Cooper's First Weekend at Home

Cooper's first weekend at home was an eventful one. Once that baby was home, everyone came out of the woodwork.

On Saturday, Jamie Mitchell, one of Abbie's best friends, drove down from Delaware to spend the afternoon with us and Cooper. It was a very nice visit, and Jamie's always fun to have around.

Right after Jamie left, Bruce Milton and Katie Rivers popped over with their 1-month old, Emily. Emily and Cooper hit it off right away, to which point, Bruce began hitting me up for an arranged marriage. I told him to get the dowry ready to go b/c Coop ain't coming cheap.

Abbie's mom, Wanda, came over about two hours after B&K showed up, along with her husband Chris' sister, Angel and nephew Pierre, both visiting from France. Now, I know what some of you are thinking...how could Cooper let the French into our house. Well, we're raising our boy to be understanding of other folks and to forgive them for their government's actions, just as we would like the world over to forgive inidividual Americans for our government's actions. :-P Anyways, everyone visited for awhile until B-K-E took off. It was nice to see Bruce and Katie and Emily. We hadn't seen them since the day after Emily's birth. She's gotten big and she's adorable.

So Angel and Wanda made dinner for all of us. It was the traditional New Year's dinner that included black eyed peas and kale. If you don't know this tradition, its a Southern one; black eyed peas for luck in the coming year, and kale for money in the coming year. I ate a lot of kale, needless to say. Pierre was a rambunctious 5-year old that was enamored with our cats, Mosby and Maggie Moo. Mosby seemed to play well with Pierre and actually showed some actual cat tendencies such as playing with a mouse...something he rarely does (probably b/c he's always sleeping). Cooper was a very good boy and slept most of the evening while we had guests. It wasn't until we wanted to sleep that night that he finally woke up.

Mosby and Maggie Moo seemed to be torn about how they're reacting to Cooper. Maggie Moo's curious. Mosby's annoyed. I'll be interested to see how they take to him when they finally realize that he ain't going away in a week or two like we do when dogsitting Wolfie.

Sunday was another busy day. Gene and Kathy stopped by to visit on their way from spending boo-koo bucks outfitting their playroom basement. They visited for a little while, passing Cooper off to each other. It's very heartwarming for me to see Dad melting whenever he's around his little grandson. Amazing what a baby can do to a person. I've seen sides of my Dad in the past three years that I've not seen in my entire life. And of course, Dad's glad to be able to hand the boy off whenever he has an assplosion...just like he did on Dad's lap.

Kat and Jan stopped by later in the evening to bring us dinner. Cooper was grateful to see his Auntie Kat and Auntie Jan, especially since he hadn't met Jan yet. They doted and they fawned over him. And it looks like the presence of a baby is what's needed to really get another woman's maternal instincts started, because they both wanted to talk about having a baby. John, you better look out...make sure Kat's taking that pill when you return and not a Tic Tac instead. The dinner they brought from PF Chang's was great, but it was even better to visit with those two. An interesting thing that happened while they were visiting. We got a knock at the door, and this lady was standing there with all this food. "From the Church" she said. So we took it in and set it on the counter. Turns out, it wasn't for us, but for the Pastor of her church, who happened to have just had twin girls. He apparently lives in the next court over, and she made a mistake. Poor thing...she was so embarrased when she came back up to get the food from us. Good thing we hadn't dug into it. It was a funny story to tell, but it was nice to know that folks are being taken care of by their friends like that.

And with that, thanks to all our friends and family that have been willing to help us out with food and visits and future babysitting. This is so much fun.