A six letter synonym for milestone?....OLIVIA!

The other day I was cleaning up and I came across Olivia's baby book and as I flipped through the pages my heart sank.  We had only filled out the pages until around the 5 month mark.  We had completed August 2012-January 2013.  The rest of the book:  blank pages.  Where did the time go?  Tomorrow Olivia will be 16 months old and I cannot tell you the day she got her first, second or third tooth as requested in her baby book.  I quickly jumped into "Mom Guilt" mode and felt like I should have done better, been a better Mom, tracked her journey more meticulously and documented anything and everything having to do with Olivia.  But I haven't, and I didn't.  

Then in talking to my own Mother I realized, around five months we began noticing that Olivia's right hand remained in a fist while her left hand search and explored the world around her.  Around this time last year my mind started to be preoccupied with different concerns like cerebral palsy and suddenly, the dates of the arrival of her teeth were the furthest thing from my mind.  Since the five month mark we have watched Olivia slowly reach milestone after milestone.  And while the dates are not exact in my mind or in some cases written down on paper, one thing is for certain and that is that she has achieved so much and come so far in the past year.

Recently Olivia has managed to somehow impress us with even more with new "tricks" and even more milestones.  Olivia is now able to use her right hand to play with a toy, and occasionally use both hands to hold her sippy cup.  She is also starting to "side-sit", which hopefully will prepare her to crawl and then walk.  And one of her new favorite activities is sitting on her knees to play, helping to strengthen her balance and her core in the process.

 

I am willing to bet that these little milestones are going to start adding up and before we know it Olivia will be well on her way to walking.  I know some people might not consider these things as actual milestones, but I assure you, these are moments that Mike and I cherish.  So while over the past year we haven't exactly notated every tooth in Olivia's baby book, we are working hard to make sure that as many milestones as possible are properly recorded so that one day she may look back and see just how far she has come.

In other news, here are some great pictures of Olivia over the past two months!

Olivia clearly does not like group pictures with all the neighbors!

First day in the Toddler Class!! 12/2/13

Our happy girl!

I know I can't capture every moment along this wild and crazy journey.  So for now, I am just going to try to keep taking pictures and capture as many of these moments as I can.