She named it CircleCircleStarStarCircle.

I figure it’s probably my fault.  I was the one sleeping, after all.

“No, no!  You stay in bed, I’ll go get her!” he said with a sunshiney countenance and innocence beaming so bright, I had to close my eyes against it.  Or maybe I was just really tired? 

And anyway, what self-respecting, knows-what’s-good-for-her, living, breathing, intelligent mother refuses that kind of offer at seven a.m.? 

One that is not me.  And also one that is crazy.

So I slept. 

An hour or so later, I was startled into awareness by an excited shriek of, “MOM!!!!” beside my bed.  I blearily coaxed an eyelid open to discover my pajama clad, wild-haired daughter, proudly presenting a tupperware container housing a furry something within its depths.

I was afraid to ask.  Luckily, I didn’t have to.  “Daddy caught me a BAT!  We went bat hunting!  And then I found this snail!  And we put the bat in here!” 

Now, I don’t know your life.  But I’m pretty sure that I can speak for the whole of womankind when I say that a plastic contained, likely rabies ridden rodent (alliteration!) with freakily long elbows (for real, their elbows are the grossest), is on, like, the very bottom of the Things I Like To See Before I Have A Chance To Pee In The Morning list. 

But the thing is, she was SO EXCITED.  So I indulged her by carrying the container around for about 10 minutes before I persuaded her that it was probably a mommy bat which needed to get back to her babies.  Which isn’t exactly a lie, since I am not well-versed in the gender specifics of bats, therefore I have no way of knowing if her pet was male or female.

I’ll admit that I thought the bat was a medium amount of cute when we dumped it out and watched it fly away.  And then we scrubbed ourselves down.

The next time I left Olivia alone with her father, I came back to discover Olivia wearing her Nana’s apron as a dress:

But she was really wearing it so she wouldn’t get her white shirt dirty while she ate her lunch, so 70 bonus points to Isaac. 

(I did get around to doing her hair at some point that day.  I’m pretty sure, anyway.)

 

And then we did some more swimming.

I keep thinking that her hair isn’t very long lately, but then I see this picture and I’m like, “Oh. Yeah. It kind of is.”

Ok, so this next video is big news for Olivia.  BIG NEWS!  When we got there at the beginning of the week, we couldn’t persuade Olivia to step into the pool without massive amounts of floatation devices.  The baby swimmer thing, her arm floaties, the kickboard and still she’d be begging to be pulled around, and would freak out if anyone tried to let go. 

By the end of our trip, she was darting around the pool like she owned the place with just her little arm floaties on.  It was seriously hilarious to watch her little arrhythmic kicks as she completed lap after lap after lap, just swimming with reckless abandon. 

Today, back home, she was depressed because she couldn’t swim in Nana’s pool. 

I love this picture.  Just swimming free like a little fish in the sea. (rhyming!)

Here is the one and only picture of me from the entire trip.  Don’t judge me because I didn’t wash my hair most days.  What is the point if you’re going right out into the water, is what I’d like to know?

After swimming we ate popsicles.

Or Crème Brulee Haagen-Dazs.  She didn’t really get much of this ice cream, but would you believe that when I tried to take it from her, she got these wild eyes, then grabbed onto the back of my shirt and wouldn’t let go, all while screaming, “NOOOOOOO!!!! I WANT THAAAAT!!!!” 

At which point I realized Haagen-Dazs has crack inside. It’s the only explanation.  Olivia has never responded to anything like that, ever.  She let me drag her around while she held on to the back of my t-shirt! 

Don’t let her radiant innocence fool you.

And anyway, now we’re all depressed because our vacation is over and school starts next week, and [insert more whiny complaints here]. 

Here’s one last picture of Olivia.  She gets car sick, and, in an attempt to thwart all, “My tummmmyyyy-eeeee!!” shrieks, we purchased a little container of Sprite for her very own consumption. 

She thought she was the bee’s knees with her very own soda. 

And it totally worked on her stomach (even if it was only a placebo effect, and to be honest, I’m not really sure either way.)

P.S.!  Google Reader is doing all sorts of funky stuff with my posts lately.  Sometimes they are non-existent, sometimes they show up days later.  All of this is to say, if it seems like I haven’t posted in an inordinate period of time, and you follow me through Google Reader?  I probably have posted.  So just come to the actual blog.  It’s really annoying.  Has this ever happened to anyone else?