How 'bout a weekend from Hell?

Sunday we went to The Cheesecake Factory and had a great lunch. This was the highlight of an otherwise horrid weekend. Cooper wooed the waitresses and people craned their necks to see the happy baby eating everything in sight. He got to have bananas and bread that the waitress brought him and he had my meatloaf and mashed potatoes and sweet tamale cakes as an appetizer. At the end of lunch an older gentleman came up and asked how old Cooper was and commented how much he enjoyed his lunch and how well behaved he was. This, of course, was timed perfectly with Cooper letting out a Banshee scream and bucking wildly as Brandon tried to strap him in is car seat!

PS I show you Brandon’s colossal breakfast burrito for no other reason than this was by far the biggest breakfast burrito I have ever seen. And yes, my hunka-hunka burnin’ love had no problem polishing this thing off.

The rest of the weekend was horrible. Thursday daycare called and he was sick again and had a fever (again, or still??) So I rush to get him and we went to the doctor where they tell me he’s sick (um, really? thanks- here’s your money) and sent us on our way. We then had the next several days of NO sleep, continuous crying, and refusing his bottle. One night we stayed up the entire night and cried (yes, both of us), while Brandon got his beauty rest (he claims he really isn’t good with a lack of sleep, um..and I am??) Poor Cooper literally cried and screamed all night and was completely hoarse the next day. As if this wasn’t eventful enough, he even managed to pop out his third tooth over the weekend.

Thankfully, by Sunday he seemed to feel better and that was why we went to the Cheesecake Factory. And while we have been making a good attempt at having him sleep in his crib, since he was sick we had him back in our bed. So....Sunday night we had put him to bed and stacked our barrier pillows around him and then the unthinkable happened (you know where I am going with this right?) That’s right-with no noise or warning, we hear a loud thump on the monitor and Cooper had steamrolled the barrier and fell off the bed (which, incidentally is REALLY high off the ground). Thank goodness he was fine; we kept him up for another hour constantly monitoring his physical condition (and I barely slept a wink for my neurotic vigil). But I felt, and still feel, terrible. I have tried to keep him so safe and then we go and let him fall off the stupid bed. So I can cross that 'parent of the year award' off of my wish list and this can serve as documentation for the emancipation hearing (which I was anticipating for the high school years, but Cooper may have a desire to move it up....way up).

How Many Times Can She Say, "LOOK AT YOU"?

The weather is so nice, when I am not caging my kid, I make him play outside. Here he is in his new swing-we both love it. I really wish I could take it for a ride. Cooper laughs hysterically when he gets to go high.

This was our maiden voyage so we were pretty conservative on our height (who am I kidding-it was really since I was recording it and didn't want this turning up as evidence for the emancipation hearing later).

Now we really get some air. And he always has a moment of sheer terror when he starts the free fall back down.

I live for that look.

Folsom Prison Baby Blues

Ok, so before you start off thinking I am a bad mom for getting a cage for my kid, let me tell you about the stress I have been under with his mobility. Especially in the mornings. Cooper is like his own credit card logo-‘he’s everywhere you should be’. I try to put him in the closet, only to turn around and find him close to poking out his eye with a five inch stiletto, or maybe I try to apply mascara for a second only to find him reaching for my curling iron cord. And for all of you who know me, you know mornings are not my thing. I am at the top of my game at, oh say- 10:00 am, and then it is all downhill from there. So asking me to know what Cooper ‘the fast and dangerous’ is doing at 5:00 am is like asking a custodian to perform brain surgery-I simply can’t do it. I can try, but the results just aren’t pretty.

Anyways, he likes his cage, um I mean clubhouse, if Cooper asks. Brandon and I joked that he would come out of there with prison tats (maybe a teardrop) and a shank to stab us from putting him in there in the first place. But instead he joyfully ran his cup against his ‘bars’ and started to sing, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen….”

How old is Cooper?

Would you believe I really don’t know? Besides singing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ every Tuesday to commemorate his entrance into this world, I seemed to have at some point messed up his age. This is because I started counting weeks and then started transferring those weeks into months (e.g. 4 weeks = 1 month). I realized that doesn’t work since I was going to make Cooper 9 months old tomorrow and that would mean that he is 12 weeks (3 months) away from his first birthday. Looking at the calendar, I can see there are 16 weeks until his birthday! This must have happened with my transition from weeks to months since there are 52 weeks in a year, but when you turn those into 4 weeks per month, you have 13 months. Sheesh, where is a Mayan calendar when you need one!

So what does this mean??
1. Cooper’s Mom is an E-diot.
2. The good news is that Cooper reached all those developmental milestones earlier, so he is even a bigger genius that we ever imagined.
3. It is good that Cooper is smart since one of us will need to figure out how old he is, and we all know it isn’t going to be me.

So I guess he is 36 weeks (but not 9 months) old tomorrow!

No Baby No Cry

Check our B is for Bob onesie. My little Rastafarian will be learning the alphabet in no time.

Seriously, how cute is this?

Lisa dropped of this beautiful throw the other day for my birthday (yes, it is a little late, but sometimes she gives me my Christmas present in July so this was fantastic!)

I had to bundle up the bambino to see how great he looks in green. It is really his color, doncha think?

Cooper's First Easter

It has been a rough couple of weeks for us. Cooper and I got another nasty bug (on top of the other one we had) and then he got super sick with an ear infection. It was so scary since he has never been sick and he had a 104 temperature. Luckily, Grandpa brought Grandma up to calm me down and take care of my sick baby so I could go back to work. Then last Friday I drove Cooper and Grandma to Burley and then Grandpa came up to pick up Brandon (yes, we love to drive:).

Here are some highlights:

Cooper helped Grandma, Toni, Tasia, and me color Easter eggs. His job was to check the structural integrity of each egg with his two razor sharp teeth. Then he had a delightful gravity test that most of the eggs failed. Suffice it to say, we had very few eggs that weren't cracked by the end of this event.

Cooper and his Grandpa are now best friends and Cooper has lost all fear of the hairy bear-like Grandpa.

Cooper is loving standing up and likes to walk whenever someone will hold his hands and help him get moving. Lucky for him, Grandma likes to do just that.

No One Puts Baby in the Corner

He puts himself there...

And underneath every wood chair where he customarily knocks his head every single time.

And at the base of the precariously perched lamp where he likes to give it a good shake for Mommy's blood pressure.

And at every sharp edged piece of furniture we own so Brandon can then say, "Why aren't you watching him?"

This new crawling thing is WAY more fun than I thought. Cooper is banged up and bruised several times a day, Brandon doesn't think I am attentive enough (umm, hello I have to blink sometime), and my anxiety is at a new all time high as I wonder, "WHERE THE HELL DID HE GO NOW??"

Ready for Spring

It was so nice today we had to take the kid and the dogs out for a walk. Here is Cooper's first swing ride, he loved it and laughed and laughed. I am laughing as well, but more in a maniacal sense because I realized that my rear didn't remotely fit into the swing and my legs were two feet from touching the ground.
Apparently as I am getting older my butt is expanding and I am shrinking excessively. Brandon was nice and pushed our big butt so we could get airborne as there was no way we were moving otherwise.

Ready to rumble!

We Have a Crawler!

As promised, here is Cooper's new video! He can crawl!! Whew! It is about time (no pressure or anything, but I was getting a little worried).

He finally found the motivation in a water bottle on top of his stacking cups. Cooper loves him some water bottle, and when it is a Water Tower, it is absolutely irresistible. Getting him really thirsty helps too;)

And Jer, those things are his knee pads, and he's also got his stylin' headband (this is sweaty, hard work, you know?) Richard Simmons has nothing on this kid. And I know all of you are asking, "where can I get such snazzy workout accessories??" Don't worry-they will be part of our apparel line when we come out with our workout DVD-'Gettin' your water bottle on!'

New News

Grandma, Grandpa, and Mitch went for a ride today and came for lunch, so that was fun. It's been a very busy couple of weeks for us.

• Cooper past the 8 month mark last Tuesday!
• He popped out another tooth just like that, so now he has two he likes to bite me with.
• Since I have this food phobia I had to take him over to Jamie's and let her feed him a cracker (she thinks she is a Dr. so I thought if anyone could manage a choking episode, she could), and guess what-he does know how to chew! Whew! I guess he won't be eating smoothies and bait bag food when he is twelve after all!!
• He has been getting more mobile (check back for video) and he can stand against the couch when we help him up there (until he realizes we aren't holding him and then he shakes uncontrollably and falls down).

Coop's Trip to the Real Zoo

So last weekend Grandma Gloria came up and we went to the zoo. It was a beautiful seventy degree day and we had a lot of fun; but truthfully, I think Cooper liked his indoor zoo just as well as the real thing.

Cooper and I were both sick (still are) suffering from our second bug in three weeks of day care. He really liked the lions, but most of the animals were too far away for him to see. He did enjoy honking the horn on his stroller, looking at all the kids, and pulling off his socks on random trails so we would have to track our way back to find them.

Here are a few pics to chronicle our adventure:

Grandma is trying to choke Cooper for his naughtiness with the sock displacement.

Here's Cooper and his mom making the zoo rounds while sneezing snot rockets every few minutes.

And here is Cooper waiting to get into the zoo-honk, honk people-out of my way!!
Cooper was a little disappointed-all week I told him he would get to see an elephant, and when we got to the zoo, there was NO elephant! We felt cheated!!!

A Nugget of my Neurosis

Here is one of my favorite paranoid purchases. Brandon calls it a bait bag. This way you can put food in the bag for the baby to eat and it eventually dissolves through the bag (yes, I know it is gross; but really, what about babies isn't?) I have an extreme paranoia about anything being in Cooper's mouth, so this thing makes me feel much better.

I just can't figure out how babies learn to chew.

Brandon thinks it is all instinctual, but I would rather have my bait bag.

Cooper's Tooth

Here is Cooper's little baby tooth. This video kind of reminds me of a drunk celebrity attacking the papparazzi. Hope you enjoy!

Cooper's New School

Finally! Here is my favorite; I hope it was worth the wait!

Ok, so it's not really a school, but that sounds nicer than dreaded day care.

I had a mild breakdown when I dropped him off, but Cooper did good even though he didn't really take any naps (that will take awhile). I did get off work early and when we got home, I had to closely examine him for any signs of damage envisioning the nanny-cam I needed to buy. Finding no signs of damage, I promptly allowed him to fall into the door and get a knot on his head. So much for worrying about what they might do!! I had to spend the rest of our nap afternoon staring at Cooper as he slept to determine if he could be a concussion candidate (Did he act disoriented? Are those dark circles under his eyes or is he just tired? Was he actually sleeping or did he lose consciousness?)

So that was our first day!