Florida - Day 3

Olivia slept very well last night. She woke once at 1:30 but was easily soothed back to sleep. At 6 this morning, she cried to get up and "get in Mommy's bed!" I put her in there with me and she fell asleep. I tried to gingerly transfer her back to her own bed 20 minutes later, but she woke up and protested loudly. I stuck her back in my bed and we played for a while. At 7:30, I tossed her in her bed with some toys and told her to play while I went back to sleep. Amazingly, she did this for another half hour. At 8, we (she) decided it was time to get up for the day. She ate some oatmeal and fruit. I had given her some Tylenol at 6 and she seemed cooler at breakfast. She was mostly cheerful. She said she wanted to go outside so we put on some SPF and a hat with the intention of playing out in the front yard. She squatted next to a slug, mesmerized for about 10 minutes, going back and forth between being to squeamish to touch and and being way too rough patting it. We started down the sidewalk, Olivia pushing her panda and rabbit in the stroller. I eventually put her in it and we headed in the direction of the beach, which is about a 10 minute walk through my grandparents' gorgeous neighborhood. The walk was pleasant and Olivia was entertained by the various garden decorations and fountains. The temp was about 70 with a slight breeze. I had to call back to the house to get the new code to the beach- I had forgotten that it is a private access beach for the neighborhood. As soon as we stepped off the stairs on the beach, Olivia started squealing. She absolutely LOVED the sand. It is exceptionally soft and fine and white. We made our way to the ocean - I wasn't sure how she'd feel about the waves, but she LOVED the freezing, wavy water, too. She quickly soaked her capri pants (why do I keep thinking she'll just go in up to her ankles?) and so I pulled those off. I had called my mom for her to come down and bring the camera and a few other things. She arrived with G & G and the three of them set up camp on the beach. Olivia wasn't dressed for the ocean and I hadn't put sunscreen on her thinking an hour at the beach. I was feeling like she needed to go inside soon. We played with the bowl and measuring cup my mom had brought from the house - poor man's sand toys, she called them - and played more in the water. Olivia would have tried to swim out to sea if I would have let her. She tried her hand at catching a few sea gulls and managed to keep the sand out of her eyes (and mouth). Around the time I decided we needed to get her inside, she began to fall apart. My mom quickly drove us back and then went back for my grandparents. I gave Olivia a quick shower and tried (unsuccessfully) to get her to each something. She completely protested going down for a nap, which is not normal. She wailed for me to hold her and to lay down on my bed. I let her cry it out since I knew she was just uber-tired and needed to fall asleep. After it had been quiet for a few minutes, I snuck back in to her room only to find her standing up in her pack 'n play, her head laying down on the corner edge, asleep! Poor exhausted baby had fallen asleep standing up (stubbornly refusing to give in and lay down). I wasn't sure if I should wake her and move her, but then the image of her falling back and biting her tongue or something made me decide to lay her down. She woke up and fussed a little but I rubbed her back and she fell asleep. During her two+ hour nap, I burned myself outside while reading "Godless" (I was book shopping in the Bill Bauman library - "Going Rogue" was my second choice :) Olivia woke up completely unhappy. She requested a bottle immediately (unusual) and then said she'd eat peanut butter toast, which she did. She wanted to go back outside, so we sunscreened again and headed to the pool. She enjoyed it again, but needed a little break to calm down when she got a little test with Grandma. The whole day, she was great and normal about 90% of the time, but the other 10% of the time she would completely fall apart. She has much less tolerance for less-than-perfect conditions than she usually does. After the pool, we took another shower. After the shower, she was wiping off the foggy mirror and she accidentally tipped over a cup of water on the counter. She said "uh-oh, spidey-oh!" getting the cute kid phrase mixed up with her Uncle Spidey. I told her he was working on our new house so we could live there. She did pretty well at dinner, but ate mostly Olivia staple foods. She played hide-and-seek (using panda and rabbit) with Grandma and Great-Grandma and then got ready for bed. At bedtime, we prayed for Daddy back at home and she asked about him. I said he was at home with Grandpa in Minnesota. She said "when we go see him?" I told her in a few days. Then she said "say goodnight to him" so we called Evan. Of course, she didn't want much to do with the phone once we got him on, but she did get to her him say goodnight to her. After we hung up with him, she said, "goodnight to Grandpa now" so we called Jim. Again, she wasn't that enthused about the phone, but I wanted to follow up on her request. She went to bed easily and is sleeping soundly. I gave her one more dose of Tylenol before bedtime. If she wakes up cool in the morning, we might be safe being done with the meds. I'm hoping for an even better night tonight.