Happy New Year!

Olie decorating Christmas tree for the first time. Though Sheila and I had to do a little "redistributing" of the decorations after, Oliver loved it!

Many of our faithful readers have noticed a certain waning in the number of Olieland posts of late. Chad and I often comment on the irony of the fact that even though Olie actually does soooo much more of note now than he did as a baby, chasing around after our full-fledged toddler leaves us with little time and energy to write. But as it's the last day of the year, I thought I'd ignore my long "to do" list and take advantage of today's nap.

Christmas Eve walk at Nauset.

Toddler milestones this fall include Olie locking himself in the bathroom for the first time and our first trip to the ER for ingesting something dangerous (and hopefully the last!) During the former, Oliver was a trooper as I talked to him through door while the landlord and Vinny the doorman tried to disassemble the door. Alas it was a good-ole, old fashion door, ergo of quality construction. After about a half hour Olie said, "I need a Big Hug..." and later "I neeeeed Vinny." Eventually, just before the $200/hr locksmith arrived, I was about the describe to Olie how to unlock the door, and he freed himself! So advanced!

The ER trip occurred after Oliver dropped a glass vitamin bottle and ate a piece before Mom could get to him. There was no blood in his mouth but I could hear a faint crunch, crunch. The pediatrician said he would call an expert and get back to me, but to be ready to take Olie to the ER stat. I returned to O only to find that, would you believe, he had locked himself into the bathroom again! Ahhh. At that point Chad called to say he would be late. I believe my exact words were, "Fine. Olie ate glass, We may have to go to the ER ad Oliver has locked himself in the bathroom again. So TAKE YOUR TIME!" Long story short after the whole family spent 5 hrs in the ER, the 12:30AM x-ray results revealed that Olie was OK.

Group shot

Other milestones of a more positive nature include that fact that Olie's communcation skills are skyrocketing. He speaks in full sentences expressing complicated thoughts and experiences. Mostly they're even grammatically correct. One of our favor slips is: every time Oliver opened a present this Xmas, "Ooo. What IT could be?"

Oliver has also incredible mimic skills, so he has very few cute toddlerisms. For example, we waited with baited breath to see how Olie would skew "Alexandra" whom my brother Jack referred to as "Anarandus." Olie came right out with "Alezandra." Pretty close. He does have some endearing Olverisms though: "ambinker" is "ambulance"; and "minker" is "cement mixer."

Playing w/ washed up lobster trap

Olie has also started dressing himself. Every time he puts a shirt on, he stops with just his face is sticking out of his neck and says "I'm a catepillar, in cacoon!"

Oliver is also becoming afraid of the dark. His big fear is the of "the grey wolf." We don't know where he got this from, but we tell him that Bella's job is to chase away wolves.

winter dunes

Oliver is very aware of feelings now and is quite expressive. If we leave a friends house, he'll often state frankly, "I'm sad about having to leave." He'll also often exclaim, "I'm soooo happy about my ....trains, toys, etc." He often remarks on "how lucky" he is. During a recent visit to Stephanie's we went to a local playground. As it came into view Olie exclaimed, "Oooo. New playground. So lucky!" (Except since "l"s are still pronounced "y", it come out so "yucky."

Reading new Christmas story with Dad