(My First) Father's Day

Better late than never posting about Father's Day I guess.
Friday evening the three of us went to Columbia for dinner with some friends. They have a 4 year-old and thought it would be fun to see Olivia and him together, along with catching up with Emily and Rob. We had a good dinner and Olivia did pretty well despite not getting much in the way of naps that day. After dinner we dropped Olivia off with Mima and Grandpa Rob. Lulu happened to be staying with Sheri from work, she requested a weekend play date with her since she loves Lu, and thinking nothing of it, I obliged. I had promised her that she could have Lulu on a weekend when she wanted and this was her requested weekend. Brooke's master plan was falling into place right in front of my face and I was oblivious. The plan as I heard it was that Olivia would stay with Mima and Grandpa Rob Friday night and then they would bring her back Saturday afternoon. Little did I know this was not the case.
I woke up Saturday morning, ate breakfast and was getting ready for a run when I heard the shower running at about 8:00. This was strange, Brooke is never awake before 11:00 on weekends. She emerged from the bedroom and said, "Go shower, we are taking a trip." My immediate thought was "great, we are going to Target in Simpsonville and possibly BabiesRUs, just what I want to do on a weekend." I showered, got dressed and noticed the leashes on the entertainment center. Then saw Brooke wheeling out a suitcase. I realized that maybe Target wasn't on her mind after all. I put the suitcase in the trunk of the car and saw dog food, another suitcase, pillows etc. Definatly not Simpsonville here.
Brooke told me that we were going on a surprise Father's Day trip with just the two of us and that Livi was staying with Rob and Marcia for the weekend. Sad to be away from Livi for part of Father's Day, but a weekend with just adults, awesome!!
Brooke broke down and told me we were going to Charleston. We were dropping the dogs off with Marcia and Rob, so that makes 4 dogs, 1 cat, and 1 baby for their weekend, 0 animals and 0 babies for us, SCORE!!
We arrived in Charleston and ate at a little "dive" sandwich shop that was very good actually. After lunch, we drove to the downtown market area and started the long process of finding a FREE parking spot. After about 1/2 hr of looking, we decided to pay to park a few blocks away. We had a great time looking at all the shops and in the flea market style area in the middle. It was hot hot hot though. We were both drenched. Should have listened to Marcia and brought a towel to wipe ourselves off with.
After shopping, we headed to the hotel. We got checked in and had just enough time to shower before heading to dinner. Brooke surprised me with a fancy Sushi restaurant for dinner. I had not had sushi since I left Florida and had been craving it for a while. I got a very good sushi fix!! After dinner we headed back to the downtown market area for another round of 1/2 hours of driving looking for a parking space, where there were a few good dessert places. Again, after wasting time driving, we headed to the parking garage and parked. We ended up at a desert place that has no menu. They make all their desserts fresh daily and what they make is what they have. Brooke got a turtle cheesecake and I got a mountain of chocolate cake. After we were through, we were both stuffed and decided to walk it off for a while now that it wasn't so hot. We walked back by some of the shops we saw earlier until we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
The next morning we had to get up early because Brooke had another surprise expedition planned for us. We were going on a kayak tour. I was very excited, yet another thing I have not done since Florida and had been craving. As it turns out, the group of 5 that were scheduled to go on the tour with us cancelled so it was just Brooke and I along with the tour guide. Made the trip allot more enjoyable. We saw dolphin and learned all about the native birds that roost there. It was an awesome kayak trip. Just what I needed.
After kayaking we headed back to Columbia to have a late lunch with Marcia, Rob and Livi, then head home for the evening and receive Lulu from Sheri. It was a great first Father's Day. I will remember it always, especially next year when I will probably just get new socks or a tie :-)
Lulu was happy to be around her main snack source, and wore her bib in anticipation.

All Boxed Up..

Olivia is all boxed up and ready to ship to Grandma. Ok, not really. Didn't mean to get any hopes up. We received some new throw pillows in the mail the other day and Brooke decided to have some fun with the box they came in. Olivia seemed to enjoy it.
We are still having problems keeping her away from cords, though she seems to slowly be learning "No". I imagine with her personality "No" will become her name, perhaps with "Stop" as her middle name.
Olivia has been pulling her self up a lot lately. She may be an early walker, she defiantly has the legs for it. Brooke got to witness and amazing feat, Olivia pulled herself up on the sliding glass door to get a better look at the dogs. I don't have any idea how she did this, but it sure was cute.

Self Propelled "Furniture"

I feel bad. This morning I was more tired than normal, didn't get enough sleep so during my normal routine of wake Olivia, change Olivia, feed Olivia, feed dogs, let dogs out, wash baby bottle, etc, etc. (I am getting exhausted just reading this list!!) I made a mistake. Setting Olivia down on the floor and going and washing out her bottle, I headed back into the dining room to log the amount of formula she drank. As I walked out of the kitchen I caught a glimpse of Lulu's tail by the couch, and since Lulu is never more than 2 feet from Olivia, my mind just assumed she was with our little "O". Well I turned the corner of the table and my shin came in contact with a hard object that I would normally assume was Zoe's head. It was not, it was my baby's little head. That is when the crying started, from Olivia as well as me. I felt so bad, it was a good whack to the head with my shin. She didn't cry too long. My hugging and bouncing may have helped a little but I knew all was ok after she caught a glimpse of Lulu near my feet and she started her normal "there is my puppy" laugh through her tears. So even though I cant get her to stop crying, at least I know the dogs can.

On another note, I am including a picture from Olivia's first play date with the daughter of one of the professors here. This was from a few weeks ago, but fun to look at either way. Notice that Olivia has the stuffed animal. She loves her stuffed animals!!

New Hair

Just a quick picture of the new Olivia hair style. Well, not her always hairstyle, but a new hairstyle.
Olivia is showing a love for music. There are some commercials that come on that she shows an extra liking to, but for the most part, she will stop what she is doing and look at the tv when a commercial with music comes on. It is pretty cute. She can be sitting facing away from the TV entirely and when her commercial comes on she gets a cute look on her face and turns her head around as far as she can. We will have to start having the radio or CD's on more often for her to start developing her favorite genre.

The Teenage Baby

Life may not have been peaceful before Olivia started crawling but it was somewhat easy. Lay her on her back, give her a toy, go make dinner. Lay her on her back, give her a toy, go to the bathroom, etc etc. What a difference two little hands and two little knees working synchronously can make. Now life is lay her on her back, give her a toy, go to the kitchen, turn around and there she is looking up at you in a puddle that is a mixture of drool and what ever she ate recently, with a big smile on her face. Of course it doesn't end there. There is the grabbing of the glass of iced tea that is sitting too close to the edge of the coffee table. Next thing you know you are cleaning up tea off the carpet, and changing a diaper that is not we from pee, but wet from tea. And the electrical cords. I ask why is it that dogs' and babies' main purpose in life is to either hold or chew electrical cords. Our living room is a mess with toys and bones, yet the only thing Olivia wants to do is grab the nearest cord, most preferably my laptop cord, which is already close to not carrying current due to Lulu eating through most of it. All of these changes seemed to happen over night. As soon as Olivia started crawling, she was into everything she could get her hands on, and the stuff she couldnt get, she wanted even more. Ugh.
Olivia has also started showing us more of her stubborn personality, which we know will be dominant as she gets older. She likes to clamp closed her mouth at some feedings, particularly her night time bottle feeding before bed, and squirm and even cry. You take the bottle away and she settles down a bit and just looks at you with milk dripping all around her mouth because the nipple was pushing on her lips and gums, trying to get in the mouth, and we now have Level 3 nipples that flow like a garden hose which makes it worse. Then you bring out the applesauce or bananas to get something in her before she sleeps and the mouth opens like nothing is wrong. Like we always say, she knows what she wants. Sometimes she can be my little snottybug.
Naps have changed as well. Her new routine, now that she is an expert at crawling and sitting up, is to sit and play in her crib for a while before deciding it is now sleep time. Naps dont happen because we said sleep time, she has to sit around for a while and then say "NOW it is sleep time." So in this "play-nap" time, she has discovered how to untie the bumper of the crib. She reaches over it, pulls the strings, unties it and chews on the string. Brooke decided it may be time to remove the bumper and see what happens, so she did. 10 minutes later, she heard loud crying from the room so went to check on her, and Olivia's leg was out of the slats and she was struggling to get it back inside. Brooke pulled her little leg back through, put the bumper back on, juiced her back to sleep, and decided we will live with the bumper for a while longer. If this is any indication of what life has in store for us, can I ask to just have a new puppy instead and call it a day? (Just KIDDING!!!!)

Milestones, Milestones.

New developments. As I was sitting Sunday morning entertaining my little fat-cheeked bean on the floor, I witnessed her crawl up to the rocking chair, grab the first rung, pull up, then grab the second run, pull up, then grab the seat and stand up. After a second, she did the Nestea Plunge right back into my arms. It was her first pull-up. I was so excited, until I thought about the ramifications. Lets see, bookshelf shelves, tables, vacuum cleaners, vases, dogs. Great, more baby-proofing. Oh well, at least she is making progress. The rest of the day was spent with her crawling up to me while I was sitting on the floor and grabbing my shirt and pulling herself up to my eye level and smiling at me as if to say "see what I can do", it was very cute.
Because of this I had to lower her crib mattress so she cant pull up too far in the crib. This now presents a new problem for Brooke since Olivia is now deep in the crib. But at least she has her stool by the crib to help her get Olivia in and out.
I have also seen a new game Olivia likes to play. Olivia crawls to the other end of the room and turns and looks at me. I then get her little round toy that has beads in it and spin it around like a top so it makes noise and she immediatly starts moving her arms until it stops. Then she sits there and looks at me. I then will spin it again and she will start moving her arms in an excited motiong again, until she gets bored and wants to crawl and explore. Such a big girl. Oh, and Lulu better watch out now, because the days of her getting in while Olivia is defensless laying on her back are over!! The stalker now becomes the stalked as seen in the above picture!

Prunes...

Just had to do a quick post of this. Livi has been experimenting with new foods. Prunes is one of these foods. We may outlaw the prunes from now on after this..... No, she hasn't been rolling in prunes per se, but there ARE prunes in that mess on her back, just reconstituted prunes.