekends she will sleep in until 9 or 10am and then nap for 3-4 hours just to catch up on all the sleep she isn’t getting at school. Girlfriend loves her sleep. Although it sounds great, it also kind of makes us sad because we don’t get to see her as much (but we wouldn’t dare wake a sleeping toddler woof). Side note: If you are in the throws of an infant (or toddler) sleep schedule (or are struggling with sleep regressions) I highly recommend this post to read about the method that worked for us and in turn created this incredible sleep schedule and happy child.
Oh. And she’s still rocking the crib. Her and no less than 50 stuffies (or buddies as we call them), 2 blankets, and a pillow.
| DOING |
Well with the theme of 2020 there hasn’t been a lot of “doing”. Which makes me sad because she is at such a fun age that I’d love to take her to splash pads, museums, the arboretum, zoo, vacations, etc. But sadly we haven’t been able to do any of those things. For the first half of the year we pretty much just stayed home and made our own fun. We read so many books, went on lots of walks (and talked about everything we saw), did lots of crafts, and tackled potty training (more on that later). Derek and I were both working from home while keeping her busy and would trade off mornings and afternoons, we’d work before she woke up, during naps, and then after she went to bed just to catch up. We took conference calls with her running around in the background which is basically just so normal now. We even broke down and got Disney+ for rainy days or when we both had meetings at the same time. She never really cared about screen time before and would never sit through more than 5min of a show. That was until we introduced her to Frozen. Now that’s our secret weapon when we need to hunker down and work without disruption. Her love for Anna and Elsa runs deep (hence her Frozen 3rd Birthday Party). Her vocabulary exploded around 26-27 months and we can legit have full blown conversations with her now. Which is tricky because she is so smart and knows so many words we have to remind ourselves that she’s only 3 whenever she acts out and doesn’t listen and we’re trying to reason with her (iykyk). In June I had to go back to working in the office so we enrolled her back in school and just continues to learn and grown everyday. Having her in school for a month, then taking her out for three, then putting her back definitely created some behavioral shifts which we weren’t prepared for. She started acting out at school (biting, running, hitting, potty training regression, etc.) to the point where we had to sit down with her teachers and come up with a plan. We bought all of the books, and all got on the same page so that our response at home aligned with what they did at school and within a few months she was back to her happy self. Can you imagine how confusing that would be for these kids? Being independent, then with your parents 24/7, then independent again. Poor thing. All is well now and we are all stronger and closer from it!
| MILESTONES |
Olivia has all of her teeth now, and I definitely think her 2 year molars (which took a while to come in) played a large part in her behavioral changes too. Between 24 - 26 months her vocabulary went from 25 words to over 1,000. I mean she even uses filler words like “because”, “actually”, “already”, and will say “I don’t think so” or “I don’t want to” rather than just “no”. She also loves to practice identifying letters and can even spell and read the word “love” regardless of the font, size, or color of the text she always knows when something says “love”. She can say her full name, which is pretty impressive since most adults don’t know how to say our last name. She can count to 20 and is working on counting to 100 and basic math. She knows her ABCs, but is still working on letter and number identification. She knows O for Olivia, B for Becky, D for Daddy, and G for Geoffrey, and many others (without word associations). She is working on tracing letters and numbers and holds her pencil better than most adults I know. She knows all of her colors, shapes, days of the week, seasons, animals, and we’re working on identifying different types of flowers. We also used our time at home to tackle potty training, which she mastered in about two weeks, but we’re still working on nighttime dryness. She even tells us when she needs to go potty when we’re in public or in the car. Which I am about 1000% against public restrooms even in a non-COVID world yuck. She knows how OCD I am and will literally keep her hands above her head the whole time we’re in one lol. Another huge milestone was learning empathy. This was a big struggle for a long time, and after reading lots of books about kindness and feelings she now understands when someone is sad, to the point that when we were deflating balloons from her birthday she scooped up each one and asked it if it was okay, while cuddling and kissing it. Empathy. She also understands consequences and cause and effect much more now which helps when redirecting, or disciplining her when she could get hurt or hurt someone else by her actions.
| FAVORITE MOMENTS |
We bought a house about a week before she turned 2, so we’ve been able to spend this year with much more space (which worked out since we were cooped up for most of the year). She has her own dedicated playroom now which she just loves and will constantly ask “will you come play with me?” We tried to make this year extra special since we felt like she was being deprived of so many activities and adventures, so once the summer heat started subsiding, we started going to a different park each weekend early in the morning before other families showed up. We would always leave when social distancing wasn’t an option and would hand sanitize immediately. We quickly learned which parks were the least active at any given point. Anyway. Watching her master playground equipment was incredible to see. She has no fear (thanks to a year at Little Gym) and will try any ladder or obstacle. She still doesn’t love crazy slides, but will do the more basic ones all day long (and make us crawl through all the things which makes me feel 100). She now asks us for hugs (Derek more than me) and randomly says I love you and it’s just the best. Meeting Anna on her birthday was also just the sweetest moment, and makes me super excited to take her to Disney World one day. She also loves singing songs she learns from school, teaching us what she’s learned (and literally sits like a teacher with a book and tells us all about it and quizzes us saying “good job mommy, you did it!” when I get it right. I’ve also enjoyed cooking and baking together and she just loves helping so much! The holidays were amazing this year (which made me sad that they were altered due to COVID but we still made sure they were special for her). For Halloween she kept changing her mind about her costume so in the end she was a cat lol but loved trick-or-treating. We only went to the houses where we didn’t have to interact with too many people and she really enjoyed it. Christmas was just magic. She was obsessed with driving around looking at lights, waiting for Santa to come, and hugging every blow up in our neighbors yards when we went for walks. I think my absolute favorite thing though is seeing her sense of humor blossom (which reminds me a lot of my sense of humor which makes me oh so happy). Like for example she has call backs from jokes made weeks ago. She holds onto them and will spit them out and we’re just on the floor laughing like how on earth did she remember that! She’ll also sarcastically give you a thumbs up when she’s not impressed but knows you need affirmation. Dead.