There's Something About Olivia

My mom and I were talking last night and Olivia kept interrupting us to tell us another story, another joke, show us another trick as she danced with her shadow that was created by the late afternoon sun shining through my mom’s kitchen window.

When O finally left the room to go tell Alyssa something, I said, “Have you noticed she’s talking even more lately? I mean, I know she’s always talked to us really well but…she’s having full-blown conversations, telling stories with a beginning, middle and end, engaging with us. There’s more eye-contact and if she’s interrupted by her sister or her cousin, she stops them and tells them she’s trying to talk.”

She’s standing up for herself.

My mom agreed with me that Olivia seems to be coming alive, even more than ever, right in front of our eyes.

My mom told me a story about her time with Alyssa, Olivia and Jaxon from this past weekend.

All three kids spent the night with my mom on Friday night. Saturday morning, she laid out clothes for Olivia and Jaxon. J got dressed first and then Olivia, once dressed too, joined him on the couch.

Jaxon looked at her outfit and announced, “I hate pink and I hate Hello Kitty.”

Olivia gave him glance and replied, “Well, I hate dinosaurs, I hate green and I hate boy underwear.”

Then they went back to being best friends.

My girl can hold her own.

I hope this sense of self she’s building is going to school with her each day. I hope her confidence, her humor, her strength ride along in her backpack and follow her around.

She’s been on an antibiotic since last Friday. I give her the morning dose, Tom gives her the mid-day (ish…she gets it when she gets off the bus at 3:15) and I give her the evening dose.

Tom and I both marvel at how well she takes medicine. She picks up the little medicine cup, downs the medicine and takes a drink of water. No fuss.

Alyssa always at least gives a bit of a whine before taking her medicine. She’s never really fought it, though either.

We got lucky, I know. I have a couple of cousins who were terrors when it came to medicine. They’re mother would have to hold them down, plug their nose, blow in their faces to get them to open their mouths and dump the medicine down their throat, hoping to get enough down there that they couldn’t spit it all back in her face.

Ugh! What a nightmare.

I feel like at this point, Olivia is learning to pick her battles. She knows she can’t win when it comes to medicine so she doesn’t fight. She also knows we can’t make her eat her lunch at school and so…for now, she’s not doing that. She does eat it when she gets home so we’re not fighting her either. We just continue to pack the lunch each day, she takes it to school and then brings it back and eats it at home.

While her tenacity can be frustrating, I’m grateful for it. It will take her far in this world and there is definitely something to be said for good old fashioned stubbornness.