Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig

After a long visit to Utah, Cooper was ready to go home.  The day we were leaving Utah, our plane didn't leave until late afternoon, and then was delayed another two hours.  That morning, I'd told Cooper we were going home to North Carolina to Cooper's house on an airplane.  ALL DAY LONG he kept begging to go on the plane and "doe to Pooper's house."  On the plane, he was very good, but wide awake.  He didn't fall asleep until we were in the car on the way home from the airport, which was at about two in the morning.  He was just so excited to be home.  The next morning, he came running into our room, all excited to be home.  All day long he kept showing me various toys of his, saying, "Mom, remember this toy?!  Remember this?"  He was happy to be back on his own turf.  But it didn't take long before he was asking for his cousins and Grammie and Papa, aunts and uncles (by name!) to come to his house!  Let the record show that any of you are welcome any time. :D

This picture was taken the first day we were home.  Coop said he was ready to go to work.

A few days after we got home, we were outside playing.  Coop had been riding his ride-on 4-wheeler around, and had pushed it down our side grass hill.  I was trying to get him to come in the house for lunch, and had asked him to get the 4-wheeler and put it back in the garage.  He was ignoring me, and then told me, "NO!"  I told him he'd better mind me and go get it, or he was getting time out for disobeying.  In a flustered hurry, he ran down the hill to get it, tripped, and landed, hitting his eye on the back corner of the 4-wheeler.  I felt SO bad!  The outside corner quickly swelled, and I don't know what was worse for him, the pain of the injury, or the trauma of me putting ice on it.  When all was said and done, the swelling receded, but he had a nasty gash on the outside corner of his eye, a scrape along the eyelid diagonally up to above his nose, and a small scrape on the inside corner.  His eyeball had a big red splotch in the bottom white (probably a bruise?), which thankfully was gone by the next morning.  His vision wasn't impaired at all, thank goodness!  But the next day, he had quite the black eye, and we called him "Rocky Balboa" for a couple of days.

Coop doesn't take naps anymore.  Well, not NEVER, but very rarely.  One day I'd given him an afternoon snack, and was doing some laundry.  I turned around a few minutes later to find him like this--totally asleep on the hardwood floor.  Guess he'd played hard that day!