If you read the last post, and I'm assuming that if you're one of those that check this regularly, you read about Cooper and his running at you and going "ooofff" as he rams his little head into your leg/butt/crotch. Well, I thought it was funny b/c he was doing it to Abbie and not me. This week, it hit home for me. I was sitting in one of the dining table chairs, and all of a sudden, I get this immense pain in my left kidney, kinda like a boxer hit me there. I turn around, and there's Cooper with this shit eating grin on his face. And I wanna say, "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Instead, I just tell him its not nice to head butt people. I think all he heard from me was, "Wa-Wa, Wa-Wa, Wa-Wa". Then he turned around and went back to playing like nothing happened. Just weird. I think we're going to rename him Damien.
Oh, the other ouch to tell y'all about. We're trying to ween Bear from nursing to go to sleep. So we bought a second crib for him and put it up against our bed so he has a bed that opens to our's and that way, he can learn to sleep in his own bed while still being able to be touched by one of us to calm him. So, we get that set up and the first night, it works like a charm. After that, its been really hard on Bear. He screams for hours on end b/c he wants to nurse. His initial going to sleep at night is quiet and calm and he's down for the count. But at 11, about an hour after we've gone to bed and are just starting to drift into La-La land, he wakes up and starts screaming. So I scoot over to his side to try and calm him and put him down. If its Abbie, then he just wants to nurse. Last night was one of the worst we've had yet. He woke up and screamed, not cried, but screamed for an hour. I lasted about that hour, then turned him over to Abbie as the last ounce of patience I had seeped out of my ears. It was rough. Somehow, though, she got him down. I'm not sure how because I think I fell asleep. It's going to be a rough couple of weeks to couple of months as we work with Bear on all this.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Ooooofffff
Cooper seems to really enjoy running up to you and bouncing off his stomach saying, “Oooofffff.” Most of the times he’s laughing as he does it but from time to time when he’s mad he will put a little extra oooff in it and try to knock you over. He was mad at me for something tonight and took a running start and about knocked me over. “Don’t you oooooffff me,” I said. Without missing a beat he reached up and poked me and said, ‘Tickle.” How can you stay mad at someone so darn cute??
Saturday, June 02, 2007
The Month of May 2007
The Month of May
Sully has learned to give us high fives! The same day he learned his first sign language- he did the “All done” sign when he was done eating. We were pretty darn excited. He is a walking fiend now. I even put his first pair of shoes on last week . He had them off before I could take a picture and every time I put them back on him he would get out of them. He got a brand new pair of sneakers for his birthday that tighten up so he can’t escape them! He just walks around the apartment now because he can. He is always carrying something with him. I find everything that should be in the bedroom in the bathroom, and everything that should be in the living room in the kitchen. It’s exhausting cleaning up after him! Yesterday they found my hot rollers and spent most of the day taking them out and putting each roller back in. I was cleaning up and I can’t find some of the rollers now.
Bear’s new game of the week is to hide the remote control under the stove. He and I literally race to get to the remote and have each taken a few dives to get to it. I’m not kidding when I say we race and he wins more than I do! When he does win he cackles and cackles and starts pressing all the buttons!
Bear has also figured out how to hold onto you and climb up onto the couch. Now we find him sitting in his little chair at his own will. A little disconcerting when you just assume he is on the floor. Speaking of will- I am amazed every day at this kid’s tenacity and stubbornness. Jim says he gets it from me but I think he has enough for the both of us. Temper though he gets from Jim. If he is hungry or he wants something he will pitch an absolute fit until he gets it.
Yesterday I took Cooper into his room to take his nap. I partially closed the door to read him his story and I heard the instant Bear realized we weren’t in the living room- this irritated squawk and then thump thump thump he came crawling on his fists and BAM slammed open the door, looked at the door like how dare you be closed. Then he pounded his way over to us and climbed in my lap to hear the story too. I laughed through the whole story!
Bear has graduated to the high chair now. It’s fascinating to me the differences in these boys. I mean Cooper was in the high chair at 5 months. He’d roll the high chair over to us asking to eat. Bear fought it and fought it ripping off the bib and trying to escape the chair in absolute fits. We had to pull out the restraints just to keep him in the chair! He’s adapted to the chair now but he doesn’t want mashed up food at all. He only wants the stuff he can pretend to chew on so no baby food for him.
Cooper’s new phrase is, “Hi Joe.” If he sees anyone he will call them Joe. My theory is he loves Joe on Blue’s Clues so everyone is Joe to him. In the morning he says, “Hi baby Bear. Hi Joe.” He is very good with his manners now. He will say, “Please, please, please.” If you don’t give it to him it’s, “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!!” but he almost always remembers to say thank you! Coop is also our little tickle monster. He loves to tickle everyone. Last week he and I were at Whole Foods and he was mad that I had him in the cart. I asked him to please hold on while I put things on the conveyer belt and he reached out and well basically hit me. The shock on my face was clear and I did a sharp intake of breath. His face fell and then just as quickly he reached out and said with this huge smile on his face, “Tickle!” I thought it was a good recovery on his part.
Coop is a champ now with eating with his spoon. Yesterday we had a stew we were eating and I had some left so I pushed my bowl over to him. He took my spoon and his spoon and would eat from one to the other. If you try to help him he gets really upset and will only allow you to put the food on the spoon, he has to bring it to his mouth. We had just been commenting on what a great eater he was and how he never pushed himself back too far in the chair so that it would fall over. We must have jinxed it because out of nowhere he just kicked back and in slow motion the chair hit the wall and then he tumbled out the side and smacked his face onto the kitchen floor. Wasn’t his week because earlier Bear was walking and got going too quick and basically jumped onto Coop who lost his balance and bam knocked his face onto the cement floor on the balcony! Poor kid I had to pull out the ice pack twice in one week.
The beginning of the month Coop has started his head bob as his way of jamming to the music. Now he will spin around and move his legs with his head bob. Mostly gets dizzy but it is fun to watch. Coop is now practicing his colors. He refuses to say blue although he loves to say that everything is purple. For a while he would count to 10 but now everything is 2. And I mean everything. He is still all about the proper order of things. Toilet lids should be down, trash can lids need to be closed, and cabinets should be closed. Bear opens them, Cooper runs behind him to put it back. Must be the plight of the older child.
Sully has learned to give us high fives! The same day he learned his first sign language- he did the “All done” sign when he was done eating. We were pretty darn excited. He is a walking fiend now. I even put his first pair of shoes on last week . He had them off before I could take a picture and every time I put them back on him he would get out of them. He got a brand new pair of sneakers for his birthday that tighten up so he can’t escape them! He just walks around the apartment now because he can. He is always carrying something with him. I find everything that should be in the bedroom in the bathroom, and everything that should be in the living room in the kitchen. It’s exhausting cleaning up after him! Yesterday they found my hot rollers and spent most of the day taking them out and putting each roller back in. I was cleaning up and I can’t find some of the rollers now.
Bear’s new game of the week is to hide the remote control under the stove. He and I literally race to get to the remote and have each taken a few dives to get to it. I’m not kidding when I say we race and he wins more than I do! When he does win he cackles and cackles and starts pressing all the buttons!
Bear has also figured out how to hold onto you and climb up onto the couch. Now we find him sitting in his little chair at his own will. A little disconcerting when you just assume he is on the floor. Speaking of will- I am amazed every day at this kid’s tenacity and stubbornness. Jim says he gets it from me but I think he has enough for the both of us. Temper though he gets from Jim. If he is hungry or he wants something he will pitch an absolute fit until he gets it.
Yesterday I took Cooper into his room to take his nap. I partially closed the door to read him his story and I heard the instant Bear realized we weren’t in the living room- this irritated squawk and then thump thump thump he came crawling on his fists and BAM slammed open the door, looked at the door like how dare you be closed. Then he pounded his way over to us and climbed in my lap to hear the story too. I laughed through the whole story!
Bear has graduated to the high chair now. It’s fascinating to me the differences in these boys. I mean Cooper was in the high chair at 5 months. He’d roll the high chair over to us asking to eat. Bear fought it and fought it ripping off the bib and trying to escape the chair in absolute fits. We had to pull out the restraints just to keep him in the chair! He’s adapted to the chair now but he doesn’t want mashed up food at all. He only wants the stuff he can pretend to chew on so no baby food for him.
Cooper’s new phrase is, “Hi Joe.” If he sees anyone he will call them Joe. My theory is he loves Joe on Blue’s Clues so everyone is Joe to him. In the morning he says, “Hi baby Bear. Hi Joe.” He is very good with his manners now. He will say, “Please, please, please.” If you don’t give it to him it’s, “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!!!” but he almost always remembers to say thank you! Coop is also our little tickle monster. He loves to tickle everyone. Last week he and I were at Whole Foods and he was mad that I had him in the cart. I asked him to please hold on while I put things on the conveyer belt and he reached out and well basically hit me. The shock on my face was clear and I did a sharp intake of breath. His face fell and then just as quickly he reached out and said with this huge smile on his face, “Tickle!” I thought it was a good recovery on his part.
Coop is a champ now with eating with his spoon. Yesterday we had a stew we were eating and I had some left so I pushed my bowl over to him. He took my spoon and his spoon and would eat from one to the other. If you try to help him he gets really upset and will only allow you to put the food on the spoon, he has to bring it to his mouth. We had just been commenting on what a great eater he was and how he never pushed himself back too far in the chair so that it would fall over. We must have jinxed it because out of nowhere he just kicked back and in slow motion the chair hit the wall and then he tumbled out the side and smacked his face onto the kitchen floor. Wasn’t his week because earlier Bear was walking and got going too quick and basically jumped onto Coop who lost his balance and bam knocked his face onto the cement floor on the balcony! Poor kid I had to pull out the ice pack twice in one week.
The beginning of the month Coop has started his head bob as his way of jamming to the music. Now he will spin around and move his legs with his head bob. Mostly gets dizzy but it is fun to watch. Coop is now practicing his colors. He refuses to say blue although he loves to say that everything is purple. For a while he would count to 10 but now everything is 2. And I mean everything. He is still all about the proper order of things. Toilet lids should be down, trash can lids need to be closed, and cabinets should be closed. Bear opens them, Cooper runs behind him to put it back. Must be the plight of the older child.
Dream House
We found our dream house today.
I spent the morning perusing Craigs List for a crib for Cooper. Given our stay has been extended a lot longer than we anticipated all of our stuff is in storage. It’s time for Cooper to get a real bed. I found a listing for a nice crib that met all m criteria and it was dirt cheap but she didn’t show a picture. So after looking at 517 other listings I couldn’t find another one so we had to make the 30 minute drive out to a town called Creedmor just to look at this bed. We knew we were getting there when we turned onto the dirt and gravel road and passed a somewhat disheveled man on a tractor with a few labs running in his yard. We pulled into an almost 5 acre lot surrounded by cattle fencing. First time I’d ever heard of it but it supposedly keeps the animals out. The driveway was lined with a cool log type of fencing and we pulled up to this gorgeous house. It is 3 bedrooms with a loft that overlooks a saltwater pool. Each bedroom is huge and has it’s own full bathroom. The pool has been designed to have a large section of just 3-4 feet and then a whole deep end section. (Did I mention there is a button you can push that turns the salt into chlorine if you want?) There is a huge playground and then a huge garage that has an office, a woodshop type place and it has a kid playroom with chalkboard walls. (I could home school in there!!!) And the master bathroom it was like its own bedroom.
I felt really bad for the woman because she had moved down here from Boston and the building of the house had wrecked her marriage so she has to put it up on the market in a few weeks. Doesn’t that just seem too good to be true?? Alas she is asking for about 200K more than we are looking to spend BUT we did some comps and she clearly doesn’t know the market so maybe just maybe when she gets a real estate agent and prices it right we can negotiate!!
Everybody think positive thoughts for us. Not sure if you can tell but I really want this house!!!
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