Reading with Daddy

After we eat dinner and before bathtime, usually Philip and Cooper take off for some last minute playtime. More often than not, I find them playing hide-and-seek in the curtains or wrestling or knocking down block towers, all of which create lots of loud giggles and squeals. But, on this particular night, I realized it had gotten pretty quiet in the playroom--no more tumbling blocks or playing chase or noisy toys, just quiet. So I peaked my head in, and this is what I saw.

Cooper noticed me watching them, and he jumped up, ran over to me, and grabbed my hand saying, "Mama sit sit."

So much for reading...back to wrestling with Daddy and Drake!

Night night!

7.27.2010

Mental Pictures

It's nights like tonight that I wish I could bottle up. I want to remember every detail of Cooper and how adorable he was tonight. His sweet grin, the light in his eyes, his fabulous giggle, that fresh out of the bath baby smell...everything. My mom tells me to take a mental picture, and tonight my mind was going "click, click, click."

After brushing teeth tonight, as we were walking to Coop's room, I asked Cooper to go find his blankie and pick out a book to read. He dashed into his room, grabbed his blankie, but came running back to me, handing me his blankie saying, "Mama horse tail. Blankie. Tail." and pointing to his backside! So I tucked Coop's blankie in the back of his blue rocket pj pants and my son was in full horse mode.

It wasn't really anything huge that Cooper said or did tonight. It was just the moment. The three of us together, sitting on the floor in Cooper's semi-dark room. Coop, with wet hair and wearing his rocket jammies, galloping around his bedroom with his "blankie tail" repeating "neigh neigh neigh" over and over with a grin that went from ear to ear. He would gallop himself right into Philip's lap and just laugh and laugh! I wanted so badly to get up and grab a camera, but I knew the moment would change if I moved. So, I just continued on with my mental pictures, enjoying the precious moment with my little family.

Monthly Updates

I have not done a monthly update in a very long time, so here is a quick recap of my little man since 18 months.

At 18 months Cooper added lawn mowers to his list of REALLY cool things (other things on the list were/are brooms and vacuums); he started taking a big interest in "helping" Philip and me cook, wanting his own bowl and spoon each time we were making something in the kitchen; and Jackson was officially his best bud.

Coop at two weeks and Coop at 18 months.

At 19 months Cooper started really expressing his love for animals, with Drake and gorillas as his most favorite of all!

At 20 months Cooper was covered in bumps and bruises. I'm not sure if this was due to him trying to walk faster and get a handle on running or if it was because he has a little bit of clumsiness to him. Sometimes I even think his little mind is a couple of steps ahead of his feet and he is just trying to move forward and catch up...does that make sense? Either way, a week didn't go by that he didn't have a new scratch or scrape. I will say, though, that Cooper is one tough guy. It's very rare that he cries or even fusses when he falls. I think that's good and bad. I want him to be tough, but not too fearless.

Cooper also made sure to show his silly side quite a bit!

At 21 months Cooper really started creating his own play and showed more and more imagination while playing. I also began noticing Cooper playing with something and showing such focus on whatever he was doing, sometimes sitting still and concentrating for several minutes at a time (or longer). This really stood out to me because up until this point, Coop would sit still for about 2.4 seconds! In these pictures, Cooper was trying to figure out a way to pull his airplane around, so he found a computer cord, attached it to one of the screws in the plane and pulled it around his playroom. He was completely in his own little world and singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star the entire time!

This was also the month that Coop really became obsessed with his set of car keys. He would find his keys and pretend to start his car with them and say, "Bye Mama," leave the room and then return with a very excited "Hi!!" Cooper would find lots of uses for his keys at this stage, actually. He would walk around the house and look for a screw like on the side of a chair or table or something, and he would pretend to take the screw out and put it back in with the keys. He would focus so intently on this, too. This is also about the time that Cooper started grabbing my hand and dragging me over to whatever toy he was playing with, pat the floor and say, "Mama sit. Sit."

At 22 months, I am more in awe of Cooper than I've ever been. Every couple of days he adds a few more words to his growing vocabulary. And, in one way or another, he shows me that things that we've talked about or done over and over for the last several months are now clicking and making sense in his little brain. It just amazes me.

His little personality is showing through more and more each week. The silly, sweet, strong willed, energetic little one I had at eight months is just an abundance of all those things and so much more now! And, I still go back to those words that Sarah used one day--full of life. That is my little man. He is full of life in every way at 22 months. I feel so blessed and am so grateful for this gift!

Counting Down

In three weeks, we'll be here
Doing this
And a lot of this
And this
With my two favorite boys
And...with Gammi, Poppi, and Aunt Annie!! Let the countdown begin!

Fun with Books

One day recently I was doing some things around the house when I realized that it was very quiet other than the noise I was making, and the little helper who normally just follows me around was no longer by my side. I quietly began walking around the house to see if I could find him, and this is what I saw when I poked my head in Cooper's room.

Completely content and totally focused on reading his books.

I know it might look like he was just making a big mess on the floor, but he wasn't just pulling the books off the shelf one by one and throwing them on the floor. He would pick a book off the shelf, look through it with complete concentration, put the book down, grab another, and flip through that one, over and over again.

AND, he did this for 28 minutes (yep, I timed it!). This coming from the kiddo who can't sit still for longer than 30 seconds. Cooper didn't notice me, didn't notice that I was taking pictures, didn't notice the cats meowing in the hallway. Nothing. He was completely focused on his books and in his own little world filled with dinosaurs, trucks, animals, robots, counting, colors, and stories!

The only reason Cooper stopped reading when he did was because Philip walked in the back door. Cooper heard the door chime ring, and he snapped out of his book daze and exclaimed, "Dada!" and ran to find Philip!

The best part of all this is that Cooper once again displayed his love for reading (yea!), and the second best part is that he sang the clean up song with me while we put his book shelves back together. Cooper sings the tune great and says over and over "ean up ean up. ee one. ean up ean up." Translation: Clean up, clean up. Everyone clean up, clean up."