"Heh-bo?!!!"

That is how Olive answers the phone. "Heh-bo? Ok!"

She is very in love with phones. It was probably her first love. From the time she could grasp something in her hand, she would hold it to her head and use it as a phone. I loved her baby jabbers as she talked into anything she could get her hands on, it didn't matter. From shoes, spoons, remote controls, rattles, and sometimes nothing at all (she would just hold her hand to her ear and talk).

We inherited some toys from an older boy cousin and since we parents didn't realize she would have such a phone obsession we didn't really buy her any girl toys. Not to worry, Olive would improvise and scoot/crawl/walk with toy cars held to her ear. That is when we realized she might like some pretend phones. Her aunt gave her the first one and it talked back when you pushed the buttons. All Olive could say about it was "OOOOOOOOOO!" She was hooked.

Since she loved phones so much she started talking to daddy on the phone at an early age mostly because she would loudly scream at me until she had a turn. It was the only way to get a chance to finish a conversation. Sometimes she would just lay and listen silently or sometimes she would babble nonstop. She loved/s talking to dad so much that whenever the phone rings she yells "DADA!!" Since Scott is in his car a lot of the day Olive gets to talk to dad about 3 times every day and she couldn't be happier. Here is how a typical conversation goes:

Serious concentration at first. (By the way sorry about the clutter of playdough stuff and her beautiful frog bib. I guess I could have cleaned that all up for the pictures.)

Then examining the phone. When Scott calls his picture comes up and Olive is in it as well. Occasionally she will get too distracted by the picture of herself and won't talk but just stare at herself staring at herself. It must be kinda trippy. In this case the was overloaded with play dough toys that she got distracted. At one point she was holding the yellow thing up to her ear to talk instead of the phone.

Then she usually sings (screams) a song or animal sounds or answers whatever questions dad is asking about.

Now Olive is double checking that the phone is still on. Often times that means that she then touches the screen and hangs up on dad. Are you still there dad?

This is what I am guessing she will look like when she is a teenager and is annoyed by her parents listening to her talk on the phone. Ugh Mom!

Now Olive is saying "All done. Bye Bye. All done daddy". If I am not with her when she decides to stop talking to dad she comes running into the room holding the phone up. It always makes me chuckle because I can hear Scott still talking away on the other end without a clue that Olive has stopped listening. We are going to have huge phone bills someday!