September 2007 Update

We had our Monihan Beach trip the first week of September and then the rest of the month was just to recover :-) Cooper has taken to being my little helper. His favorite thing is to climb up to the top of the stairs and yell, "Come on Bear!!" One day I was in the kitchen and they were out on the patio playing. Cooper came running in and grabbed my hand. I was in the middle of cooking but went with it. Got to the patio and there was Bear laying upside down on this bike/walker. Just hanging out with his feet up in the air enjoying the view. Without Coop poor Bear might have been there for a while before I realized he wasn't running in and out of the apartment!

They are both in a huge train phase right now. They will take the whole ride to the gym going, "Chuga chuga, chuga, choooo choooo!" Both of them doing the hand motions. We have 4 trains but they only want the one that the other has. Makes for some creative distractions when I need to get the trains away from them.

Coop loves to tell you he is stuck. If you put him in the car seat and he doesn't want to go he starts saying, "stuck" over and over and trying to wiggle out. As soon as we get home he stops at the door and sticks his foot out saying, "Shoe, shoe, shoe." I take the shoes off he starts in on the, "Toes, toes, toes." Which means socks in Cooper world. Everything is in threes! Actuallyhe just keeps saying it until he gets what he wants. Coop is doing all of his puzzles like a champ. Every time I buy one he puts all the pieces in looks at me as if I'm insulting him by not making it more challenging and then he takes the pieces to bed to play with. I have a bug bucket of puzzle pieces that he loves to play pretend with.

One day the three of us were on the recliner. Bear was nursing and Coop likes to sit on the arm and watch a show. We were watching Go Diego Go. They told the kids to get up and wiggle wiggle wiggle with them. Cooper got up on the recliner over a sleeping Sully and stuck his butt out and started to wiggle. He turned and shot me this grin I just thought it was the funniest thing. He is starting to interact now with the tv instead of just staring at it blankly. The other fun thing was getting some Backyardigan stickers from Miss Emily. We had stickers everywhere they just had a ball. I think I finally have found them all but there are still a few in the bathtub.

Bear is starting to teethe again and he loves to teethe on sticks. I have a thing full of theething type toys but he just throws them down when I try to get him to use them. He runs out the door and starts yelling, "Stick!" in case you weren't sure what he was playing with. He can point out birds and he likes to point at things and say, "What's that?" On the 19th I saw him start dancing for the first time.

Sleep continues to be a challenge. I'm learning to let go of what I think it should be and to work with what I have. There seems to be a routine of taking naps on the couch emerging but they last for 2-3 hours so I'm thinking I may just go with it.