Coop's Scoop

Cooper hasn't gotten very much attention on the ol' blog lately, so I felt like he deserved his own personal update.  He keeps us on our toes all day, every day.  He's full of life, and I love that about him.  He's always ready to go, ready to explore, ready to do.  He's all boy and a Daddy's boy, but sometimes he manages to be a little bit of a Mama's boy too.  He says I'm his girlfriend. :)

 He's obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles right now.  Leonardo is his favorite, but Donny is a close second.  He really likes April O'Neil too.  He used his Christmas money to buy all four characters, a Leonardo mask, and a shell.  He sweet talked his daddy into getting him the sword a couple weeks later.  Now all he wants to do is play ninja "turwles."  He finds a way to make everything about the ninja turtles too, and I've taken advantage of that by making ABC flashcards for him with ninja turtle pictures on them so that he's interested.  I also made a little sight word book for him the other day using the ninja turtles.  And a name puzzle for him to practice putting the letters of his name in order using ninja turtle colors.  Sometimes I let the kindergarten teacher in me get a little carried away.  He fell for it though.  Haha!  My little man takes after his mama in his early planning skills.  He's already planned his ninja turtles birthday party.  In August.  The theme and location were decided on in December.  I think he broke my record on early planning!  He talks about his ninja turtle birthday all the time and asks every weekend if it's time.  Poor guy is going to learn some serious patience on this one!  My brother's birthday was a couple weeks ago, and Cooper wanted to know why Uncle Nicholas didn't have ninja turtles on his cake.  The boy loves birthdays and asks me to sing "Happy Birthday" to him quite regularly.  August is going to be so fun this year!  Too bad it's still five months away.  

His vocabulary is growing amazingly fast.  His current favorite word to use is "probably."  As in us asking him if he knows where his buddy next door's bike is, and he answers, "Probably in our garage" knowing good and well he put it in there!  A few week's ago he overheard Karl and me talking about someone who had passed away.  He asked where the person went, and I told him she had gone to be with Jesus.  The next thing he said drew immediate tears to my eyes.  "Mommy, will you go with me to meet Jesus?"  I pray my son goes to be with Jesus, but I also pray that he's a very old happy man when that time comes.  It took me a second to compose myself from the shock of his question and the emotions that came with it.  I told him I'd be there waiting for him when he got there.  Some mornings we wake up to him praying or singing one of the bible verses he's learned in school.  His favorite is "God made me.  I am special."  He sings it over and over, and it's beautiful.  I hope he always knows how special he is.  There's a lot of meaning in those six words.

One morning I was bathing Jake and Cooper was playing in the living room. He ran in and said, "Mommy, come look at what I made."  I told him I would be there in just a second.  He ran out, and a couple minutes later, he ran back in summoning me again to the "coffee room" as he calls it.  I quickly finished with Jake because the boy was clearly excited about something he had done, and I honestly was a bit nervous about what I would find!  He had taken out the tub of dinosaurs he got for Christmas and set up this scene:

He made a very impressive scene with the volcanoes, trees, rocks, and dinosaurs.  He even sorted the dinosaurs so that similar ones were together.  The pictures do not do it justice either.  It was a really neat set up he created.  He was so proud, and I was too!

I sure do love this boy.  I love his energy.  I love his enthusiasm and excitement.  I love his creativity and intelligence.  I love his curiosity.  I love him to pieces.  He is one special little boy!