Olivia is such a sweetie. Somehow, even though she has entered the screamy age of two, she is just the cutest all the time. These are some of my favorite things she has said and done lately.
1. She has one of those personalities that lights up a room, even when the room is just the post office or the grocery store.
2. Her eyes. My goodness those big grey-green eyes could melt mountains, I swear. Every once in a while I'll just be going about doing things, making lunch, or folding laundry or whatever and I'll look over at her and she'll stare back with those beautiful peepers and my heart just stops. How can she be mine?
3. She is still the little tank, who just loves to eat. The other day, right before dinner she said, "Let's eat! Eating! Yay!" It's a regular thing that makes her excited. And when we went strawberry-picking last week, her friend Adahlia rightly named her the "Strawberry Monster." She picked a lot of berries and then devoured them in a few minutes. Her face was covered in red.
4. Her favorite meals right now are pasta with broccoli and marinara and, of course, yumm bowls. She would eat those for every meal, every day.
5. She loves to put things in lines. Little lines of stuffed animals in her bed. Little lines of Sesame Street characters on the floor. Little lines of crayons at the table. I kind of love it.
6. At bedtime she'll often say, "Daddy, can you bring me anything?" She is just trying to think of something to get him to come back so she doesn't have to go to sleep.
7. She has had a little obsession with Lightning McQueen. She had a little matchbox replica of him that she carried around for a while. She insisted on taking it everywhere and then always left it at other people's houses. And then when we were a few minutes away from their house she would remember it in a panic and we would have to go back and fetch him. Well, somewhere along the line she actually misplaced him and we haven't seen him since. Now she just carries around an imaginary "Whyming" which she shows me every morning.
8. Steve used her love of Whyming to try and teach her about being nice and gentle. When she threw Whyming he told her that Whyming got hurt. So she spent the next several days doing pennance for her mistreatment of Whyming. "What are you doing?" I asked her. She replied, "I'm reading Whyming a story. He has an owie. I just throw him in my bed."
9. She likes to talk to Henry and try and keep him happy by screeching at him in a high pitched voice things like, "Are you so tiny?" And "Mama will be there in just a minute, Henery." And she always says it like that, with an extra syllable in the middle.
10. She loves to dress up just like her big sister. And they've been playing wedding lately. Like last week when I said, "You look fancy. Where are you going?" She told me, "I'm getting married." If only she new that it's going to be at least 39 years before I let her do that.
11. Her conversations with Ellie are pretty funny. They have a monitor in their room with the parent unit in ours. You can talk from the parent one to the kid one like a Walkie-Talkie. I showed her how to do it and she was talking to Ellie:
Olivia: "Your'e so silly."
Ellie: "No, you're so silly."
Olivia: "You're right, Ellie. I am so silly."
12. She is still a little snuggle bug. She doesn't get snuggled quite as much now that she has been usurped as the baby of the family. But when she gets her chance she wants to be held and cuddled and rocked. And she sinks down into your arms like it's the best place in the world, asking repeatedly, "Can you squeeze me again."
There is so much about her sweetness that is impossible to describe. It's in her lithe body hopping along everywhere she goes. It's in that untamable hair that is always floating about her head like a halo. It's in her insistence on wearing her Silver Sparklies all the time. It's in the way she cries when daddy is packing the car because she doesn't want him to leave without her. It's in her cheesy smile when she thinks you're taking a picture, or her genuine look of happiness when she is all wrapped up in someone's arms. She is silly. She is serious. She is smart. She is ridiculously adorable. I wish I could bottle up all the cuteness and keep it forever. I know this age will pass all too quickly. But I have a feeling the adorableness will stick around.
