The Shack - July 2011 - Beach Fun

Besides our trip to the beach at Isle of Palms, SC in May, this was Cooper's first time playing at the beach. He LOVES the water, and is such a little fish.

He also loved playing in the sand and carrying water to/from the ocean/bucket.

Cooper had lots of fun with family at the beach, including Aunt Denise. He loved pulling water into this water gun, and then shooting it onto the sand (or at unsuspecting family members). Thank goodness he didn't aim for any strangers.

James was kind to share his cool beach toys with Coop. Even Robert got in on the fun. Catherine and James had big turtle floatie for the water, which Cooper really enjoyed riding on as all of us adults stood out in the waist-deep water trying to cool off. It was a heat wave that week at the Cape, and the only respite was the cool water.

Coop even got to try boogie boarding for the first time!

I do have to say that this being the first time we've had Coop at the beach, and we got to be there for more than an hour, this is close to the most fun I've ever had at the beach. We had fun wading in the water, jumping and splashing. We showed Cooper the big crabs that were in the water, and then we helped him catch a whole bucket full of hermit crabs, some other kind of "bigger" crab, little tiny shrimp, snails, and such. I look forward to many, many more trips to the beach with this little guy!

The Shack - July 2011 - Nana & Grandpa

Nana and Grandpa Gunning were so nice to let us stay at their house all week when we were at the Cape. It was such a blessing to get so much one-on-one time with them. Cooper and Grandpa exploring the backyard.

Cooper LOVED their backyard, watching all the birds in their bird feeder, and playing with all the fun toys they had for him.

Cooper and Nana at The Shack

Uncle Jack Hayes, Uncle "Jack Mack," and Nana relaxing at The Shack
Cooper and Grandpa chillin' at The Shack

Every morning we'd sit out in Nana & Grandpa's screened porch to eat breakfast, visit, and read the paper. Cooper decided to help Grandpa read his morning paper.

There were a couple random shots on the camera from times when Cooper played with the camera. Most I deleted, but I loved this shot. Coop took a picture of his feet (and his beloved stuffed puppy) sitting on the couch at Nana's house.

The Shack - July 2011 - Cousins

The first day at The Shack Cooper was a little overwhelmed with all the cousins. He was so excited though to try to play with the big kids, and they were so good to include him.

Cooper meets James for the first time.

Watching Samantha...I want to do that!Ryan and Cooper just chillin'.Didn't get any pictures of Cooper and Stephen, so here's a picture of Ryan and Stephen together. Thanks, Denise, for the picture!

The kids had a coloring contest. Cooper won "The Most Beautiful Chaos Award" in the 0-2 yrs category. His is the top left.And here he is with his winnings--squirt guns!!!He had lots of fun playing squirt guns with James. They soaked each other by the end of the night!
Days later here's Coop again with a squirt gun.Have to tell a story about the Hawaiian shirt Cooper is wearing in the above picture. When I was about 16, my Aunt Kaylene was cleaning out some of her boys' old clothes. They used to take trips to Hawaii every year, and so she had lots of these little shirts for all ages. This was the smallest of the bunch, and I couldn't allow such a cute little shirt to be donated to charity. So I stowed it away with my other baby keepsakes from my Mom, hoping someday that I'd have a little boy who could wear it. Here it is 15 years later. How fun for Cooper to wear a shirt my cousins used to wear, said cousins being in their 20s now!

Just before this shot was taken, Cooper was leaning with his elbow on the doorway, hand up behind his head. It was the cutest little pose and I totally missed it. This one was still cute. He's watching those big kids again...
Cooper and the twins, Samantha and Elizabeth. The girls were so great, and Cooper LOVED hanging out with them. He especially loved the way Samantha doted on him.

Boys will always be boys...Cooper and James enjoyed running up and down the metal cellar doors, and jumping off the end onto the grass. They also enjoyed quite a bit of wrestling, laughing, and climbing on the couches.
Elizabeth, Catherine, Samantha ("The OMG Club") and Cooper. The girls all had bracelets that said "OMG," so they formed the OMG club. The OMG club had their secret hand shake, which they let Cooper in on.

Allison spent so much time with Cooper while we were at the Cape that he became quite attached to her. He loves his "Addy!"

At one of our favorite restaurants, Chapins, Cooper and Samantha were being goofy with noodles.

Cooper loves his cousins!

The Shack - July 2011 - Aunts & Uncles

This year was Cooper's first year at "The Shack" on Cape Cod. We had so much fun enjoying Nathan's family, many of whom we hadn't seen in a year or more. Instead of blogging the week chronologically, thought I'd shake it up a bit. So here we start with Aunts and Uncles, in no particular order...
Cooper and Uncle Peter (or "Pete" to Coop) at the "Primrose Pub, " which to explain to anyone outside the family is really backyard of Uncle Jimmy & Aunt Ingrid's beach house on Primrose Street. Coop had LOTS of fun at their house!

The Twins: Cooper & Uncle David (or "Dabid" to Cooper)

who were both wearing baby blue polo shirts that night. Cooper had fun eating Samantha's buttery spaghetti noodles (i.e. the greasy face) while Uncle David held him and got the brunt of the noodles on his lap!

Cooper and Aunt Eileen ("Leen" to Cooper) in Nana and Grandpa's backyard

Uncle David was very patient to show Cooper all around Nana's garden. Even letting him pick some of Nana's beautiful hydrangea flowers, which Cooper promptly ripped up. Look what I did, Mom! Cooper and Aunt Delia had lots of fun at The Shack.
Aunt Denise ("Neice") and Allison ("Addy") spent a lot of time watching Cooper, which they insisted was fun spending time with him. I was just glad for a nice vacation break. :o) I can't believe this is the only picture of Cooper and Denise I got the whole week! Guess we were having too much fun with them to stop and take a picture. Thank goodness we have lots of picture of them from visits in NC! :o)
Of Note: To this day, Cooper will often run to the living room window when a car drives by, peeking out through the blinds, saying "Niece?! Addy?!" He can't wait for them to come visit him again. The other day he was playing in my car like he often does, pretending to drive, and pushing all the buttons. I asked him where he was driving to and he said, "Niece and Addy," very matter of fact like, "Duh, Mom. Where else would I be going?"

Edited to Add: I was disappointed that Cooper fell asleep before I had a chance to snap of shot of him with Uncle Tom on the night they were both wearing Hawaiian shirts. Somehow Tom eluded the camera all week as well.

Food Goes in Your Belly, Not on the Floor

Conversation with Cooper the other night at dinner:
Mom: Cooper, please stop throwing your food on the floor. Food belongs in your belly, not on the floor.
Cooper: Belly?
Mom: Yes, food goes in your belly. Now eat, please.
Cooper pulls out his shirt collar and dumps a spoonful of food down the inside of his shirt, and then pats his belly, proudly pronouncing, "Food in Belly!"

Cooper Milestones: 22 Months

I've missed several months of Cooper's milestone posts, so we'll just skip to the last one. He's already 22 months--only 2 months until he's 2! Some noteable milestones of the last few months:

• He's talking, talking, talking. His teachers at school comment often about how vocal he is and how wide a vocabulary he has. If he's awake, he's pretty much talking. He's also quite the little parrot, so we're learning to watch what we say around him.


• He's used the big boy potty a few times (see my prior post for details).


• He's learning to dress himself. I ask him where articles of clothing belong, and purposely put them on wrong, which always cracks him up. A side note from this is that in doing so, he has decided that sock puppets are awesome, and that putting pajama pants on his head and pretending he's puppy is one of the greatest games ever.


• He's getting better at feeding himself. Sometimes I'll even forget to put a bib on him. Well, he's getting better most of the time...


• 
  
  The song I find him singing to himself most often is "Are You Sleeping," which I find strange because I hardly ever sing that song to him. His favorite bedtime song remains "Baa Baa Blacksheep" followed by "I Know You" (a children's church song). He also asks me to sing "Summertime," which is really "Oh What do You do in the Summertime."


• 
  
  He continues to be obsessed with fans and lights. It's really getting old.


• 
  
  He'll picture-read stories to himself. He won't do it if he knows I'm watching, but he'll tell the story to himself if he thinks I'm not listening.


• 
  
  His favorite book at bed time is Good Night Moon. He cracks up at the "Good night nobody" part, which I laughed about only once. He seems so pleased with himself that he knows it's something funny, and he's in on the joke.


• 
  
  He has started doing things just to make us laugh. I mean, silly "look what I can do!" type stuff.


• 
  
  He's mastered drinking from a cup, but still can't resist the urge to play in the water or purposely splash it all over. So he's still limited to sippy cups most of the time. But when he gets a big boy cup, he's elated.


• 
  
  He's started calling us "Mom" and "Dad" sometimes, instead of "Mommy" and "Daddy." It really caught me off guard the first time. I was like, "Oh, my baby is growing up!"


• 
  
  I'm finally able to negotiate with him. This is really nice when needing to give incentives for behavior. Tonight at dinner he didn't like what I made, and wanted some lemonade in his glass, not water. I relented on the lemonade, but negotiated that he had to take a bite of his dinner before every sip. It was so nice to be able to communicate something like that!


• 
  
  He can follow multi-step directions. The other day I was folding laundry and forgot a pair of socks on the dryer. When I found them I said, "Cooper, please go put these in the laundry basket on the stairs." I didn't follow to be sure he did what I'd asked. I half expected to find them in some random place days later. But sure enough, about a half hour later when I went to carry the laundry basket upstairs I was pleased and surprised to find the socks right there on top!


• 
  
  Lastly, before we moved, Cooper had decided the crib was no longer a suitable bed for him. He would scream and throw tantrums when put in it awake. For awhile he just had his crib mattress on the floor in our new house. Last week he graduated to a twin mattress. Still no bed because he rolls around and off too much, but here he is on his new "big boy bed."

Adventures in Potty Training--well, kinda

Back in June, the week before we were moving, Cooper started showing interest in trying to use the toilet. With the move coming up, lots of changes in his routine, a new house, new daycare, a week long vacation coming up...well you get the picture, I was aprehensive about jumping on the opportunity to potty train. Within that week, he told me twice he needed to go, and both times by the time I got his diaper off, he only had about halfway left, but did make it for at least a little. I attribute those to me being slow and the diapers being cumbersome to get off. I wasn't ready for this! Since then, I've purchased him a "big boy potty," which he occasionally asks to use. He's SO ready to potty train, but I'll admit that this is one area I am not ready for. I haven't done any reading on how to do it. I'm nervous about trying to juggle it and him being at daycare, not ready to deal with wet clothes and accidents, and the list goes on. But the kid is ready. Today at church he needed to go #2 and was nearly done by the time we made it to the bathroom. That was a story in itself.
I'd taken him into the bathroom with just a diaper and the wipes, which I put on the back of the toilet, a nice flat place. There I am trying to balance him sitting on the edge of the toilet, hoping he doesn't pee all over my legs, and then trying to keep him from falling in while I clean him up. Meanwhile he looks over and decides it's time to flush, and knocks the entire container of diaper wipes in the toilet. I promptly fish them out of the bowl, dripping wet with yucky water. Lovely. I finish cleaning him up and stand him up to pull up his pants. He decides he's not done and tries to get back on the seat, putting his hands ALL OVER the seat of this public toilet.
Any of you who know me well know my phobia of public bathrooms, which I will avoid at all costs. So between having to fish the diaper wipes out of the toilet, and then having my child's hands touch something so full of germs, I about lost it. I get him out to wash his hands, trying to ensure he doesn't rub his eyes or stick his fingers in his mouth or something, and he grabs my dress and won't wash his hands. He was like a baby koala bear hanging on for dear life, gripping my new dress in his germy little hands. Usually he's EAGER to wash his hands, which he views as a chance to play in the water. But not this time.
So by that time I'd pretty much lost my cool, and was practially yelling at him to wash his hands already! I still had to go find a place to put another diaper on him (why oh why does the women's bathroom not have a changing table?!), and I'm still toting my disgusting wipes container. Good times.
Next time I'll endure the fit that ensues when he goes in his diaper. I mean, I'd rather bear the embarrassment of a 2-year old meltdown about a messy diaper than deal with that level of germs again.
I know what you're thinking...invest in some Pull-Ups. Yeah, I know. But again, this is something I am not ready for. How can I put this off any longer?
Any suggestions on how to potty train? For some reason this feels like a huge mountain I'm about to climb, with no physical preparation/training.
I pray for the patience to make it through this whole potty training experience.