All By Myself

The other night Cooper set the table for dinner all by himself.  He carried the plates across the kitchen to the dining room, one by one, and placed them on the table in the appropriate places.  Glasses were one-by-one as well.  And then the forks.  I'd say for his height and arm length, he did very well!  He's becoming quite the little helper, actually doing some household chores now.  He is very happy to do things all by himself.

O Christmas Tree

I haven't taken any pictures yet of the decorated Christmas tree, probably because I'm still not happy about the way the decorating night turned out.  First, we were decorating it Sunday, and ran out of lights halfway through lighting the tree.  So we had to stop and wait until Monday when we could go buy more lights.

Monday night for Family Home Evening, we decided that it was time for tree decorating round two.  I'd had such nice pictures in my head of our little family decorating the tree together. NOPE. More like: toddler repeatedly plugs and unplugs the Christmas lights, after multiple time-outs and many fits. Wants NOTHING to do with the ornaments, and then decides to start throwing them. Thank goodness at that point all we had out were the plastic bulbs. SO glad I made the switch from glass to plastic last year!


A total Fukushima meltdown ensued, so we decided to desist on the family decorating, and I ended up decorating it by myself Tuesday night. After years and years of fond memories decorating the tree with my my parents and siblings, it felt very lonely and un-Chrsitmas-like. :( Apparently toddlers and Christmas tree decorating just don't mix. Maybe over-stimulation? Whatever it is, I now have new expectations until my kid is a little older.


Surprisingly, Cooper has been really good about not pulling too many things off the tree.  I purposely hung all the fragile ornaments in the top section, out of his reach, so the only ornaments left for him are those few that play music that I've told him he can touch, and a few bells, which he likes to pull off and shake while singing "Jingle Bells."  It's so cute that I just can't resist telling him not to play with the bells.  So at least while the initial decorating didn't go so well, we haven't had to re-decorate at all.


Cooper is loving all the Christmas decorations around the house.  Today after work, and before I went to pick him up from school, I spent 15 minutes putting up the garland and lights over the front door, and around the mailbox.  When he got home, he noticed them, and immediately rushed over to touch them, and OF COURSE try to unplug the lights.  The kid is obsessed with anything dangerous.


It's fun having him old enough to understand a little about Christmas.  I've been telling him the story of the birth of Jesus, using his Fisher Price nativity set, and have found him re-enacting it later himself.  He is nearly an expert on Santa now, at least as expert as a 2-yr old can be.  Christmas with kids just can't be compared to anything else.  It's so fun!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Last weekend we had some Christmas fun.  We went and picked out our Christmas tree, which was almost too easy at a local tree lot less than 5 minutes from our house.  We found the one we wanted and in less than 15 minutes had it on top of the truck on and our way home.  Crazy!  Coop INSISTED on having his picture taken with the blow-up snowman, and was fascinated by it.  Of course, he also HAD to touch it.

Saturday we went to a local Christmas festival.  They had a whole bunch of bouncy-house type stuff.  Coop spent probably a whole hour or more playing in them while Nathan and I craned our necks over the top to be sure he didn't get hurt or taken.  At least the Coopster had fun!

 They also had a trackless train.  We got to ride in the caboose!  The other rides had lines way too long for a two year old, so we stopped and ate some yummy lunch, and called it a day.  It was a fun time, and Coop was asleep in the car in less than 5 minutes on the way home.  That's one way to wear him out!

Time Out, Mommy.

This morning at breakfast:
Me: "Oops!  I spilled my orange juice!"
Cooper:  "Mommy time out."

After that, I discussed with Cooper what an accident is and that when accidents happen, it's just a mistake, not something done wrong on purpose. He repeated "attident," and I could see the wheels spinning in his little brain as he soaked up what I said.  I can just see the next time he does something like throw a toy at me (his new way of acting out), and I tell him it's time out, and he responds, "Attident, Mommy, attident!"  You know it's going to happen.

We Can Play in the Leaves!

Coop has been singing autumn songs like Yo Gabba Gabba's "It is Fall (We Can Play in the Leaves)" and children's songs from church like "Leaves are Falling All Around," and "It's Autumn Time" for several months now.  It finally turned cold enough to have the leaves fall.  Our backyard was covered with leaves from the big oak trees we have.  Sunday afternoon while I was napping, Cooper and Daddy raked piles of leaves to play in.  Nathan was kind to think of taking a great picture for the blog.

It's been a BEAUTIFUL, long autumn here in Charlotte, with many sunny days and temperatures in the 60s and 70s for quite some time.  Today, the last day of November, it was still 55 degrees.  We sure have enjoyed the Southern autumn.  Makes up for all those HOT, HUMID days of summer.  Cooper loves playing outside no matter what the weather is like, though.  

Thanksgiving 2011 - Outer Banks, NC

This year we spent Thanksgiving with Nathan's family on the Outer Banks of NC.  We had a bountiful thanksgiving feast at Aunt Faye's house.  Coop thought it was YUMMY and ate about as much as I did!  He also loved playing with all the toys that Faye has for Cooper's second cousin, who is about 6 weeks younger than Coop, while Mom and Dad visited with family members we see about once a year.

 Friday we spent some time in Beaufort on the waterfront.  Had a nice lunch at Finz. Nothing like yummy seafood, out on the warm, sunny patio the day after Thanksgiving!

 While we were eating a boat with some rowers started to pass us by in the water.  At first we couldn't figure out what it was.

 But as the boat got closer, we could see it was Santa arriving by boat!  That was fun to see.

We wanted Coop to see Santa, and sit on his lap, but the line was too long before we had to get going.  I'm sure we'll have another chance soon, so Cooper can tell Santa what he wants for Christmas.

 Cooper loved walking along the waterfront and seeing all the "BEEG boats!"

 One of his favorite parts of the day was running up and down the ramp (or bridge as he called it) to the docks.

 Cheese, Mom!

 That afternoon we were able to go visit Grandma BB, who is recovering well from her battle with cancer for the last 6 months.  We sure enjoyed our visit!!!  Cooper loved playing with the toys at her house, too.

Oh, I have to share.  On the way out to the car, his curiosity got the better of him, and he grabbed a spiky, green plant.  Nate ended up pulling three long cactus needles out of Coop's palm.  He learned his lesson--cactus hurts!  He was fine a few minutes later.

 Saturday morning while Dad and Poppy went fishing, Cooper and I went to a local park/playground.  We had loads of fun playing on the slides, swings, and dropping bark through holes on the park benches.

 There were lots of little kids at the park too, and Cooper made a little friend named Mason.  Seems he's always the younger one when we play with kids at the park.  He seemed to enjoy being the big kid for once.

 Saturday afternoon we went for a walk on the beach.  Coop loved playing in the sand for a few minutes.

 We were supposed to see the Christmas parade, but long story short, we only saw about half of it, and missed Poppy and the other Shriner members in their boats.  But we were able to spend time with Poppy afterward.  Here's Coop dressed up in Poppy's hat and coat.

Coop got to take a ride in the go-cart-like boats while they loaded them on the trailer.  He LOVED it.

Another thing Cooper and Poppy spent a lot of time doing is playing outside, and Poppy taking Cooper for rides on the golf cart.  Well, probably most of the time Cooper was climbing onto the golf cart, putting in the key, climbing on the seat, pretending to drive for like 5 seconds, then climbing off the seat, taking the key out, climbing off the golf cart, turning around and repeating the whole thing.  Nate and his Dad both said Coop must have done that little ritual 50 times in a row without even pausing.  What a kid!  He LOVES that golf cart, and that Poppy lets him play on it, and takes him for rides.

  The other person missing from any pictures I took is MeMaw (Michelle).  She always seems to somehow evade any pictures.  MeMaw and Poppy were sure nice to let us stay with them, give us their own room to sleep in, take care of us, and spend time with us.  We enjoyed our Thanksgiving with them and our other family.  Hope to see them again soon!

"Pooper mate noises"

Have to get this recorded.  First, Cooper calls himself "Pooper."  It's been fun to listen to his language skills develop, especially all the different things he's called himself.   First was Pootah, then Toopah, and now Pooper.  Getting closer.

For the last few days Coop has been VERY interested in seeing what kinds of noises he can make.  That was part of my recent blog with him making drums out of the kitchen bowls.  He's been tapping on everything in sight, screaming at various decibels, throwing things from various heights and distances, and such.  It's been amusing to watch his little experiments with sound.  If he hears something in the distance or in the background, he'll stop and either identify the sound, or ask what it is.  Yesterday his favorite sounds seemed to be at the playground.  The first was me tapping my ring on the metal bars, making a "ding, ding, ding" sound, according to Cooper.  He was fascinated by it.  Second was when he was running around one of the big metal poles of the slide with his hands wrapped around it, making a squeaking sound from his sweaty hands sliding on the pole.  He did that for several minutes, which is a lot for a 2-year old attention span.  I just watched him as he gleefully ran around the pole at different speeds to see what would happen, all on his own.  No encouragement or ideas from me.  I love watching his little brain work and learn.

The other thing I want to record is his new nickname:  Fukushima, or Fuki for short.  Fukushima is the nuclear plant in Japan that had a meltdown after the tsunami earlier this year.  Fukushima in our house is the 2-year old that has meltdowns several times a day, timed mostly near mealtimes and sleep times.  Grammie can attest to the meltdown of this afternoon that was occurring when she called me, and ensued nearly the entire time we were on the phone.  Ah, my little Fuki.  So if years from now we're still calling him that, it's been documented where it came from.