Coop the Tool Man

Even though we were home sick yesterday, we still managed to have some fun. Coop was using his new tool set to fix his toy shelf.Cheese! He's so cute you wouldn't know he had such a high fever.

Aunt Denise just shared some photos from his birthday. Here are a few more I really liked.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Cooper!

Cooper turned two over the weekend. I can't believe my baby is already two! Leading up to his birthday, we'd been practicing saying he's two, and holding up two fingers. We've also been practicing saying his full name, and answering "What is your name, and how old are you?", the two questions everyone seems to ask a toddler.

So Friday when we took his birthday cupcakes to school, he proudly walked up to his teacher and pronounced, "Pootah (Cooper), burfday, two!", and held up five fingers. He was so excited to have the cupcakes at school to celebrate his birthday and graduating to the next class.

His birthday was eventful, but not for the right reasons. Coop and I were sick all last week; he stayed home from school two days, and I was home from work all week. Friday he seemed to be doing better, so I sent him off to school, only to have the school call me at 3 pm to tell me he had a fever.

My instincts told me to get him to the doctor before the weekend, so we got him in late Friday afternoon to be seen. Diagnosis: double ear infections and a sinus infection. I felt so bad for the poor little guy, but was relieved to get him on antibiotics and better in time for his bday party the next day.

Saturday rolled around and he seemed to be perked up and doing better until noon when his fever came back with a vengence--103.7. Yikes! Poppy and Memaw had already cancelled their plans to visit, since Poppy is sick too. But Aunt Denise, Lindsay and Alison were on their way to our house by the time his fever came back. So they came to visit and have a little party anyway. Of course, Coop only took a 20-minute nap that day, which didn't help anything.

So the birthday guests arrived and we started the party. You can see how enthused Cooper is in the pictures. Here is the birthday boy with Alison.

The birthday party was puppy-themed, complete with dog bowls as serving dishes (which Nathan found utterly repulsive), and a dog bowl birthday cake. I made Coop's favorite dinner, steaks with sauted peppers and onions, black beans, and spanish rice, all served with tortilla chips and salsa. To Coop, all of the above food items are merely a salsa delivery mechanism.
The birthday boy with Lindsay, Aunt Denise, and Alison.

We unwrapped presents, which Cooper had been excited about for days.

Alison gave him this adorable USC jersey. Now he can root for the gamecocks in style!

The presents before...

The presents after...

Aunt Denise gave him this awesome sand/water table to play outside. Even though he was sick, he was excited to try it out. He's played with it every day since.
His other two favorite presents are this fireman action figure that shoots some kind of water bazooka thing, and the lawn mower "just like dad's." He was afraid of the blue car that makes lots of noise and moves when the buttons are pushed. Dad "fixed" it by taking the batteries out, and now Coop likes it. We also gave him some construction tools, and he LOVES the power drill!

Here's the cake...

Coop was all excited about the cake and the "tar" (star) candles, until I lit them. Then he threw a fit. He's apparently still terrified of lit candles. Daddy blew out the candles while Coop and I stood a small distance away. But Cooper still didn't want ANYTHING to do with the cake, no eating it, nothing. What a kid.

Late Saturday night his fever spiked again to 104.8! It was awful trying to get the fever down and keep him comfortable. The fever lasted until Monday at noon. The doc thinks he had a viral infection on top of the ear/sinus infections. So awful!! Not a fun way to spend your birthday.

Sunday we had one more present to open. Coop came downstairs Sunday morning, and saw the present, went to rip it open, and then stopped and said to me, "Ohhhh, oh, oh oh. Wait for daddy." Yep, we needed to wait for daddy. But once daddy came downstairs, it was present-opening seriousness.

It was a lawn mower just like dad's! He HAD to go outside and try it immediately. Dad showed him how to start it.

And the rest of the day he spent pretty much putting gas in his new mower. Apparently that's the most important part.

I am glad, like my sister-in-law said, "that the plague has left the Smith household." Finally. Today we're finally feeling better. Coop is back at school. Too bad we can't do a birthday re-do once he's feeling better. Looking back, I should have just postponed it all. Hindsight...

Oh!

Lately when you explain something to Coop, or he realizes something on his own, he'll exclaim, "Ohhhhhhhh. Oh, oh, oh."
Every time.
Cracks me up.

Riverbanks Zoo with Aunt Denise

Saturday afternoon we went to the Columbia zoo for a few hours with Aunt Denise while Nate and Uncle Jim went to the USC game. Coop was a little mellow from the Benadryl I'd given him for his cold, so he's not his perky self in these photos.

First off were the kangaroos we got to see up close and personal with no fence between us. So cool! The elephants were eating dinner and came up close enough for Coop to really get to watch them, although most of the time at the zoo he spent watching other kids and people than looking at the animals.

He loved riding on this statue of a giant tortise. The ones they had were this size and bigger!

It was a perfect day at the zoo, a little overcast, dinnertime for the animals, and the crowds were small. We'll have to make this trip again. Coop had a great time. Thank you "Aunt Neece!"

School Tacky Day and Team Spirit Day

Thursday was "Tacky Day" at Coop's school for school spirit week. You can't see it very well here, but he was dressed very tacky--plaid shirt, Hawaiian shorts, and mis-matched socks. It went against every fiber of my being to send him off to school dressed like this. His teachers, Ms. Tina and Ms. Jennifer were also dressed tacky, as were some of his classmates.Today was "Team Spirit" day at school. With a choice between a Red Sox shirt, a Bruins shirt, and a Celtics shirt, it was hard to choose which one to represent. Coop chose the Green Monster. Go Sox!

School Spirit - PJ Day

Apparently Coop is not a fan of wearing his PJs to school. He looks a little aprehensive.

School Spirit--Hat Day

This week is school spirit week at Coop's preschool. Today was hat day. Coop was sure to show his loyalty to the Red Sox, wearing DAD's hat. My kid has a freakishly huge head.

Here he is with his preschool class.

Cutest Red Sox fan ever!

Yesterday he was pretty cute too, all ready for church.

Where were you 10 years ago? Remembering 9/11/2001

I know this post is a day late, yesterday being 10 years since 9/11/2001, but I wanted to do this post anyway since I just didn't have a chance yesterday.
All last week NPR was doing small segments of 9/11 recounts and such. It was a nice touch to remembering those who lost their lives on that tragic day. One thing about this anniversary is the realization that any child in 5th grade or younger wasn't even born yet, and anyone between the ages of 10-20 years old probably doesn't have much of a recollection of that day either. It seems like such a foreign concept that we already have two generations that don't know anything about that day except what we have taught them. 9/11 has become to these younger generations like the death of President Kennedy (something my parents experienced and tried to explain, but that I never fully understood), and what Pearl Harbor (an event experienced by my grandparents that they tried to relate to my parents and my generation). All three events are never to be forgotten, but that as time passes, the younger generations don't understand the magnitude of these events. For this reason, I want to record my memory of 9/11 in a place where I can recount the day as I experienced it, so I can teach my children about it someday.

9/11/2001
I was 22 yrs old, working as a Project Accountant for Partners HealthCare, Real Estate Division, for Brigham & Women's Hospital, in Brookline, MA. It was a beautiful, sunny day. I took the bus to work from my house in Allston, and walked some of the way, enjoying the beautiful September morning. I remember I got to work on time that day, about 8 am. I was just getting settled in with the work I had to do that day when I turned on the radio. Must have been about 8:20. The morning newscaster reported in the daily news that a plane had hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center in NY. I remember thinking how stupid must someone be to hit such a big building with a plane. The week before there had been a similar report of a small plane that hit a building in D.C or somewhere like that. So I immediatly thought this was some kind of copycat event. Within a few minutes, the morning radio DJ interrupted the morning routine to inform listeners that it wasn't a small plane, but a commercial airliner that had hit the tower. Now that caught my attention. I immediatly got on the internet to CNN news to see what was happening, knowing they'd have live video of what was going on. I distinctly remember pulling up that webpage and seeing the smoldering tower with the large gash in its side.
Someone else in the office had heard the news, and had gone in the conference room and turned on the TV to the news. Someone came by my office and said, "Have you see this? They've got it on the TV in the conference room." So there we were, maybe 10 of us in the office gathered in the conference room together watching the screen when the second plane hit the other tower.
At that moment the realization of this not being an accident, but being something intentional hit us all with such magnitude that we were completely dumbfounded. No one said a word. I'm sure my jaw was dropped, my mouth open in utter shock. Everything seemed to be in slow motion.
Within a minute or two, I did what every young girl does when tragedy strikes, I called my mom. I went back to my desk, CNN news still up on the internet on my screen, and called my mom in Utah, knowing it was too early in the morning there for her to have the radio or the TV on yet. Mom answered, and I remember blurting out, "Turn on your TV. Something bad has happened. I can't explain it. Just go turn on the TV!" So there I was hanging on to the comfort of my mother's voice as we experienced the unfolding events together. As I was on the phone with my mom, I was watching the news and seeing people jumping from the towers. I knew it was really bad when people were jumping to their deaths from a skyscraper rather than die in whatever was happening in the buildings.
I don't remember how long we were on the phone before she had to hang up to get my younger siblings ready for school, which they ended up not going. Schools were closed.
I called Nathan, my boyfriend at the time, to make sure he had heard, and just to get some comfort.
I was sitting at my desk, still watching the news when the first tower started to collapse. I ran back to the conference room, and the awful scene of the collapsing towers, all the lives lost and the damage there, the fire fighters, the emergency workers, the dust everywhere…it was almost too much to watch. As if that wasn’t enough, then the news of the plane crashing at the Pentagon came on, and then news of flight 93 in Pennsylvania.
Somewhere in the mix of it all, it was announced that one of the planes that flew into the WTC originated from Boston’s Logan Airport. With that information, most businesses in Boston closed for the day. We were sent home wondering whether there’d be similar attacks all day in big cities. I was so scared. The attackers achieved their goal—I was terrified.
I took the bus home, and wandered back to my apartment not knowing what to do. My roommates and I were glued to the TV the rest of the day. I’m sure Nathan came over at some point, but I don’t recall much about the rest of the day except that I felt like I was in a daze. It was all just too much. I do remember praying that night for sleep and safety. Everyone was emotionally exhausted.
As the days, weeks, and months unfolded, the dead were accounted for, and stories began to be shared, the events of 9/11 seared a place in my memory. It is something I’ll never, never forget. That fateful day changed the United States, I think, especially for my generation that hadn’t really experienced anything like this before. Sure we had gone through the first Gulf War, but I was so young then, and we “liberated Kuwait.” Good won over evil, or so I thought in my young 11-year old mind.
But after 9/11, suddenly we were not the invincible country I had grown up thinking we were. The United States was vulnerable; our way of life was not secure. I learned how fragile life is, and how unprepared we are for the unexpected. It certainly awakened me on a personal/spiritual level, finally somehow realizing that it’s as the scriptures say, that this life is the time to prepare to meet God.
The turn of events that followed changed my life forever. Nathan lost his job as a result of the economic downturn of 9/11. He went back to school, choosing to attend the University of Utah. I followed him and we moved to Utah in 2002. Our relationship got more serious, and we started preparing for marriage. A lot has happened since then. It’s not that all of those things resulted directly from 9/11, but I think it did have a part.
Looking back 10 years later, the sorrow for the lives lost, the lives impacted, is still there. I didn’t realize how deep those feelings were for me until I started thinking about 9/11 this week with all the news bits reminding me. I saw a picture on someone’s FB of the smoking Twin Towers and could hardly even look at it. The emotions that image stirs makes my stomach churn. I hope that someday when I teach my kids about 9/11, I can relay all this to them in a way they will understand. But more importantly, I hope that the memory of 9/11 drives us to love one another, and to find hope and joy in every day because there is always the unexpected.

More Firetrucks!!

As if Coop didn't get to explore enough firetrucks last week, this week at school was about fire safety. They read books, colored/painted pictures, and played fireman/firetrucks ALL WEEK. Today took the cake as a real fire truck and firemen came to visit Coop's school.

He explored with his friend Luke.

Look Ms. Tina, a nee-nah!!!

I'm so glad Coop's school takes pictures like this so we can share in the fun.

Labor Day Weekend Fun

We were able to visit MeMaw and Poppy for Labor Day weekend. The weekend started off with a nice night out to dinner. Good food, and even better company. Coop was happy just to be hanging out with Poppy. LOVE this picture of the two of them together.

He was sure to get all his wiggles out before dinner (well most anyway), running up and down the deck.

I think he ran a little too much. He looks wasted!
Coop wanted MeMaw to blow on his booboo.

We all enjoyed the beautiful evening. Perfect night!

Coop enjoyed the rocking chairs too.

Just love this picture...

Saturday we spent the morning at the beach. Poppy and Daddy were sure to help Coop dig a big hole for the water to run into, and Coop was eager to get the water.

The kid LOVES the water! He sure keeps us running at the beach, trying to keep him from diving into waves too big for him to handle. He was go-go-go all morning.

There's a fire station really close to Poppy's house, and Coop was begging to go see the "nee-nahs" as he calls them (because of the sound the sirens make in his firetruck book). Poppy took him several times to see the fire trucks, and Nate and I took him too. You can barely see his head peeking above the steering wheel in this picture.

Knobs and buttons--Cooper's dream!

Gotta try driving it.

He was insistent that Dad go sit in the passenger seat, and that we close the doors. Then he said, "We driving!"

Thrilled!!!

Poppy took us out on the boat, and Coop got to help drive the boat too.Poppy, how do you start this thing?

We drove out to an old island that is now under water, just shallow enough for Coop to traipse around in on his own. Hi Mom!

More driving...

This was my only picture with Coop all weekend. We were both tired from having so much fun.

Thank you Poppy and MeMaw for an incredibly fun and relaxing weekend!!! We love you!

P.S. Coop calls Poppy "Grammie," his name for all his grandparents, male or female. LOL