New Year New Feats

Saber Tooth in RED

I no longer have a little boy. No, instead I have a lion, tiger, hyena, dragon, dino, reindeer, princess, fairy, whooping crane, saber tooth, liopluerodon, dog, or what ever my former son’s imagination cooks up. That’s because Oliver is ALWAYS playing dress up. Whatever Olie has just read about/heard about/watched on TV, that’s what Olie is that day. The result is that he is very rarely in his regular clothes. Rather he is in costume (our collection is growing quite rapidly), or at the very least in his pajamas, which seem to be a kind of carte blanche costume. When forced to wear regular (read boring) clothes, upon closer inspection you will often find that Olie has pjs or a costume on underneath. And sometimes being fully committed to your character means going naked! Before Christmas Chad and I discovered Olie crouching in a self made den of couch cushions. “What are you doing?” we inquired. “I’m a dragon," Olie explained. “Why don’t you have any clothes on?” “Because you are the knights and your clothes are armor. Dragons don’t wear armor. They just have scales.” So now in the interest of having Olie not catch a cold, a dragon costume has been added to our dress up box.

Solvi is not so much into make believe dress up. But she does love her jewelry, sometimes donning all she has. She also continues to love her dolls, and fortunately this collection grew significantly over Christmas. A few months ago, Solvi would always insist on saying good night to Olie and whatever parent was not putting her to bed. (“I wanna say, ‘Nigh Nigh Olie.’ I wanna say, ‘nigh Nigh Dada.’”) And they, in turn would have to say good night to her. But now in order to extract yourself from Solvi’s room at night you need to say good night to her and to “Baby” and to “Dolly” and to “Other Baby,” to whatever else is in the crib, and finally to the crib itself.


Solvi’s other favorite activity: tea parties. At least three times a day, she’ll pour you or her dolls or animals a spot of tea (with milk and sugar), served up with bread, cheese, pasta or the vegetables that she so loves to “cut.”

Following her brother's lead, Solvi also likes to roar like a dinosaur. When she says, "Raaaarrr." I say, "Oh so scary!" This causes her softer side to kick in. Petting me reassuringly she'll says, "Don't worry, Mama." She also pets and hugs Olie when he's feeling blue. This must run in the family cause Oliver has always been very kind to those who are sad.

Both kids are now singing up a storm. Olie is finally getting the idea of a tune, but he’s as good as ever at remembering all the words to the songs from school. Solvi’s favorites are “Ba ba black sheep,” “Frosty the Snowman,” “The Wheels on the Bus,” “Rock a By Baby,” and “Itsy Bitsy Spider.” Much like the Dead Sea Scrolls we just saw on exhibit, much of Solvi’s songs are mere fragments of the original, but with study one can fill in the blanks.

Solvi's first sledding in Utah. She was a fan.

Physically Solvi remains about as fearless as Oliver’s wardrobe selections. While in Salt Lake City over New Years, we made our requisite visit to the community swimming pool which features a marvelous kiddy wading section. After a lengthy dip in the pool, Solvi and I left ahead of the rest of the gang to shower. While I was brushing my hair with Solvi beside me, I heard a door slam and noticed that my daughter was suddenly missing. Now the next few moments unfolded like an action film in slow motion. I immediately ran to the door joining the locker room to the pool. Rushing through it, I spied that my daughter had indeed escaped and was headed for the pool. Chad, from the pool, also saw her and surged out to the depths (Ok it was only a few inches), water spraying off him like a water buffalo charging out of the water. The life guard too, emerging from my peripheral vision, came from the side. Despite the desperate efforts of these three sprinting adults, Solvi reached the pool before we could stop her. My last image was of her leaping, fully clothed, with utter glee into the water.

And speaking of aquatic feats, as of last week Oliver is now swimming short distances on his own! He is soo proud. He's also discovered the joys of swimming underwater with his goggles on. I also helped recently him with his first underwater somersault.

And did I mention that Solvi has been somersaulting (not in the water) for a least a month now.

Solvi has another unique talent: she remembers where everything is. I can always count on her to tell me where I left something with a “righ heya, Mama.” AND Solvi has started counting...since before Christmas even! So far it’s any sequence of about 3 numbers from 1 to 20, but she gets the concept. Pointing to things in turn she'll “count” them, “1, 2, 3, 8, 9 10.”

Olie is now making representational drawings and he is getting pretty good at writing his name all by himself. He absolutely loves to paint. This year he spent at least an hour painting Valentine's for school. By then end he was singing, "I love painting. I love painting."

Oliver also recognizes all his letters and pretty much knows their sounds. In fact sometimes he’ll say the sound before the letter’s name. For instance the other day, I asked him what K was. He answered with the sound, “Kuh Kuh... for Kylie.” (His friend at school.) Oliver also remains a rhyming wizard and is already trying to read!

Valentine Production

A recent Olie phone call:
“Mommy, I want you to teach me how to catch birds. I want to be a cat because they can creep up on them very quietly.” Apparently Oliver just spent the last hour in the woods with Chad stalking some Robins.

Silly faces in the morning.