Hot Summer Days

This is what hot summer days are all about...
Helping Mommy with some gardening
Playing in your water table

Running in the sprinklers

Sharing a drink with your puppy

Playing chase with Mommy when you are both soaking wet, and then collapsing in the grass, giggling the entire time!

This was one of those days that I was so thankful to be home with Coop. We had such a great couple of hours outside--no deadlines, no rush, no need to be anywhere else. Just the two of us, enjoying a hot summer day at home.

Typical Friday

Every Friday morning, for about 20 minutes, you can find my little man staring out our front windows, completely mesmerized by the lawn crew mowing our yard.
Coop will run between the front windows and the back windows, following the crew's every move. Mowing, weed eating, blowing the leaves...Coop catches it all! In fact, this particular Friday, the crew arrived a little earlier than usual to our house and Coop was awake, but still in bed. But as soon as the mower turned on, I heard Coop on the monitor saying, "Mow mow. Mama Mama. Mow mow!" As soon as I got him out of his bed, he bounded out of my arms and ran to the front windows with milk and blankie in tow.

And, after the crew waves bye-bye to Coop, this is the look I get as they drive away. Luckily Coop has a toy mower he can play with until the real deal shows up again next Friday!

Adventures with Ooh-Ooh

Since our first zoo trip last month and our face-to-face meeting with a gorilla, Cooper has been obsessed with gorillas. He pulls out all of his animal books at home and flips through each page until he finds an "ooh-ooh." He'll flip through the books and pages saying "no...no...no..." until he spots a gorilla and he lets out a very excited "OOH-OOH OOH-OOH!!"and then leans down to hug the picture of the gorilla. At night time, before turning off the lights, Coop insists on finding this picture of the gorilla. He then says, "night night Ooh-Ooh" and gives the picture a kiss. So sweet!

Cooper also discovered the stuffed animal, Mr. Gorilla, in his toy basket--this is the same gorilla that Cooper would sit with for his monthly baby pictures. But, now, Mr. Gorilla, who has been renamed "Ooh-Oho," is Cooper's FAVORITE. "Ooh-Ooh" has meals with us, goes outside with us, travels in the car with us, and now sleeps with Cooper every night. I wasn't really sure if Coop would be interested in stuffed animals, but now with Ooh-Ooh, I love to see Coop's love and affection for a stuffed animal. It really is like his little friend!

Locked Out

Let me set the scene for you from this afternoon: Cooper and I had just arrived home from a fun Target outing, where we actually had to wait out a huge thunderstorm that passed by. Stuck in Target during a storm?! No problem...but it will cost you. Coop now has a new Toy Story dinosaur that roars as you squeeze it, a few new water toys, and maybe a few things jumped in the cart for me, too. Anyway, we got home and I unlocked our back door, put Coop and my purse down inside and turned around to head back for the bags. I always leave the back door open so Coop can go in and out, essentially following me, as I quickly unload the car. But, as I'm heading back to the door with my arms full of bags and diaper boxes, I see that the back door is closed. "Oh, Coop must have closed it," I think. Well, I quickly discover as I'm turning the knob that Coop not only closed the back door, but also locked it.
So there I was, standing in the drizzly rain holding several Target bags looking through the glass panes at my son who is grinning from ear to ear. He isn't grinning because he knows he locked me out; he's grinning because he was having fun waving to me on the other side of the door.

My first instinct was to ask him to unlock the door...
Me: "Coop, see how Mommy is turning the knob. Can you turn the knob like Mommy?"
Coop: He just touches the knob.
Me: "Coop, can you unlock the door for Mommy, please?"
Coop: Grabs my car keys and touches them to the knob and then looks at me like, why aren't you opening the door yet?
Clearly...that got me nowhere.

Panic set in initially, but I kept telling myself to stay calm. LUCKILY my phone was with me, not locked inside with my purse. I instantly called Philip and he confirmed that we didn't have a spare key around, so Philip dashed to his car and headed home.

My goal was to keep Coop as close to the door as possible so that he didn't get into trouble, and I wanted to make sure to keep an eye on him. Thank goodness we have glass panes on our back door! At first Coop was really confused and kept saying "side ('outside' in Coop speak) side Mama side Mama side." I knew he was wondering why Mommy got to be outside and he didn't. It would be at least 30 minutes until Philip got home, so I started racking my brain for how to entertain a 1.5 year old through a door. We sang, we danced, we stomped our feet, we sang some more, we jumped, we blew kisses, we did fishy faces...anything I could think of to keep him engaged and close.

Each time Coop started to walk away from the door, I would bang loudly or clap my hands to get his attention. A couple of times I even said, "Coop, Daddy is home!" because I knew he would run to the door for that. I felt bad tricking him, but hey, it got him back in my eyesight.

At one point, Coop started picking up Drake's food and giving Drake one piece at a time, but then Coop turned to me and started putting the dog food in his mouth. The more I said no and tried to discourage it, the more he put in his mouth. Now I was officially panicking because I didn't want him to choke. I quickly decided he needed to learn how to spit or I was going to put my foot through the window.

Me: "Coop, can you spit like Mommy? Watch Mommy spit." (A couple of sentences I never imagined myself saying.)
Coop: smiling with a huge mouthful of dog food pieces
Me: "Watch Mommy. Can you spit like Mommy? Do this...can you do that like Mommy?"

And then it worked! Coop started spitting out all of the dog food! Never mind it was all over the floor, the rug, the windows, his clothes, and face. Dog food panic over.

Just when I was running out of entertainment ideas, the gate opens and Philip pulls into the driveway! Phew!

All in all, Coop did great. He got a little fussy a couple of times, but I think it was more out of frustration as opposed to fear. It was a long 45 minutes, but I learned my lessons: spare keys are a must and a new roll of paper towels has endless entertaining possibilities.

Summer Gear?

It's summertime!!!! And, according to Cooper, that means break out your wool bear hat and fleece camo gloves. (He pulled these exact items out of his drawer on his own and insisted on putting them on!)
When you wear camo fleece gloves, it takes a little extra work holding your sippy cup.

Happy summer!!