Last, but certainly not least, our sweet little mother hen (following her first hair cut – which was really just a trim).

Olivia is already 3.5 and sounding more and more grown up everyday. She has really taken a liking to Sesame Street and especially the sections on the “word of the day” and the different schools that Ovejita (Spanish for little sheep) visits – like karate school, Irish dancing school (my personal favorite), etc. She has been learning to get dressed on her own and the other day she came out beaming and said, “Mama, I struggled and I struggled, but I did it!” Apparently, ‘struggle’ was the word of the day recently! She’s also a big fan of all things ‘curly’ and enjoys talking about all the different curly things they had on Sesame Street when curly was the word of the day. She went to Vacation Bible School last month and enjoyed getting away doing big girl things like music & crafts for a week. And last week, we finished up Swim School (we decided to go with the Aquatots class at Emler). It was everyday the last two weeks at 10:30 and I didn’t do the “Small Successes” last week, but we made it on time everyday and that was quite a success for me! Anyway, back to Olivia, she did great at swim lessons. There were four children in her class and they really progressed noticeably everyday. The flier said the goal of her class was for her to “happily move through the water for five (5) feet” and she can do it – in fact, she can stay underwater for 10 seconds, too (with her teacher pulling her by the hands). Before we started lessons, she would put her whole head under the water & blow bubbles, but didn’t like to be free floating with a swim ring or life vest so I was really happy with her progress. They had a special that we could sign up for another 2-week camp in the next month for 50% off so we decided to go ahead with it. We’re going to take a couple weeks off and then she will start a new class (Advanced Aquatots) the first couple weeks of August at 4:30pm. This time, JR will be able to take off early a few times and watch her swim. After this next class she should be able to do something that resembles swimming for 7-10 feet. One random thing I really liked is that they were teaching her to climb out of the pool by herself. This seems an important safety skill that I wouldn’t have thought she could master yet, but I bet after her next class she will have it down.

Livy frequently talks about what she will do when she grows up & is a mother, too – usually that she will help me look after the babies & cook dinner. It’s really sweet to hear her talk about all the things she wants to do, especially since almost all of them involve helping Mama.  Recently, when she was getting ready for Church, she picked out a dress up ring so that she could be married just like Mama & Daddy. And she put makeup on her eyes (I gave her an old makeup brush that she brushes over her eyelids) so she would look pretty for Jesus. We haven’t painted her nails yet, but I’m thinking she would probably really enjoy that. A little friend of hers had sticker earrings at a recent playdate and she has talked about those a lot. We also got her first haircut recently (see the picture above). She’s always had such beautiful long hair with a little curl at the end and I was afraid if we cut it, we’d never see those curls again, but her hair was getting awfully long (read: HOT here) and had more & more tangles so we decided it was time for a trim. We didn’t do anything too drastic and the whole thing was a little anticlimactic for me, but she seemed to enjoy herself enough. She sat in a NASCAR chair while she watched Madagascar & even chatted a little with the beautician. Definitely didn’t seem to notice we were crossing a milestone. Olivia is a really sweet little girl and though some might call her shy, I think she is just a bit more introverted and takes awhile to warm up. She loves to be helpful, especially with her younger sisters (sometimes too much!), and enjoys being Daddy’s buddy for a trip to Lowe’s or HEB (our grocery).

Olivia seems to take after me some and wants to know what the rules are (though that doesn’t always mean she follows them) and is very concerned about people not following the rules. For awhile Olivia talked about the “naughty guy” in her book or on a show. Recently, I told her that there are no naughty people; God made all people good, but sometimes people make bad choices. The example that has really stood out is pirates – they frequently make bad choices like taking things that don’t belong to them or threatening other people with a sword. She is really captivated with the idea of bad choices and I think it will help us when it comes to learning from some of her own bad choices! We have also talked about the fact that everyone gets to make their own choices (usually stressing that Molly is not her servant and cannot be ordered around) and then they will have to live with the consequences. We did a privilege chart with Livy for awhile and it was effective, but I fizzled out on it. Lately, it seems best to remind Livy of an upcoming privilege (reading stories, computer time, etc.) and warning her that if she is not behaving well, she will lose that privilege (rather than the preset chart of privileges that she may or may not be interested in at that moment). All in all, she is a pretty obedient child, though, and is really good about saying she’s sorry and forgiving others.

Recently, we started checking out books from the library. I was thrilled to discover that the nearby library has a drive-thru and we can reserve books on-line and then just drive through to pick them up & drop them off. I realize that takes away some of the experience of the library, but for now, with 3 in carseats, it makes it possible for us to actually get books from the library and some day, we will get in there and look at all the books and get the full experience, I promise! So far we have enjoyed the following books:  The Night of Las Posadas, Pascual and the Kitchen Angels, Mary: The Mother of Jesus, and Erandi’s Braids (all by Tomie de Paola who came highly recommended to us). Erandi’s Braids was far & beyond the favorite and quite interesting since Olivia got her first haircut while we had it checked out (it is about a little girl in rural Mexico who sells her long, beautiful braids to support the family)! I was surprised that there were so many Catholic books available at the public library, but I guess we’re part of the community, too. And it seems that when I reserve a book on-line, they can get it from other libraries so that the city shares the collection, which is nice. Right now the librarians are gathering these books for us: The clown of God : an old story,  The weight of a Mass : a tale of faith,  The velveteen rabbit : or, how toys become real, and The bee tree. All of our suggestions have come from this list. So what books do you recommend we check out?

One new thing we started doing with Liv is computer time. She sees both JR & I on the computer and wants to do something, too, so we let her play Sesame Street videos for Molly once to get used to navigating the mouse and she did very well. Next she played some of the Sesame Street games and I was surprised how quickly she figured it all out. I found this list of sites with good preschool games so that she can have another option for big girl time when the babies are sleeping (there I go again calling Molly a baby!). Her favorite is Peep and the Big Wide World. After watching her play the games I realized she knows more than I think – her colors (not just recognizing colors, but mixing them to make other colors), shapes, numbers, letters, and she is really good at sorting, matching & memory, too. We got a really good Gaga Deal on a booster seat for Liv so she is now riding in style in a First Years Compass Booster and it was 50% off (guess that’s another one of my small successes). One of the first days she was in it, we were driving home and JR said, Livy isn’t buckled! He quickly pulled into a nearby parking lot and we had a good talk about the fact that we cannot unbuckle our seatbelts until the car comes to a full & complete stop!! She had unfastened it and was playing peek-a-boo with Violet in the seat in front of her! On Sunday, on the way home from Church, Molly was complaining that her buckles were too tight. JR pulled over and went back to investigate and while adjusting the straps, he discovered that Molly’s carseat was not seatbelted in!! Hence, another discussion about the differences between the carseats and the booster and how it is unsafe for Molly & Violet’s carseats to be unbuckled from the seat! JR did a really good job explaining, though, and I think she gets it – I hope so!

I still get the Baby Center newsletters for Livy once a month and the last one said that most 3-and-a-half-year-olds are fluent in their native tongue. It was funny to read it that way, but it’s quite true. There is pretty much nothing Olivia can’t say now. She says a lot of funny things and I’m going to do a little interview and post the results on-line, but I want to remember some of the most common things she says lately. One is “I have a great idea.” This is how she asks for things she wants – I have a great idea, we should get candy at the store. I have a great idea – we should get out my swimming pool in the backyard, etc. And if she likes what you said, she’ll recognize your great idea, too! She also likes to say, “That’s so silly.” or talk about which of her sisters is the silliest. Molly starting doing it, too, and if she gets her toes stuck while putting on sandals she’ll say, “silly toes!” And Livy will say, “Oh, Molly, you’re so silly. Isn’t that silly, Mama?” Everything around here gets pretty silly. One of my favorite things is to hear myself through Livy (sometimes it’s hilarious, sometimes it’s quite humbling, sometimes both!). The other day Livy was playing tea party with Molly and she had prepared a chicken pot pie. It was done before swim school but it was too hot so we left it here to cool while we went to lessons. When we came back, Molly sat at the table and said, “I don’t like it.” Without skipping a beat, Livy said, “Molly, you haven’t even tried it, how do you know you don’t like it??” I really giggled after hearing that. I guess they are listening!

Well, it seems Olivia doesn’t have many nicknames anymore, except for Livy & Liv which definitely stuck, but no silly names remain – maybe she’s too old for that! And I guess since there is a cartoon pig named Olivia, I don’t need to come up with some variation of that either!