Growing Up

The title refers to Olivia, of course, but me as well (I will explain this in a little bit). Olivia will be 8 weeks old tomorrow, which is hard to believe! She seems to get bigger and cuter every day.  She's awake more these days and thankfully, is starting to enjoy sitting in her swing more. As much as I love holding her, not being able to put her down makes getting things done difficult. She will nap in the swing, but sometimes she will just lay there and stare up at the little mirror and look at herself contentedly. She also likes sitting in her bouncy seat for at least brief periods of time or laying on her new activity mat that arrived in the mail last week (see picture below). We even had a night recently where she slept four hours in a row, followed by four and half more, which, if you read my last post, you know is pretty exciting for me.

She's been smiling and cooing a lot lately too, which is so much fun. When she's cooing at me, I feel like we're having a conversation. I almost expect words to come out of her mouth. It's hard for me to imagine her really talking though. What will her first words be? What will her voice sound like? I've also been trying to imagine her with hair longer than what she currently has and I just can't picture it. Her hair seems like it's barely grown since she's been born and sometimes it looks like there's actually less hair than there was to begin with. I kind of like her hair just the way it is now though. It can stay like that forever for all I care! :)

Now for my "grown-up moment." My friend Katlyn, who I met a few years ago in grad school, has two kids of her own. Charlotte is four and Oliver just turned one about a week before Olivia was born. She had been talking to me for awhile (at least since I was pregnant) about joining the Mom's Group of Oakwood even though I don't technically live there anymore. I kept saying I would think about, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking to myself "I'm too young to be in a mom's group!" I'm not sure why I felt like this because I don't feel to young to be a mom. I guess I just still don't think of myself as a "grown up," despite the fact that there are plenty of reasons why I should. I've been married for four and a half years, have had my own house for the past four years, have been working in the "real world" (up until now), and gotten my Master's degree, so when am I going to really consider myself a "grown up?" (Perhaps when the receptionist at the dentist's office no longer asks whether my parents or I are going to take care of my bill, which just happened about 2 weeks ago...ha ha!)

Well, I finally decided to take the plunge and join the group. I figured it would be nice to meet other moms and make some new friends and eventually, it would be a way for Olivia to make some friends. Every Thursday of each month there is some sort of special event. One week, they have book club; another week, they have Mom's Night Out where you go to a restaurant; another week is cooking club, where everyone brings food or wine and you just hang out at someone's house and another week, there is a meeting. This past Thursday was cooking club so I decided to go along with Katlyn. Each month there is a different "theme." This month the theme was cheese, so I decided to make broccoli cheese casserole - one of my Thanksgiving favorites. The event was very nice, everyone was very friendly, and there was lots of good food.  At the end of the night, everyone votes - just for fun - on their two favorite dishes and whoever takes first place gets their picture and recipe in the monthly newsletter. Well, call it beginner's luck, but guess who took second place???? Yours truly! Ha ha! I was pretty surprised and found it kind of funny - I guess I'm just a little Suzy Homemaker, who knew? I'm looking forward to going to book club next month for the first time and the cookie exchange before Christmas.

I will keep you posted on my future "grown up moments."  In the meantime, however, here are some cute pictures of my parents and Olivia from last weekend when were celebrating my Dad's birthday.