Cooper being Cooper

Cooper LOVES to paint.  However, he won't use on color at a time, but prefers to mix them together, so everything he paints turns out brown, black, or gray.  He also loves wearing this old shirt of mine as his art smock, which he calls his "art mock."

I couldn't resist this picture of my two favorite boys taking a nap together.  You should have heard the synchronized snoring!!

One day Cooper was repeatedly saying, "Mom, wook what I tan do!"  The first thing he was doing that day when I heard that phrase was dancing on top of the dining room table.  The next time he was doing somersaults across the room (something he recently figured out how to do on his own).  The third time he said it, I was folding laundry, and he was up on top of the couch (seen below).  He was excited that he was "so high," and then he promptly jumped down onto the pillows and onto the ottoman.  That's one of his favorite things to do: jump from the couch to the ottoman.  Sometimes the jumping distances he attempts about give me a heart attack.

Cooper's friends next door are much older than him, so they have lots of big kid bikes and scooters.  He loves riding his tricycle, but really wanted to ride their scooter.  So we took some of his own money, and went out and bought him a scooter just his size.  He's really good at it!

The other notable thing about this is his bike helmet, which is an unbelievable child size 8!!  Our 2 yr old wears a helmet made for an 8 yr old.  It looks kinda funny being so big, but none of the other helmets would even fit over the crown of his head.

Occasionally Cooper gets to play with Brayden, the little boy a few houses down from us who is just 4 weeks older than Coop.  They both love all things firetruck/fireman, and I couldn't resist taking this picture of the two of them playing fireman together.

A few other things Cooper's done in the last few weeks:

• Coop is already learning how to manipulate us.  He asked me if he could do something, and I said no. So then he asked Nate, who also said no.  Then Coop says to Nate, "But I won't tell Mommy."
• Cooper told his first knock-knock joke the other day without really meaning to.  He was in the back seat of the car saying "knock-knock" over and over, so I finally said, "Who's there?"  He said, "Cooper!"  Me: "Cooper who?"  Him:  "Cooper James!"  [Also of note: he still pronounces his name "Pooper."]
• Cooper calls trampolines "jump-o-weens."One night Nate and I were talking about the economy, and he said, "The US gov't is stupid because...," at which pint Coop interjected from the backseat, "Dad, you said a naughty word.  You said stupid.  You need timeout."  As if that didn't crack me up enough, Nate said, "Son, isn't it perplexing that your mother and I can put you in timeout, but you can't put us in it?"  I could see Coop's wheels turning as he mulled it over, and tried to say "perplexing," and then he said, "Well, you DID say a naughty word."  Gotta give it to him for sticking to his guns!
• Nate said, "Coop, come here and give Dad a hug.  I'm hug deficient."  Coop replies, "I want to doe (go) de-fishin'."
• Yesterday Cooper ran into my room waking me up by shouting, "Mom, there's a forest fire, there's a forest fire in our back ard (yard)!  Thinking he was just pretending as he often does, I ignored him, and rolled over.  Not much later he came back again shouting the same thing.  There are woods behind our house, so at this point I was a little concerned something might actually be wrong.  I got up, and he dragged me to his bedroom window where the orange sunrise was glinting off the tree trunks and leaves.  The trees looked like they were glowing.  Coop was gravely disappointed that no firefighters would be coming to our yard.