Fave Five

Me: "Olivia, what do you think Max dreams about?"

Olivia: "Oh, he dreams about mayo."

Me: "Okay…what do you dream about?"

Olivia: "I dream about rainbows, flowers, ice cream, museum, and story hour."

Kat's Ciao

Katrina, Beni’s good friend from our high school days, came to visit over the weekend. She’s the oldest of three girls, and so her position in the birth order gave her plenty of experience entertaining her younger siblings as they were growing up. That experience came in handy today: Olivia hounded Kat to play games and color pictures with her from the moment she woke up.

Kat did such a masterful job engaging Olivia in activities that our daughter gave her a three-hugs-and-a-kiss sendoff—normally reserved for family members only—as she was leaving our home for hers.

Previously on Lost

We’ve finally located Laga, Olivia’s beloved and long-lost stuffed bear. He’d gone missing around the time of the TV writers strike in the fall but reemerged shortly after Lost fans learned of the identities of the Oceanic Six this spring. Coincidence? Of course it is.

Nonstandard Quote

An instant classic from dinner:

“I feel like my heart wants to be your daughter.”

(Make sense, it doesn’t, but make my day, it most certainly does!)

Virtual Cereality

We’ve been consuming an exorbitant amount of cereal this week so that we can give over the boxes to Olivia’s preschool for their school project. Apparently the other families got the same memo from last week: Mike the Builder had enough material to get most of the house built yesterday. (Note: We certainly hope that our collective demand for Puffed Wheat, Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, etc., did not contribute somehow to the spike in prices for food staples.)

Scopin’ Faced Sandwich

I have a picture now of our Girl of Sandwich.

No Paint, No Gain

Olivia’s declared recently that she wants to be a painter when she grows up. Fortunately, she gets plenty of practice both at home and away. Here are some recent shots of our resident artist in action:

Home Plate

Like a good batter, Olivia’s proficient at protecting the plate. She decorated the paper plate at school in the morning and decided that it should join her baby Claire doll in bed with her for her nap in the afternoon.

Freeze-Out

Our sweet pea (sweet O?) is not so sweet when it comes to sharing her favorite dessert. She safeguards her ice cream with her life and only shares on those rare occasions when she’s decided she’s consumed enough.

Baby Talk

On Monday, Olivia and I were going through some picture albums—ones from when she was a baby and a couple from when Beni and I got married and went on our honeymoon to Hawaii and Japan. We believe that our daughter’s monologue this evening was inspired in part by that recent look back on our family history. (Click on the picture for enlarged text.)

Then we asked her to tell it to us again. And then we laughed and laughed and laughed...

Girl of Sandwich

Beni has introduced our daughter to a vegetarian Dagwood, the substantive and eponymous sandwich made famous by Blondie’s husband. Our version is a stack of various cheeses and soy “meats” on a wheat baguette. Having now mastered the smash-together technique required to consume a Dagwood, Olivia’s requested one for the past three days.

A-E-I-U and Sometimes Y

Proof that her friends at school, like this entry's title, were missing O:

“Mateo and Pete told me that they couldn’t stop missing me when I was sick from school.”

Banned Book

David Shannon’s A Bad Case of the Stripes is a book about a girl who contracts—I’m surmising from the cover—an unusual pigmentary disorder. The reason I’m not exactly sure how her condition came about is because as we were five pages into the book at bedtime, Olivia slammed it shut and made us promise that we’d never read it to her again. Clearly, she was having a bad case of A Bad Case.

But banning it wasn’t enough. She banished the main character—actual quote: “I don't want that girl to be in the world anymore."—and barred us from having the book in the house. In fact, I had to show her that I’d put the book in my workbag to prove that I was going to give it away to a colleague whose kids aren’t as easily startled.

News Scoop

Olivia and Beni made like a box of Raisin Bran—two scoops!—to carve up large swaths of land at a local playground.

Iron Maiden

Olivia staves off anemia by getting plenty of iron into her daily diet.

Horse Play

Our little jockey—please forgive the redundancy in phrase there—proves that you can lead a horse to daughter, but it’s the daughter that leads the horse out of the front room.

Greetings from the Top of the Whirled Slide

Big Yack Attack

On this first day of April, we were fooled into thinking that Olivia’s flu had flown the coop. It returned this afternoon with a vengeance, at which time we decided to seek professional help to make sure this strain, although ugly and persistent, was nothing serious.

The doctor at the drop-in clinic concluded as such, and so we retreated back home to the scene of many a grime (slime?)—the couch—for yet another round of R&R&R (rest and recuperation and regurgitation).