Banging on Pans!

Banging on pots and pans is always a favorite activity for children. And, believe it or not, it is one of the activities recommended by the occupational therapist. At first, Olivia was very uncertain about the activity, but it has become a big hit (pun intended) around here!

Olivia at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Sunday afternoon we took a short drive to Grandma and Grandpa B's house. Olivia ate her snack and played. A great time was had by all!

Here is Olivia riding Grandma's rocking puppy. Olivia's cousins' have already broken in the poor puppy.

This is a photo of Olivia with Great Aunt Jo (left- Grandma's sister) and Grandma B. Olivia and Aunt Jo hit it off splendidly. These days, if there is an audience, Olivia is willing to provide her best performance!

Shout out to Uncle Doug's family

Here is a video of Olivia jamming to music on her hoppity therapy horse.

An Evening with Mary

Just had to share this link to An Evening with Mary. It will be available for the next 4 days. The service was held last night at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. Beautiful! It will make your soul sing! Thank you to our dear friends at MaryTV for bringing this into our homes!

Pull up to Standing

Olivia is on a roll these days. This morning she pulled up to standing while holding my hands from a seated position on my legs. It just so happened that Peter had the camera ready to capture this amazing moment. Olivia did this repeatedly all day long and seemed to be having a grand time! I think all the excitement got to her though as our usual easy to bed girl took a good hour to settle down tonight. Hope she sleeps a bit later tomorrow. She has been getting up to feed the roosters breakfast lately.

Teething

Olivia and her teething buddy Sophia

Olivia has begun to get teeth at the end of her 9th month. This may explain why she has not been herself for about a month. This was a surprise to us as the doctor had told us that she would most likely not get teeth until about 14 to 15 months. But he did say that every child with Down syndrome is different, and that Olivia would get teeth when Olivia gets teeth. So he was right.

We cannot see the tooth, but we can feel it and we can hear it clink against her glass when she drinks. The first tooth to painfully break its way through is on the bottom in the middle left. It appears as if the middle right tooth will be next.

We had one semi-bad night followed by a bad day, but we now have some Little Teethers gel and this is helping.

It is hard to see her suffering with the teething, but we are thankful that it is just teething and just a natural part of life for all of us. There are certainly much worse things than teething. Olivia has always responded well to soothing, so we just do extra soothing and are not pushing her too hard during therapy time. Some of the harder therapies are on hold for now and we are concentrating on the more fun activities that still help her development. The therapist helped us find some positions to hold her in to work on the standing. Olivia likes this much better and is doing some really decent putting weight on her legs for more extended periods of time. Olivia is an observer and is cautious, so these positions that help her feel more secure are a God-send.

Party - Save the Date

We are having a First Birthday Party for Olivia!

All are invited! (All means all our family, all our friends) We are not sending out formal invitations nor are we contacting everyone directly. We are trying to contact everyone we can via email or the BLOG, but please spread the word to any family or friends of ours who have not heard that they are invited to the Party! All of our family and friends are invited! No one is not invited. We ask that anyone who will be attending RSVP so that we can have enough food and drink for everyone. (although if they don't need to eat or drink they can just show up!)

Details:

Sunday, May 16, 2010

1 pm to 4 pm

No gifts are necessary. Your presence is a gift!

We will also be celebrating Olivia's birth, Baptism, freedom from the NICU, adoption, smiling, rolling over, sitting up and everything in between! This is Olivia's First Party for Olivia! Time to celebrate all that is Olivia and most especially that she is One Year Old!

(Yes, you will need more info to know where the party is, but that would be inappropriate to post on the BLOG. You will need to contact us for that last piece of info. I can imagine that I will get a comment or two that are inappropriate on this post, but I know how to hit the delete button. Sometimes when one is being faithful you run into a few jerks. But that is life!)