Baby Gator: June 2011

Yesterday was Olive's 3 month birthday. It's amazing how quickly time goes. She continues to develop her hand coordination. She is grabbing things all the time now, and most of it immediately goes into her mouth. She likes to chew and suck on everything she can get her hands on. She is also becoming even more verbal. She is constantly making all kinds of noises. She laughs now too, which is a wonderful sound to hear. She also smiles a lot more. She likes to smile at people's faces, and she finds hands to be very fascinating. She likes her own hands, but she likes other people's hands too. She is also getting better about entertaining herself. She spends a lot more time on her playmat, and can reach up and grab the toys that hang abover her. Overall she is a pretty happy baby, but she doesn't hesitate to let you know when she is displeased with something. She has two main cries, the first one is more of an annoyed sound she makes when she is just irritated. This could mean she wants to change position, or be picked up, or I am not doing something as quickly as she would like. The other cry is her "real" cry, and it is more of a wail. This one usually occurs when she is very hungry. The first one I can almost tune out, the second one breaks my heart every time.

Last week Olive took her first trip to Fripp Island, SC. My family has been going to Fripp for vacations since before I was born. This year my grandmother, Mimi, decided it was time to return to Fripp for our family reunion. She rented a gorgeous house on the beach for 20 of our family members. The only person who couldn't make it was Keegan, because she had just started her new job with Groupon. I definitely missed her like crazy, but I am also very proud of her. Mark only got to come for part of the time, but I think even just a few days of relaxation did him a world of good. Of course playing golf did not agree with his bad back, but I think he would still say it was worth it.

All of my family was very excited to meet Olive. She did very well being passes around from family member to family member. She was a very busy girl, we walked on the beach, went to the pool, sat on the porch, and went on lots of golf cart rides. We discovered early on in the week that the golf cart was great for putting her to sleep, I definitely utilized that trick a few times.

Olive also got her first haircut on vacation. The back of her hair was definitely reaching mullet territory. I love her hair, and I love how long it is on the top, but the back was starting to get ridiculous. Luckily my Aunt Christy is pretty good with a pair of scissors so one afternoon she trimmed the back of Olive's hair. It looks so much better now, I'm really glad I had her do it. You can check out the haircut in all it's glory in the pictures below.

Finally, I took Olive for her first "sick" visit to the doctor on Monday. While we were on vacation she started rubbing her right ear like crazy. She rubbed it so hard at one point that she actually made it start to bleed. Since her temperament didn't change I wasn't too worried. But then Sunday night when we got back home she actually managed to wiggle out of her swaddle, and wake herself up by rubbing her ear. I decided to take her to the doctor to make sure everything was okay. The doctor said her ears looked great. So now I have had my first overly paranoid doctor's visit. The doctor also weighed her, and she is now 14lbs 8oz.