Watching Her Learn

I know Amy has mentioned it on her blog, but Jane is just the cutest when she eats food. She's a very clean eater. When it's time to eat Jane will hold her hands out, never touch the food with her hands, open her mouth and make excited noises and kick her feet. That's her food reaction.

Last night we were playing games with some friends. I had decided to have a dessert soda (Amy thinks it's weird that I call it that) and was sipping on a bottle of Mexican Coca Cola that the Mitchells always kept in stock for us. I happened to be holding Jane at the time - and to anyone else this is such a small thing - and I noticed that she kept watching me pick up the bottle and lift it to my lips. After a couple times of doing this, I picked up the bottle a few more times even when it was empty just to see if she really was tracking what I was doing, which she was. 

Just out of curiosity to see her reaction if I handed her the bottle, I picked it up and brought it to her. That's when she gave her food reaction. Instead of reaching for the bottle like she would anything else, she gave her food reaction knowing that there was something for consumption, not for play. It was just the neatest thing in the world for me to notice her do that. It made me so excited to watch her and realize that through her observation, she was learning what kinds of things we eat and how we take them in. I'm sure that is only among the first of many times I'll see those kinds of things, but I just loved it.

I almost felt bad that I didn't give her any. I can't start her that young, right?

Jane @ 7 months

Yeah, I'm a little behind on a lot of things. I'm hoping this writing (even if it's totally unrelated) will get me going with my studying this morning.

Jane is so fun right now. I think I probably always say that, but I really mean it. She's becoming more mobile. She's not crawling or scooting yet, but she's lunging, rolling, and wiggling her way to where she wants to go.

Just recently she started some more signs of stranger anxiety. It mostly has to do with when we are in groups of people that she's not familiar with and someone else takes her. I don't love that, but otherwise if it's just us and some friends, she's really good. She makes it easy for us to go out because even if it's passed her bed time, if we are hanging out with other people she is still really good and doesn't even cry at all. She's so easy on us.

She just started teething last week. We wouldn't have known it if Amy hadn't actually felt the tooth in her bottom gums, but if we wouldn't have found that out we would've realized something was up when she decided to stay up from 3am-6am the other night. Not awesome, but even still, as soon as she's with someone she's just happy as can be.

And that's probably the greatest thing about her. She's just happy pretty much all of the time. She has such a sweet little cry and really only whines if she's tired and alone.

The cutest thing in the world is that she's figured out how to play peek-a-boo. She'll take things and cover her face and wait for someone to play with her. She's just the sweetest thing in the whole world.



This is funny to me, but she likes when I whistle in her face. She's just funny with anything blowing/covering/near her face. It kind of makes her nervous and she'll giggle.



This is one of my favorite pictures in the whole world of her. Caption contest for this photo, go!

Love What I'm Doing

I'm feeling really good these days. There are at least a few times each week, and sometimes multiple times in a day when I actually think to myself, "I'm so glad I'm in the MBA program."

I feel so lucky to be apart of this program for so many reasons, and I count it as such a big blessing that I feel so content with exactly where I'm at in my life. Unfortunately, I feel like that is always kind of a fleeting feeling, you know? Maybe you're better than I am, but so often I feel like I'm looking to see what's over the next hill for what's ahead, not realizing that maybe where I'm currently at is a pretty great place to be.

I absolutely love the content of my program. I feel so lucky when it comes to that because I know so many people in graduate school who just hate the work they do in school (i.e. almost everyone I know that has or is attending law school). I was in my managerial accounting class today and we were looking at balance sheets trying to figure out what was wrong with the business and I just loved it. I couldn't have been more satisfied with what I was doing at that moment. And I don't even like accounting stuff. The professor is just awesome and the questions were so interesting. I loved it.

I love the people in my program. I'm so pleased with the friends I've made and the people that I'm learning so much from all of the time.

And I love the opportunities coming out of my program. I just got my specific assignment last Friday for this Ford this summer. I'll be working on some change management initiatives and revamping their onboarding for salaried new hires. Neat, right?

This summer we started laying out each of our weekends. The week we'll be coming back we will attend the JT/Jay-Z concert in Chicago on July 19th, then we'll go to the St. Louis game on Tuesday, Kansas City Royals game on Wednesday, and Colorado Rockies game on Thursday, or maybe Friday. Amazing, right? I can't believe all of that works out that way.

It's just nice to be so happy where you are, and where you will be. I don't think there's a better feeling.