The Many Faces of Our Little Cooper

Cooper's facial expressions and mannerisms have entertained us since he was born. It all started in the hospital when he kept making a face we nicknamed (appropriately) The Cooper Face. It looked something like this:

mouth tightly shut, cheeks puffed out

As a newborn, he also had a face we called The Mad Italian. I don't have a picture, but it involved a red round face, arms out, hands by his face, and furrowed brow.

Throughout the months, there have been many, many funny faces that have added humor to our days.

Who can forget the cross-eyed face that led to panic in his mama's heart?

(refer to Mommy Moments)

Although he was only a few days old, we continue to see this face. It's the "I'll humor you with a little smile, but you're really not that funny" look. I like the one eye open, one eye shut :)

Not his cutest face; in fact, it was one of those so-ugly-it's-cute faces.

We referred to this face/pose as The Old Man. I love the hand on top of his milk belly!

This will always be a favorite. This was his 1 month birthday, and it looks like he's thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?!"

"Are you serious, Mom?"

Another good old man pose.

This was how we both felt when we got a little spring tease back in February and then it turned horribly cold again.

The sweet gummy smile

We went through a period when the tongue had to be sticking out of the lips at all times-while smiling, laughing, crying, babbling, playing, whenever!

Lately he has a new face that might be our all time favorite. The best part is that he does it ALL THE TIME and he makes a sniffling/snorting noise while he does it.

Enjoy!

9 Months

On Cooper's 9 months birthday we ate our breakfast quickly and nicely, got dressed, combed our hair, and prepared for our calm, easy photo shoot! It was great! Ha! :)

Actually, Cooper refused to eat his breakfast by clamping his mouth shut and staring at me like, "I dare you woman to put that spoon in my mouth again! You do, and I'll sneeze again as soon that grub goes in!" Then, Cooper about flipped himself off the changing table while I was trying to dress him. I was sweating by the time he was dressed. I got his hair combed as he tried grabbing the brush to put it in his mouth and fussing when I grabbed it back. When it came time for the pictures, Karl had to come in and do everything but stand on his head to get Cooper to look at the camera and be still for the split second I needed to press the button. Even with us both right in front of Cooper, he still managed to nearly nose-dive off the chair. Whew, I needed a nap by the time we were done!

The kid is all boy. 100%. No denying it. Wild, rambunctious, energetic, curious, and simply amazing. B-O-Y.

And we love it!

He makes us laugh. He keeps us on our toes. He reminds us what's important and what's not. He shows me life through a boy's eyes. Day in and day out, he fills our hearts with indescribable, immeasurable joy. He's our son.

"What up my brother?! High five, man!"

"Seriously, Eli. High five. What's wrong you? It's like you're a stuffed animal or something"

"Yea! My dad's here! He'll give me five!"

"Dad, you make me laugh so hard I'm about to wet my diaper!"

"Watch this, Eli. Let's see if they're paying attention..."

"Um, hello! Is anybody going to catch me as I plummet to the ground???"

"Did you think that was funny, Eli? Well, how 'bout a little nose dive for you then?!"

"Just kidding, buddy. Are you okay? Let me check your ear."

Happy 9 Month Birthday, Little Man!

Here's our Little Lady as well

Sadie decided she needed a photo shoot with Eli when Cooper was done. :)

Mother's Day

As Karl carried Cooper in the bedroom on Mother's Day morning with Cooper carrying (and nibbling on) a card for me, I thought to myself, how can life get sweeter than this?! There were roses, a sweet card from Karl, hazelnut coffee, chocolate chip muffins, mimosas, a long hike on the nature trail by our house, a fancy steak dinner with champagne, and lots of quality playtime to round out our day. I cherished every second of the day-my first Mother's Day.

To my Little Man,

You are your mama's dream come true. I loved you long before I ever laid eyes on you, but I love you more now than ever before.

The first time I held my son

Like a Fish in Water

Cooper has been introduced to the beach!

Karl and I had talked about going to the beach at the end of April, as we wanted to avoid the spring break crowds and extreme summer heat. Our plan was to go the last weekend of April, but when we got an email from the place we stay at advertising 35% off our stay if we went Easter weekend, we said, "Easter at the beach?! Hippity, hoppity, our little family on its way!"

As this was our first big family trip, the amount of time that went into packing and preparing for it was a little overwhelming! Our hallway was full of this-and-that, and it truly did look like we were moving homes, not going on a long-weekend trip. Then Cooper cried (and screamed) 2 out of the 4 1/2 hours on the way down, which tempted us to just turn around and go home out of fear that that was what the next few days were going to be like! However, once there, Cooper was like a fish in water (he, he :))! He loved the sand, the waves, the ocean, the pool, the seagulls, his sunglasses, the beautiful weather; he loved it all!

He really loved when Uncle Wade joined us on our second day there. We were able to get some great family pictures, enjoy being together, and celebrate Cooper's first Easter in a beautiful setting. The trip was so special, memorable, and wonderful. Karl and I did learn that "relaxing" is probably not going to be an adjective we can use again to describe our vacations for many years to come though!

However, Cooper did seem to be really relaxed!

(So inappropriate, I know! Cooper grabbed this when Karl pulled it out of the cooler and started chewing on the **UNOPENED** top. I had to get a picture, and he raised his hand at just the right second. Hilarious!)

8 Months

Happy 8 Month Birthday, Little Man!

This morning's 8 month photo shoot was quite fun.

Cooper started us off by showing off his two teethies....

...and then he decided to have a wrestling match with the beloved Eli...

which involved eye poking...
trunk pulling...
a little biting...

occasional head twisting...
ear tugging...

...and body slamming.

Coop's Scoop

-Crawling here, crawling there, Cooper crawls everywhere! Little Man loves to go! He doesn't crawl on his hands and knees yet, but he can book it through the house in an army crawl.

-Mine, mine, and mine! Everything in the house in now regarded as a toy in Cooper's mind. You know, things like door stops (his favorite of all), Sadie's toys, Sadie's bones, the stereo, the remote, cell phones, shoes, the vacuum cleaner, doors, the rugs, etc. All of which have to be tasted before being played with though. His toys are not nearly as interesting as everything else in the house.

-Can you hear me now? I don't think Cooper will ever have to ask this. The kid is loud. L-O-U-D! He yells all the time too-not out of frustration or because he's upset, in fact it's mostly when he's happy. It's just what he does. He has different pitches, slightly different volumes, and different durations, but most of his yells consists of just "aaaaahhhhh". That's also how he summons me to his room when he's ready to get out of his crib in the morning or after a nap. I've learned he likes/needs a few minutes of play time after waking up, and he lets me know when he's ready to get out (I must say this is nicer than if he were to wake up crying).

-Snooze News: Our child sleeps!!! He takes 3 naps a day, all of which he falls asleep for all by himself (I rock him for a couple minutes, put him in his crib, he gets cozy, and is out!). The morning nap seems to consistently last 1 hour and 10 minutes; the mid-day nap is between 1 1/2 and 2 hours, and the late afternoon nap is about 45 minutes. He goes to bed between 7:45 and 8:15 at night and wakes up around 6:00 am. We don't do a middle of the night feeding anymore. Oh, how I love that he sleeps now!!

-The Food War: I don't even want to talk about the eating issue. As mentioned a few weeks ago, he doesn't eat very much, and it drives me crazy! The doctor told me today at his checkup, "You can only control the quality of his food. He controls the quantity." Errrrr. The only new update from the previous post on eating is that his bottles are strictly formula now. No more pumping. It just wasn't worth it at this point.

-A Few Favorites: riding on Daddy's shoulders, pulling the bumper down in his crib and throwing his pacis out, playing with Sadie, taking walks in his stroller, being outside (loves watching Karl and me while we do yard work), getting tickled, talking/yelling, the doorway jumper (he's now figured out how to jump in it, and he loves it so much-it's so fun to watch him too), and "exploring"-loves to see new things and do things by himself.

Lock It Up

Karl and I have decided to "lock up" our blog, or at least make it private. This was not something I ever planned on doing but recently we've had some suspicious stuff going on with it. I check our stats page regularly, and lately I've noticed we're getting consistent hits from several foreign countries. Obviously, people could be accidentally stumbling on to our blog when meaning to go somewhere else, but after the same countries kept popping up, I got a little concerned. However, that didn't matter enough to me to make it private. The next thing did though...

Yesterday morning when I checked our stats, I saw that a referring site to our blog at some point in the past week was a website where people put up funny pictures. Karl and I have never used or visited this website, but somehow our blog got linked to it. We're guessing that a picture from the blog somehow got put on this site and someone clicked on the picture and was led to our blog. Scary! I'm hoping we're wrong on that assumption, but it's all we can come up with. We both spent a lot of time looking at the website yesterday and did not find one of our pictures, but that's not to say that one was never there. Since most of the pictures on here are of our child, our guard immediately went up and we locked the blog without hesitation.

The problem now is that I'm not sure who reads our blog, so I don't know who to "invite" to read it! Of course, I still want our non-sketchy readers to have access to it. I'm putting together the list based on the small number of email addresses I have (I'm not good about saving email addresses), but if anyone mentions that they want to read it but can't access it, please let me know so I can add them or if you want me to add a different email address for you, let me know that too. I know I have some regular readers who I don't personally know but you might, and I have no problem adding them (as long as they promise not to post pictures of my child on the internet!). I'm a self-confessed blog stalker and have several blogs I like to read even though I've never met the person before, and I would be severely stressed out if they locked their blog, so I am willing to add friends of friends!

I am sorry about going private with the blog, but we really didn't have a choice. As Karl said last night, "There's always someone to take the fun out of things for everyone else."