No fear

Cooper loves the stairs so much that Matt had to finally buck up and buy (and install) gates today.

I warned Matt that over the weekend, while Matt was taking his ski patroller tests, Cooper had developed an extreme love for the stairs. I told him many times this morning that Cooper could not be left alone for more than two seconds because of his new stair obsession. Apparently this did not sink in very well, as Matt ended up (to his horror) plucking Cooper off about the 5th stair sometime this morning. Cooper had apparently, in the time it took Matt to fill a glass of water and put a few things into the dishwasher, gone 1/3 up our stairs. It scared the crap out of Matt and he immediately said, "We're leaving to go buy gates."

So despite the -5 degrees weather my men went out to Home Depot and bought two industrial strength metal baby gates.

Now our house is a heck of a lot safer. And clang-i-er.

Consonant confusion

Cooper's pronunciation of "doggy" is very variable. Sometimes he hits the nail on the head, which startles our friends. "Doggie!" he'll say, confidently, and more than one of our friends have replied with "Wow!"

More often he has trouble with the G sound. He replaces it with a number of other noises. Sometimes he swallows the sound, and ends up saying "dah-(gulp)-nee." His most common mispronunciation is "dab-nee." He's good at making a B sound, and he likes saying "nee," so I think he says dab-nee not because he thinks that is what he wants to say, but because it is easy for him.

A common scene in our house goes like this-

Cooper crawls over to the dog, who is lying in front of the heater. He starts hitting the dog's back with an open hand (this is his attempt to pet the dog) and shouts Dabney! Dabney! Dabney! over and over again as he hits the dog. Lucky, to his credit, tolerates this for a while. Then, Cooper gets so excited that he tries to climb up onto the dog's back. Lucky doesn't really like this, so he gets up. Cooper gets knocked over and starts whimpering. Lucky licks his face and head while Cooper attempts to fend off the large stinky dog tongue that is attacking him by hiding his face in his shoulder. Lucky loses interest and wanders off. Cooper tries to crawl after him, saying Dabney! the whole time. Lucky moves out of sight. Cooper gets distracted by a fallen dishcloth and starts saying buh, buh, buh.

I told Matt today that we need one of those little jars and wands for making bubbles. Cooper says both buh and bub, so I think we could have a lot of fun teaching him to say bubbles. Or at least trying to.

Happy 9 months, little man!

Today is Cooper's 9 month-i-versary. Here are two big achievements in the last few days;

- He has said his first word, out loud and very proud, over and over and over again. It is "doggy." Congratulations Lucky! Good dog.

Note that Cooper's first uttered word was Da-da, but he still doesn't seem to mean it when he says it. Da-da comes out of his mouth constantly, like a running commentary. With doggy, however, he says it as the dog walks by or while he is petting the dog.

- He has finally learned how to lower himself off our bed safely. After months of coaching and practice with Mom and Dad, Cooper now crawls to the edge of the bed, turns himself 180 degrees, flattens himself to the bed, extends a leg cautiously, and gently slips off the bed without crashing painfully to the floor. This is so cool to watch! He finally learned it! We are very proud of him. Sometimes he flubs it, so I still keep a close eye to prevent nose-dives, but he's over the 50/50 mark now. Such a coordinated kid!

Happy 40 weeks minus two days!

It is official- as of this evening, Cooper has spent as much time "on the outside" as he did in the oven. Yeeee haw!

Today he celebrated by standing independently for over 30 seconds in a row on a few occasions, saying "Dog-gee" to the dog about 100 times, and saying ma-ma once very quietly. I just about peed myself with happiness. Which, given the very mild but undeniable changes to my bladder control resulting from running a nearly nine pound baby through a very small opening, wasn't all that hard to do.

In other news- friends and family are announcing fun stuff left and right. Here's a list...

- Brother-in-law got engaged! Cool!

- My sister is baking baby #2. Due in May. No word on gender yet.

- Our friend and neighbor found out its gonna be a BOY!! Yippee a little boy buddy for Cooper! They are working on the name so I won't reveal, but one of the idea-names they gave is a great name and I give it two thumbs up. Definitely not on my "what-the-hell?" list of idiot things to name a baby.

- Another neighbor who we don't know all that well but want to get to know better because she and her husband and their 3 year old boy seem cool is having kid #2 in July. Neat! We'll have more to talk about, maybe.

- Only two more months until another friend's baby, to be named Hannah, is due. I view the house of these friends as our personal storage unit. Every time Cooper outgrows a toy or gear, we give it to them. I think they have a whole room dedicated to Cooper's old stuff, in prep for Hannah. It saves us the space, and them the money, so its win-win. They promise to give it all back eventually. Bonus! Might even get the newborn stuff back in time for neighbor babies.

Playing catch-up

Well, we are back. My life is starting to resemble itself again- days spent balancing work and baby, nights spent sleeping. Cooper hasn't made any giant leaps in his development in a while, but he is getting so much better at everything he does. Here's the laundry list of recent developments.

Inserting snacks into mouth
In recent weeks, he's moved from being barely able to get food near his mouth to expertly inserting anything (and everything) in there. Matt found him eating a large, dessicated, and extremely dead bug the other day. Cooper has also started to offer food to us and let us eat it (Smiling, offering a cheerio, waiting for us to nibble it out of his sticky fingers, and then looking all proud that he fed mommy something). It is really cute.

Practicing walking
He still cannot walk all by himself, but give the kid a steady hand or a well designed push toy and he's off running. After watching him delight in the push toys at both grandparent's places, we borrowed the clacky-alligator wooden push toy that our friend's little boy recently outgrew and man, does Cooper like it! He squeals with joy as he runs pell-mell around the house, clacking and skidding around.


Saying Da-da and Dah-ghee
Yes, Mama is apparently third best to Daddy and Doggy. These two are quite recognizable and often said while looking in the appropriate location. I think he's got those sounds down pat. He almost never says the "em" sound- for whatever reason, it seems to be hard for him to make that syllable.

Being clingy
Spending 10 days away from home made our little monster quite dependent on my presence. What can I say, the kid loves me.

Asserting his independence
Oh no, you don't DARE feed Cooper applesauce with a spoon. He needs to feed himself. Which is an unbelievably messy and inefficient experience. I've found myself washing the floor, the curtains, the baby, all the baby's clothing, my pants, two bibs, the entire highchair and the dog's head after only a single serving. What blows my mind is that Cooper was a very obedient and patient eater in New York. Hardly ever refused to eat something, ate very calmly, etc. Now that we are back home... oh my god. Complete temper tantrum if you try to bring a spoon to his mouth. He actually flung a bowl at the dog in anger (poor dog). I'm counting on this being a phase that will pass. Or he'll just need to get better with a spoon really, really fast.

Drinking water from a cup
He can drink water from a cup all by himself. He spills some, but truely most of it goes into his mouth without choking, coughing, or anything. It is amazing. He's not even 9 months old! We took a video of it and will post that soon.

Standing up without anything to balance him
Cooper first stood unaided just a few days before Halloween, but he's been pretty tentative about it until the last week or so. Now he frequently stands for 5 - 10 seconds without touching anything. Typically he is holding a rag or toy while he does this, which I think might distract him from the achievement. It seems like when he notices he's been standing unaided he gets nervous- kind of like when a kid sees that Dad is no longer holding onto the back of the bike, they crash.

Cooper has a cold

I'm bummed.

The little dude has a pretty bad head cold, and he is the king of snot-covered yuckiness. This is on the tails of a two and a half day hunger strike that he executed while I was in Michigan. Needless to say, I think the two may be related.

I'm frustrated that he did not eat well while I was away. Yes, I can expect he'll be grumpy while I'm not around. He hates the bottle, is used to having me here, and generally is a creature of habit. But to eat about 1/5th his normal amount of food, and probably less than that of milk, while I was out of town is really pretty bad. Matt fears he got dehydrated, despite his love for drinking water out of a cup. The dehydration of course led to some issues with constipation. Which made Cooper even grumpier, which compounded the whole thing.

The good news is that when I got home on Friday, and for all of Saturday, Cooper was as happy, bouncy, and giggly as ever. He was able to fix his constipation issues (lots of yucky diapers as my "welcome home" gift) and ate a ton both days. Around midnight last night (Saturday) he woke up with a really congested nose and a pitiful little sneezy cough thing, and since then he's been running a low fever for part of the day and generally kinda sick. His mood is OK, so I know he's not totally miserable, but all three of us had a horrible night of 45 minute spans of sleep and lots of snot covered blankets.

I feel so bad for the little guy. I hope he gets better soon. The last time this happened he was much better in only a day or two, so I am really hoping for that kind of rapid turn around. If not, I'm going to be alone on a plane with a sniffly, snotty, sneezy, and grumpy baby. I'll be the most popular person there!

704

It is official.

Cooper has gone through his first megabox of wipes that we bought from Costco. This means that he's had 704 wipes used upon him in just under eight months. That comes to 2.93 wipes per day, in case you were interested.

Also of interest is that today while I was on the phone with my father, Cooper decided to climb the stairs. He's been thinking about it for a few days now, but this morning was the first time that he actually executed the maneuver of getting all the way onto the first step and then standing up on it. He immediately almost fell down that one step. This evening he climbed up that same step and started trying to tackle the next one... uh oh!

Today is the day

Here is a thought.

I know lots, and lots, of people with little kids, babies, and/or pregnant bellies. Missoula is a great place to raise a family. But Montana doesn't have the greatest economy, and jobs are kind of limited here unless you are in real estate. Wait- scratch that. Even real estate has tanked.

I know a few stay at home moms. Maybe... hmmm... five? And you know what? They are all on some form of public assistance (WIC, s-CHIP, whatever). These are college educated women, with supportive and employed husbands.

That was the state of the economy BEFORE the crash this fall.

So yeah- it is a big day today.

Hair surprises

My post-partum hair loss reached it most disgusting peak around 4 or 5 months out. I got a nice haircut around 6 months, and the hair dresser told me that he could tell I'd had pretty severe post-partum losses because my scalp was covered in regrowth.

Jump ahead to now. I got out of the shower the other day and realized two things; it was freezing cold out (about 25) and I needed to spend some time outdoors (fun pre- ski season festival in the outdoors). So I used the blow drier for the first time since about last winter.

Matt and I both started laughing out loud when I finished drying my hair. All over my scalp was a coat of fuzz at about 1 to 1 1/2 inches long. The most obvious was near the border with my forehead, where the regrowth was so thick and obvious that it looks like I cut myself some really short bangs.

I stuck a ski cap on and called it good. It is a lot of short cute fuzzy regrowth. I'm glad it will be back to normal soon.

Letting go

He's letting go.

In the last two days, I've watched Cooper let go of furniture with both hands and stand unsupported for a few seconds. He gets this look of total pride and thrill in his eyes- and then he either grabs something to steady himself, or crashes violently to the floor.

Three times now he's bloodied his upper lip on his giant beaver teeth from falling awkwardly, which results in screaming, bleeding, and then some light whimpering. I feel bad for him, but I can't catch him 100% of the time. I figure his violent falling phase will pass pretty soon. Or at least I hope so. My guess is that he'll figure out how to stand steadily in a few more days, which at this rate will be 1 or 2 more bloody lips.

God and Country

We get a lot of Obama volunteers in my neighborhood, which is nice but distracting. Because I work from home, and my dog freaks out when someone knocks on the door, I pretty much have to say Hi to all of them and tell them to go on their merry way.

Yesterday, I was on a conference call (on mute, thank god) and I saw two women holding notebooks coming towards my house. I had Cooper on my hip, the headset on for the conference call and was wrestling the dog when I opened the door. I smiled nicely and told them, as I tell all of them, we already did 'early voting' and thanks for dropping by.

They looked at me blankly. I looked at them. And then, a realization. They were holding bibles, not voter registration forms. I had just opened my door to the mormons! NooooOooooOooooo!

Without thinking, I blurted out, "Oh jesus, you're not Obama canvassers, are you... sorry, we don't believe in God. But you have a good day." And then I shut the door in their faces. Shut, not slammed. And then I cringed.

Getting things done

Cooper is starting to nap a bit less, and be a heck of a lot more demanding i.e. destructive and active. At the same time, Matt's school and internship schedule are getting crazy.

Thus, I've hired a part-time nanny! Yikes! Her name is Nicole, and she's a really nice college student that I used to teach a few years ago when I was a TA. She's also worked for a friend of mine for a few summers, so I know she's really good natured and dependable. Right now we are doing two afternoons a week of her "hanging with Mr. Cooper." They go for walks, hang out at the park, and make a mess out of the living room. It works out pretty well- it sure isn't cheap, but it is cheaper than daycare, pretty hassle free, and he probably won't get the million colds, stomach bugs, and so forth that he'd get if he was with lots of other kids.

This provides me with more motivation to get work done while she is around, as well as more motivation to get our baby gear all set for winter. Nicole is from Alaska, so she's excited to take Cooper cross country skiing. Gotta get him a warm little ride-along sled! Fun!

More teeth and more skills

Cooper is picking up speed, I swear it.

He's starting to let go of things while standing. This sounds like a bizarre statement, but it represents something interesting. For a few weeks, he's been clinging to things with a death grip- and almost never falling down. Now he's falling down again all the time. Matt and I have discussed this, and now take this to mean that he has discovered the idea of standing up without help, and practicing this skill isn't a peaceful or comfortable endeavor. Just today he fell hard enough to give himself a bloody, fat lip on one of his giant beavery front teeth... sigh... being a baby is hard, physical work.

He's also getting two more teeth. Top and bottom right, which is an odd combination. Normally they are horizontally paired, not vertically. The teeth should be through the gums in about two more days by my reckoning. He's being a good sport about it.

Cooper's pincher grip (picking up tiny stuff with thumb and first finger) is getting skilled. He's an expert cheerio grabber and has surgical precision for grabbing lint and dog hair. Eww.

And the walking. Oh man. He's getting so good with that laundry basket. And now when we help by holding his hands, instead of letting us steer him around the house, he tries to go in the direction of his choosing. Cute. Intimidating.

Da da! Da da! Yup.

Baby names

We just discovered that Cooper's name, had he been born to Sarah Palin, would have been:

Spackle Camshaft

Fabulous!

Faster than a speeding laundry basket

He learns quickly. And he's big and strong. This is a fun combination (but it means Mom and Dad need to get very serious about babyproofing.)

Wanna see him practice walking?

Words

Cooper has started to babble in a very advanced way- he forms complete syllables and mixes and matches them. His favorite sounds are dah, deh, sss, and nah. Sometimes he branches out into other sounds like gah, grah, eeh, dee, and yah.

The reason I mention the sounds specifically is that sometimes, randomly, he ends up making an actual word. Often these words pass by without notice in the general flow of babble, but sometimes he says them in isolation with very funny effect.

Today he picked up an empty tissue box (a favorite toy), looked at it, and clearly exclaimed, "Dude!" Well, he said doo-deh. But it really sounded like dude.

Yesterday Matt was changing his diaper and Cooper was chattering away. Suddenly Cooper declared, "Gross!" so loudly that I could hear him from downstairs (groh-sss). Matt busted up laughing and said, "I hear that, buddy."

Most of the time he just says the same thing over and over again. Dah dah dah dah dah is the most common, with nah nah nah being second favorite. Sadly, he almost never makes an "em" sound, which means that my desire to hear ma-ma is looking like it will need to wait a while.

Barf-a-thon

Out of the blue yesterday, Cooper decided to embark on a horrendous barf-a-thon. The kid must have vomited at least two dozen times, and he hit an amazing number of different surfaces in our house. Poor thing barfed in our bed about 5 times (because I figure once the baby barfs once in the bed, you might as well let him do it again), three times in his crib, once on the bath mat, once on the kitchen floor, twice directly onto my chest, twice in the bath tub, once on the changing table... you get the idea. By the time the barfing started to subside, I had 5 loads of laundry to do, the baby was naked except for his diaper, he was sleeping on a blanket on the floor because that was the only clean flat surface I could muster, and I was seriously contemplating not changing out of my barfed-on shirt because I wasn't sure if he's just do it again anyway.

The worst part was how upset, sad, and exhausted he was. It was so hard to see him all pale and listless, and not to know any real way to help except for keeping him clean and warm.

The happy part is that aside from some minor spitting up around 11pm, the whole problem disappeared as quickly as it arrived. It started around 4pm, peaked at 5pm, and then by 9pm he was happy, chatting, and totally fine. When Matt got home at 10pm from his night classes he commented that Cooper looked pale, but other than that Matt said he never would have known anything was wrong. Kid slept great- from 11pm to 6:30 without any waking up!

Today Cooper's appetite is a little bit off, but nothing outrageous. He isn't pale anymore and his energy level is back up to the usual energizer bunny levels.

I'm baffled. I think he must have eaten something nasty, but nothing came out of note. Oh well. At least we all came out of it with fresh sheets on our beds.

On the street

Cooper is an engaging and cute kid- and I know I'm biased. But whenever we go anywhere, people stop us and talk to him, admire his gorgeous baby blues, and so on.

Yesterday at the farmer's market, Cooper spent at least an hour happily observing the world, snuggled into his fancy patagonia baby bunting, while riding in his cool framepack. I was stopped by several strangers who wanted to talk with Cooper, tell me how happy my little boy looked "up there," and so forth. I even had two separate people ask me where I got the cool baby bunting (Go Grandma G! Nice work.). For his part, Cooper waved his arms happily in the air, screeched exuberantly when dogs walked past (he is in love with all dogs), smiled at strangers, and attracted admirers from far and wide.

Then, he fell asleep in an awkwardly cute position in the pack. I took his napping as a sign that I should do some bonus socializing- so I wandered over to the other farmer's market (ran into three separate pairs of friends, said hi to the friend whose sells her uncle's pears, bought myself a hot apple cider) and then the craft market (talked with my friend that makes neat custom hats, admired some cool wool blankets, sipped my hot cider, ran into friends with a cute toddler). Cooper obliged me by sleeping for nearly an hour and a half in the pack while I enjoyed my fall morning outing. People would smile at the comatose limp baby in the pack, and lots of people mouthed "so cute!" to me as they walked by. I swear, the world loves a sleeping baby.

I was debating where to go next with my sleeping buddy (walk along the river? go shopping in the boutiques?) when he started to rustle and twitch himself back awake. He groggily began playing with my hair and I noticed his tiny fingers were chilly, so instead we went back to the car and headed home.

It is mornings like that which make me so glad we have a great kid. He's so much fun, so cute, and pretty flexible about stuff like napping in his pack, being poked by strangers, and new situations. He's even tolerant of getting cold hands and having a cold wind in his face- which is more than I can say for myself much of the time.

Friend's baby born!

I am really excited!

Our friends had their baby- only 10 days overdue... :)

They named her Linnaea, which is a very pretty name in my opinion. Their last name is a particularly interesting (yet short) name, and it goes really well with a longer girls name like that.

Baby looks just like her mom in the three photos I've seen so far. Very cute. And petite- in a good way.

Yippee!

Bucky beaver

Cooper's four teeth are growing in quite nicely (the chips are barely noticeable) and he loves to use them on any available objects. He even likes to pretend he is a little cow- he'll be crawling along on the floor and lean down to chew on the carpet, the fringe on the edges of the rugs, or his sheepskin rug. It is cute, and extremely unhygienic. He's also learned that he can gnaw little bits of food off fruits- so I let him gnaw tiny niblets of apple, pears, zucchini and squash off the edges of the fruits under close supervision. I'm pretty sure he thinks this is the most fun activity ever.

Most recently, he learned that if he gets a cheerio in his mouth, he can make it go "crunch" in his little beaver-y teeth. His ability to get the cheerio in there is still pretty dicey- I'd say he gets one cheerio into his mouth for every five he picks up. Maybe not even that. The dog is thrilled about his inaccuracy. But Cooper's skills at grabbing a single cheerio are improving rapidly- the picking up isn't bad at all- the issue is more of the delivery into his mouth. Sometimes he even just uses his thumb and index finger for picking one up, which considering the size of a cheerio and the inherent shakiness of baby coordination is quite amazing.

At any rate, pretty soon I think he'll be able to execute the "pick up, insert into mouth, crunch, swallow" sequence for cheerios. Which I'm excited about, because it will be his first foray into feeding himself! Very cool.

Official weigh-in stats

Cooper's 6 month appointment, which was actually his 6 months and 3 weeks appointment, went well.

The kid continues to be on the big side, weighing 17 pounds and 8 oz. I think if we had done his 6 months appointment AT 6 months, instead of now, he would have weighed more. He has noticeably slimmed down in the last couple of weeks as a result of his intense crawling-standing-cruising training regimen. His thighs, especially, are now more "svelte" then "pudgy."

He is now 27 inches tall. That is pretty tall.

Overall, he is still around the 75% for size.

My two favorite quotes from the doctor;
----------------
Pretty soon after she walks in the door and introduces herself, with Cooper placidly sitting in my lap watching her and smiling adorably.
"So, is he rolling back to front yet?"
----------------
After listening to me describe his ability to cruise, crawl, pull up, open ground level cabinets, and forcibly launch himself off the changing table in the blink of an eye.
"You have a very advanced kid! Sounds like you might need to sign up for the Frequent Flyers discount at the ER in a year or two."
(note that she did say this with evident admiration and good humor.)

No, I'm not Larry Craig

Cooper is getting better and better at so many things, it is hard to know where to start. For one thing, he can now stand up using anything vertical- even a glass door or the wall is something he can use to stand. He also has learned how to sit back down, which is nice because it has cut down on the fall-and-scream pattern we had for about a week. Lastly, he somehow figured out how to kneel recently. Now, he sometimes goes from standing to kneeling, and he can kneel completely unassisted.

He also can transition from crawling to sitting, sitting to standing, crawling to standing, and standing to anything else. Which essentially means that he can now get from point A to point B in any situation he pleases.

And yes, I've been doing a lot of baby proofing. Oh, and did I mention he can now "walk" if we hold his hands? Yikes!

My trip to DC went really well on the home front. Cooper gave up his bottle-strike in favor of actually eating something, and he was generally in good spirits while I was gone. It was great to get updates from home like, "He ate 8oz and just fell asleep a few minutes ago." Awesome. He wasn't perfect, but Matt survived and our multiple friends that did a few hours of baby sitting while Matt was in class all reported that he was a good kid.

I did not appreciate pumping for two and a half days straight, but it didn't kill me. Pumping in the Minneapolis Airport restrooms was particularly challenging and bizarre, and all I could think of was Senator Larry Craig. I'm quite happy that nobody called the airport police on the crazy person using some kind of loud suction device in the handicapped stall... that would be me... oh the things we do for our kids. There I was, dumping 10oz of fresh hot boob juice in the toilet.

Crazy baby

Matt said, "You should get a video of him pulling up for people. It is pretty cool."

Here you go. The beginning is especially entertaining.

Suddenly, pulling up

For the last week, Cooper has rarely (perhaps once a day) been able to pull up to a standing position from a crawling position.

Yesterday he suddenly perfected it. He can now pull to a stand on much of our furniture, the side of his bouncer toy, and just about anything else that provides him with handholds at the right height.

He is still exuberantly proud of himself each time he does this- laughing and smiling broadly after he gets steady on his feet. It is pretty cute, although very hazardous.

Along with this development, and possibly because of it, sometime around Thursday or Friday he chipped one of his baby teeth. Top right one, to be exact. It is a tiny chip, and my friend that is a certified dental hygienist (which is just shy of a "MD" style dentist) said that for such a small chip that doesn't extend past the enamel there is nothing that we need to do, but I'm still horrified. He just grew the teeth! I can't believe he already chipped one!

I asked my friend if there was something I might have allowed him to chew on that could have chipped it. She said, and I was relieved, "Well of course, anything not fabric or soft plastic could have done it. But I've seen Cooper smash his face on the floor enough to confidently tell you there was no way you could have prevented this. He probably chipped it on your hardwood floors- and you can't pad everything in his life." So there you have it. Early, aggressive crawling = chipped baby tooth.

Three more babies!

Two friends had babies in the last few days- and one of them had twins!

My one friend named her little girl Spencer, which is interesting. I associate Spencer with being a boy's name. What amuses me is that both the parents of this child have gender neutral first names. So I'm giggling at the idea that they were intentionally thinking... "maybe we should name her a boy's name! yeah!" Hee hee hee...

I am meeting up with a mutual friend and doing a visit to see Spencer on Friday, which I am excited about.

The other friend (actually, a friend of a friend, but I do see her around town and at some get-togethers) who had twins managed to hold those girls in for almost 37 weeks. In the last week she was starting to develop pre-eclampsia and so they induced her. I'm thoroughly impressed that both the baby girls weighed over 5 pounds, were born vaginally, and are already at home with mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, and a friend that came in from out of town to help out. Girl twins! Yikes! From the looks of it, these twins are fraternal, but I think it is too early to say for certain.

The friend with twins is the proud owner of all the gender neutral baby clothing that I had that I didn't want to hold onto "for next time." I think she'll be glad to have extras, you know?

I'm forgetting what the twins are named. Tia and... eh... shoot. Tia was one of them. The other was a cute name but I'm not recalling it.

Photo alert!

I created a new set of photos on Kodak- these will be from 6 months old, onwards. If you read this blog and did not get an email from me with an invitation to see the photos (and you would like to see the photos) please email me at my yahoo account and I'll be happy to send you the link.

Cooper's two upper teeth are really looking like teeth now. He was awful about biting me for about a week, but that has calmed down significantly- thank god! He still bites our arms and shoulders sometimes, but hopefully he'll learn to stop doing that soon. The biting is not malicious, I know, but it hurts a heck of a lot. We are trying to remind him to use his teething toys for biting, and not our bodies, but of course it takes a while for him to learn these things.

Video of crawling

Admittedly, his technique in this video is lacking. In real life, he is much better at opposing hand-leg movement (crucial to maintaining a good crawling rhythm) then depicted in the clip. I think he was getting sort of tired of being taunted into crawling for the camera when I got this sequence. That idea is supported by his brief whine at the end, I feel.

At any rate, it is cute and shows that he can move pretty fast.

For those keeping track- that is a 12m Circo onesie. The kid is big.

HAPPY SIX MONTHS!

I know it isn't really a birthday, but it is something.

Happy 6 months, Cooper!

Our big, giggly, happy, crawling, sitting, cruising, chatting, tooth growing baby is a half a year old. Amazing.

Some friends of ours (4 1/2 months pregnant!) came over last night for dinner. The first words out of our female friend's mouth were, "OH MY GOD he's a TODDLER."

Scary.

Did I mention he has his 4th tooth now? What a relief that one is done.

Lightning round!

Quickly! Things are happening too fast!

Cooper can sit up! Unaided! For long stretches of time (10 minutes plus)!

Cooper can crawl! Forward, sideways, and backwards! And grab thing while crawling! Speedy little devil!

Cooper can say a wet "pppppbbbtttthhhh!" It is his happy approval sound. The dog's name might as well be "ppppbbbttthhh" because that is what Cooper says when Lucky walks by.

Cooper can "cruise" (walk while holding onto things for balance) on his crib railing! All the way around the crib! Or all around the ottoman in the bedroom!

Cooper is showing interest in pulling up to a standing position! Successful... no. Interested- yes!

AAAiiiiiiiiieeee! What happened to my helpless infant? I practically have a toddler. He's not even technically 6 months old yet!

Inexplictably better

Tooth four is still not out. Tooth three is unchanged. And yet, Cooper is happy, napping well, sleeping like normal, and not viciously biting things anymore.

My only guess is that he had an irritated nerve with one of those teeth and the problem resolved itself. Because there is no visible change at all. I am baffled.

But hey! I slept pretty well last night! Full dose of ibuprofen for the little guy at 9pm might have helped, who knows. Certainly didn't hurt anyone.

Also- unlike his cousin, Cooper likes green beans. Interesting.

Finally, my resolve finally dissolved on a funny thing. While I was pregnant, I resolved not to buy Cooper new clothing with our money for the first year. Used clothing, sure. Gift certificates and returns, sure. But new clothing seemed so silly- you get these great gifts, people love to send clothing, tons and tons and tons of used stuff at second hand stores, etc.

But the kid grew so fast that he's in some 12m stuff now... only 5 days until he is 6 months old! So I guess in a way I made it, as I only bought stuff in that size... naw, that is a cop-out. I faltered. Resolve-schmolve.

Today I bought some clothing at the amazing 40% off sale at Old Navy. Awesome selection, great stuff, lots of sizes, and the few things I really felt we needed were stunningly cheap. And cute. And I can't get things this cheap at the used place, amazingly, because they only accept really fancy stuff for resale. I guess I could have gotten stuff at Salvation Army... sigh... yeah.

Go to Old Navy online. Prices are great. Selection is great. Go buy your kid something. But don't get Cooper any three packs of long sleeved teeshirts with monkeys on them- I already did that.

Tooth four is the work of the devil

For some reason, Cooper is really, really upset about his final front tooth. He is having trouble sleeping, he cried and screamed for about 2 hours yesterday evening, and another 3 hours in the middle of the night last night, and he is biting everything in sight. It might be that his other top tooth is what is causing the trouble, but it has emerged out so I'm not sure. I think it is the still-to-emerge fourth tooth.

Recently I've been dosing him with baby ibuprofen and that does help. I resorted to giving him drugs after he bit me so hard that he actually drew blood, and made us both yelp. That was very unpleasant.

The good thing is that I'm 99.9% sure it is his teeth, and not another more serious problem. When he is happily eating, chewing on something, or otherwise distracted he is his usual chatty happy funny self. But when he isn't distracted and he gets tired or otherwise on edge, he falls apart into misery. Poor little thing. It got so bad last night that I sent Matt downstairs to sleep on the futon so that one of us would get some sleep. No need to torture all three of us.

On a related note, we are dog sitting this sweet dog named Marley and he is very upset about Cooper's situation. Every time Cooper starts to get loud, Marley goes and sits on the couch (which is not OK, but you can't really blame him) and pouts. Poor Marley spent all last night with sad dog eyes, staring off into space, on the couch. Lucky is also unhappy but shows it differently- he tries to make Cooper feel better by licking his toes.

Tooth three emerges, and a recollection

Cooper's third tooth was officially out and sharp as a knife on Sunday. Today he figured out how to grind his new top tooth on his bottom teeth, which as you might guess makes a remarkably grating and horrible noise. But I suspect the novelty will wear off shortly and he'll stop.

I just remembered something from wedding #4 that we attended. There was a woman there who drank just enough to talk A LOT and yet still make sense. A chatty drinker, shall we say. She was telling me about how her husband wants to wait a few more years to have kids, but she wants to get started now. I was nodding courteously when she suddenly said, "You need to tell me if it hurts as much as they say it does." I said, "Well it really depends on the person, circumstances, medications, and that kind of thing. For some people it really doesn't hurt very much- and you could be one of those people."

To which she said, "Well how can it NOT hurt if they slice you open all the way to your @$$shole?"

I remember being puzzled. Weren't we talking about having a baby here? Call me slow on the uptake if you want, but I didn't realize for a few ticks that she was assuming, or perhaps had been told, that everyone that has a baby vaginally has to have a very, very, big episiotomy.

I replied with something to the effect of, "Well not everyone gets an incision. Most people's bodies just can stretch, or sometimes they tear a little. Personally, I had a small incision- but I had local anesthesia so it really wasn't bad at all. It healed really quickly, too."

In retrospect I am sad that this question came up. Here is a woman my age, well educated, who thought that in order to have a baby you must surgically have your nether-regions ripped asunder. That is crazy. People's misconceptions are sort of depressing sometimes.

Tooth three

Cooper is working hard on his third tooth. It is going to be his top right side. Two days ago it was a couple of white speckles on a red, irritated gum. Yesterday it was a white line on a red, irritated gum. Today it is the distinct bottom edge of a tooth, barely covered in what seems to be a single layer of microscopically thin clear gum tissue. The redness has gone down a lot and I'm pretty confident that if it doesn't break through that last layer tonight, it will tomorrow. As usual, Cooper is very slightly grumpy at times, and a bit drooly, but otherwise nonplussed about the whole thing.

Tooth three! Wheeeee!

The sleep experiment results

It has been over a week and I'm pretty happy with the results of our sleep experiment. Let us review-

Night 1:
2 hours of upset baby. Then slept until 6am.

Night 2:
Slept all night, woke at 5:30am. Not too bad.

Night 3:
Roughly 2 hours of upset baby. Then slept until 7am.

Night 4:
20 minutes of upset baby. Then slept until 6:15am

Night 5:
40 minutes of upset baby. Then slept until 8am.

Night 6:
Slept all night, woke at 5am. Not too bad, but kinda early. Fell back asleep until 8am, mercifully.

Night 7:
30 minutes of upset baby, fell back asleep by himself, awake at 6:15am.

Night 8:
5 minutes of snuffling around at 4am. Some whining. Fell back asleep by himself, awake at 7am.

Night 9:
Slept all night, awake around 6:30am

Night 10:
Slept all night, awake around 6:30am

Clearly we are seeing a trend of distinct improvements. I am quite pleased with the results of this, especially the last few nights.

And while I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, it had worked well for us. Cooper seems to be a fairly quick learner and did indeed change his sleeping habits by the end of the 7 day period.

The full and real question will be answered with time- will he have a permanent change? Well, part of that has been answered with "yes." The "yes" is that if I stop nursing him at night, he can learn to put himself back to sleep. This was quite obvious after the first few nights were behind us, and the late night wakeups started to resolve themselves with some whining, quiet crying, and falling back asleep.

The second part is "will he stop waking up?" I think the answer to this is yes, as well. He sleeps more through the night than he ever did before. I think that by not feeding him, the bodily rhythm he had that woke him up was disrupted, and the new rhythm of not getting a reward (food, mommy snuggle time) for waking will take over completely.

I know he would have eventually done this without our help. But I'm glad we did it now. My business trips are coming up soon, and the knowledge that chances are Matt might have a kid that whines for a few minutes late at night, rather than one that screams for two hours, is very reassuring to me.

Sleeping, or not

Cooper is a great sleeper. Sometimes he even sleeps all the way through the night, from 9:45pm to 6am or so. But most of the time he wakes up once, and sometimes two or three times. And when he does wake up, he wants to nurse. Won't go back to sleep without nursing. Screams like we are killing him if he doesn't nurse. You get the picture.

While mostly that is fine, I realized recently that we are setting ourselves up for a big issue here. You see, I need to start going on business trips pretty soon. And while I'm away, not only will Cooper not be eating well (because he hates bottles and only just started on cereals) but potentially he won't sleep.

So Matt and I agreed to a one week, extremely unpleasant, experiment. We'd all go to sleep as usual. Then, when and if Cooper woke up in the middle of the night, I'll go downstairs and sleep on the futon (to keep me from having a nervous breakdown) while Matt tried to get Cooper to fall back asleep. The agreement was that Matt wouldn't wake me up under any circumstances- this was between the two boys exclusively. Only after 6am would I help out, nurse, whatever.

The first night of this was utter torture. From 3 to 5am, Cooper and Matt battled it out- Cooper would scream, thrash, cry while Matt channeled his inner zen and just kept walking and rocking the little guy. But at 5am he fell asleep, and he slept until 8am. He was his regular happy chatty self at 8am, so as far as we could tell- no harm done.

The second night was funny. Cooper crashed out early (8:30) and slept until 5:30am. I figured that was within the spirit of the agreement, if not the law, so I fed him.

Third night was torture again. Cooper woke up at 4am, the power went out on our block at 4:45 because of a thunderstorm with high winds, and sometime after that the kid stopped shrieking and fell asleep. At about 7am he woke up happy as ever.

Last night, the fourth night, was the most interesting. He fell asleep at about 9:45 and work up at 4am. I retreated downstairs. I heard some complaints, brief screeches of annoyance, and some quiet snuffling. And then- nothing. All of a sudden it was 6:15am.

Matt confirmed my suspicions when I crawled back into bed in dawn's early light. Matt hadn't picked Cooper up out the crib because in Matt's his words, "he never seemed to need it." Instead, Cooper whined a bit, got a little mad, and then just fell back asleep.

I am wary of declaring victory, but this represents a huge change. While Cooper is great at falling asleep for his naps by himself (i.e. without rocking, walking or nursing) and sometimes he'll fall asleep for the night by himself, he has never ever fallen back asleep during the middle of the night without nursing (or two hours of unpleasantry). I know he's fully capable of sleeping through the night, because he does it naturally every once in a while. I just want it to be a habit, not an occasional plus.

Most of what we've read before embarking on this experiment said that changing the sleep patterns of a baby that is between 3 months and 1 year old takes 4 to 7 nights in a row of being consistent. Matt and I are hoping that this fourth night, where the little guy woke up, fussed about, and then fell back asleep, is indeed the beginning of a better thing.

I'll write an update on day 7 with the final results. Hopefully we'll have more like last night!

Did you get a medal?

At the fabulous wedding we attended this past weekend...

Woman 8 months pregnant with second child (I will call her Nancy), strikes up a conversation with me about labor and delivery. We are chatting very amiably and then-

Nancy: Wait- you did natural childbirth? the look on her face is one I usually reserve for comments more like "Wait, you like to eat human shit for breakfast?"

Me: Yup. I did.

Nancy: the look progresses to sheer pity, as if I just revealed I have an IQ of 50 and am wearing adult diapers Did they at least give you a medal or something?

Me: I asked for a gold star on my chart and the midwife said she'd see what she could do.

Nancy: I had one contraction- man that hurt like hell So I got an epidural, and 8 hours later they woke me up and told me to push. I pushed twice and hey! Baby time!

Me: That wasn't quite like my experience.

Like a train on the tracks

I see it comin'.

Comin' round the bend.

Cooper crawls backwards now. As of Saturday, when we put him down on a blanket, he gets up on all fours and edges backwards using his hands and knees. For a 5 month old baby, sometimes he moves pretty darn fast. Dangerously fast. I-need-to-buy-baby-gates-NOW fast.

But he can't go forwards.

YET.

Shots

I can't believe how many shots Cooper has been getting. Because of his post-shots rash last time, we are on a modified schedule of a few shots here, a few shots there.

So he's had 6 separate shots in the last month, instead of 3 shots. This is because a lot of vaccines are now combination shots, to minimize the number of "pricks" the baby gets. But Cooper has been getting them one per needle, and kind of one at a time.

6 is a lot. After this last set (Monday), which was three immunizations in one needle each, he got irritable and very mildly fevery the next day. It was not a very nice way to spend Tuesday.

And today, he's been kind of in a funky mood. He's happy and normal one minute, and then grumpy and demanding the next. And he hasn't wanted to eat on his regular schedule, which compounds the grumpiness. His noon nap didn't start until 3pm because he was too alternately fussy and giggly.

I've noticed that vaccines make him get nauseous, too. I think for the last three times he got shots, he vomited the next day at least once. He's such a non-spitter and non-vomiter that when he does, it is quite surprising. I got positively showered in hurl yesterday. I won't go into details, but lets just say that both of us got in the shower as quickly as possible.

I'm not looking forward to this whole vaccines thing for the next 6 years, or whatever it is. I understand why we do it, but it still stinks.

The rest of me

Cooper slept for 10 hours, uninterrupted, last night. Pretty cool.

I slept for 7 hours, and then I had to pee. Darn! I got two more in after the pee break, so that ain't half bad.

When I started the baby journey, I was happy with my body shape and clothing size. For much of the pregnancy, I could get by if I was wearing just one size up, especially if using a hair elastic to tie the waistband of pants loosely. Towards the end, only serious maternity wear and Matt's clothing worked- that was about the last two months, maybe three. Its foggy now.

What I've discovered as of last weekend (I had to go shopping, ewwww, for some breast-feeding friendly clothing appropriate for summer weddings) is that I'm back to my original size! My waist is kind of a funny shape from the odd stretch-mark ridden loose baby pouch (I like to think of myself as a kangaroo in recovery) but for the most part, I fit the pre-preg sizes. Of course, certain cuts of pants especially are not flattering because nobody wants my pasty-white loose belly skin blinding them in the sunlight, but hey, at least stuff fits. And looks good.

Most exciting is that I found a cute, lightweight dress on the clearance rack that is very breastfeeding friendly for exactly 50 cents more than my gift certificate. SCORE!

Jumping the gun

I confess.

We've jumped the gun (but not the shark).

Cooper LOVES to eat stuff. Loves it. He eats computer paper, lint, dog hair, and especially grass and leaves. I can't keep it out of his mouth- he's so quick with his stealth quasi-crawl and then he's really, really good at shoving things in his open maw. And he swallows the stuff (trust me, I know where it ends up) without choking or freaking out. We've been child proofing lately but some things (like dog hair) are a renewable resource around here and thus, unavoidable. I've covered the outlets and so forth, though- I promise!

So anyway, I decided to try out some pureed brown rice and mom-milk squish on him.

He loves it. After one or two confused looks and gags, all of a sudden he was wide eyed, open mouthed, and practically begging for more. He holds his own spoon while I use another spoon to feed him, and he proudly sits up in the high chair like a good little guy. Its pretty cute.

After the initial highly enthusiastic start, we've decided to feed him one ice-cube sized portion a day for a few weeks as a slow start. He really enjoys the process and gets all excited when he's in the high chair and Matt or I pull up with his little spoon and tiny baby bowl filled with squish.

I know it is a month earlier than the current suggested start of solids introduction, but my pediatrician did confirm my suspicion; the kid is way, way more developed in almost every way from the average infant. You can watch him sit, stand, crawl, talk, and use his vicious little teeth (did I mention he bit me hard enough to make bright red marks? on my hand? Yeah, I'm scared for my nipples). None of these things are really skills for a 5 month old, they are more like for a 7 or 8 month old baby. So she said, after I asked, yes it is safe to assume his digestion abilities are also several months ahead of schedule.

Incidentally, I did taste-test the rice and milk squish. It is pretty good. Sweet with a hint of savory. Quite bland, of course.

Tooth Two and Sippilicious

Tooth #2 is above the gum line. Cooper doesn't care.

I care! I no longer have a gums only baby. I have a baby with teeth!

The little man is learning some cup skills this week. Now that he sits up so nicely, I'm moving fast with the sippy cup, normal cup and general cup usage. He's been in love with the soft spout of the Born Free Trainer sippy for about two weeks, and now he drinks from it (sort of) while in his high chair. He loves the little plastic handles and can use them to get the spout into his mouth all by himself, which dare I say it is quite impressive for a not-quite 5 month old baby.

Normal cups are messier but I think he drinks more from them. Considering I have a 4 month backlog of frozen breastmilk, I am happy to splash cups of the stuff everywhere. Most of it ends up on his shirt. Bibs are useless. My only self-imposed rule is that I don't defrost bags that have 5 oz or more in them. It used to be 2 oz, but hey, the stuff is gonna go bad, and I figure a baby can't learn to drink from a cup without a lot of practice.

The other side

The other tooth is now coming closer to the surface.

Tooth #1 is out and about, all ridged and tooth-looking. It is still so small that I can't possibly get a good photo of it, but it is certainly up.

Tooth #2 is starting to get near the gumline. It is just barely showing up as a slightly irritated white line. Rubbing the gum with my finger shows that it is soft gum there, not yet rough sharp tooth edge.

Cooper is totally unimpressed by the teething process. He's happy to chew on the same things he's always chewed on, and he seems to pretty much act like himself. I think he's just glad that yesterday he finally pooped- after eight days of holding it. Eww gross.

Oh yeah, and he never got chicken pox. That we noticed. But I think I'll have him assayed for immunity before he gets vaccinated, just in case it was so mild that the spots I attributed to heat irritation were actually super mild pox. Because there is no need to give him a shot he doesn't require.

A thrilling weekend

This weekend has been FULL of baby excitement.

With Cooper's newfound sitting skills (unsupported! self sufficient for up to 10 seconds!) in mind, I practically ran out of the moving car to a nearby garage sale. There was the nicest looking, well maintained, unpainted high chair. All dark wood, really good shape, and cheap as hell.

I inspected it thoroughly for obvious issues and talked to the woman that had used it to feed her SIX yes SIX boys.

"No girls?"

"Nope. Girls, who needs 'em?"

Wow. So yeah, the thing is well built. I snapped that puppy up and brought it home. Then I read up on highchair safety and discovered that things have only very slightly changed since the 1970s, and thus a very easy and quick fix involving the sewing machine and a spare backpack buckle brought my newfound treasure up to current safety standards.

Sweeeeeeet.

Oh, and did I mention Cooper adores it? Eating meals with mom and dad is now so cool. He sits there chewing on his toys and tossing toys onto the floor as we "adults" eat real food and retrieve his dropped toys. Its great! He is learning what mealtime means, I think, and that is a good lesson.

Today at lunch Cooper was residing in his new perch, chewing on a toy while Matt and I enjoyed some fresh pasta and tomatoes. I happened to look at Cooper while he had his mouth wide open and thought, "What the heck?"

He has a tooth. It is just minutely, barely, hardly above the gum. Bottom middle right side.

Unbelievable.

Day 13 of Pox Watch 2008

Only one more day to go.

So far, no spots. No fever. No irritability. Yucky runny nose, attributable to many potential sources that may not be pox-related.

Cooper may come out of this pox-free! Whhheeeeeee...

On a totally unrelated topic, our neighbor's brother died yesterday. He was temporarily staying in a tent in the backyard of the house, between apartment rentals, I guess. Apparent drug overdose. How awful. To find your little brother (he was about 18-19, she looks to be roughly 25-30) dead in a tent on the lawn has got to be massively upsetting in several different ways. The Hell's Angels are having a convention here in town, so I suspect I know where this kid got enough drugs to kill him. It was pretty weird to watch this all from the front window of our house. Cooper likes to stare at brightly colored trucks so he was mesmorized by the fire truck, ambulance, police cruiser, etc that were parked in our front street area all morning. I confess I got out my high powered binoculars and did some serious spying.

A first, and something funny

Cooper rode in a grocery cart seat for the first time ever on Tuesday. His cute little legs stuck through the holes and he clung to the bar for dear life. He totally loved it- his eyes were all big with excitement, and he sat upright, happy and perky for the whole shopping trip. He is still side-to-side tippy, so I kept one hand on his shoulder pretty much at all time for fear he'd flop over and whack his noggin on the side of the cart. But he was really quite stable and very, very happy. This is great, as he is getting sooooo heavy in that darn car seat, so having him ride in the cart without the seat should be a huge improvement.

Also, about a week ago, I was chilling with Cooper and I happened to look behind his earlobes. I have NO idea why, perhaps I was checking him for ticks or something. Anyway, I found what appeared to be what happens to a baby's skin if it goes unwashed for 4 1/2 months. Yicky and somewhat irritated. So I foolishly asked Matt, "Honey, have you ever washed behind Cooper's ears?" "Of course!" "How about behind his ear lobes?" "Well, no, I guess not."

And clearly, neither had I.

Eeeeewwwwwwww...

Now we are in an intensive rear-earlobe skin rehabilitation program. We gently wash the area, rinse well, and try not to irritate it. Because it is NOT GOOD to not wash a moist crevice of baby skin for 4 1/2 months. Not dangerously not good, not like he got an infection or something, but really quite yucky and irritated. And it takes a while to get that skin healthy again.

Ah, first time parenting. So many things to remember.

Sitting and chatting

Cooper's sitting ability took a sudden and decisive turn yesterday- he can now do it by himself. Up until Monday, he needed side-to-side support and frequently flopped forward uncomfortably onto his own lap. But amazingly, on Monday, he totally was capable of sitting on his own. We can now sit him on a level surface, firm but slightly soft (something like a carpeted floor) and he just sits there, upright, playing with his toes or looking around. It is shocking how this really seemed to happen overnight.

Of course sometimes he still keels over, and on Monday he banged his head twice. With more skills, more hazards!

He also has gotten chattier lately. He's always been a chatty baby, making noise nearly constantly when he's in the chatty mode, but now it is a nearly unstoppable flow of chatter. It isn't really "babble" which would be more like real syllables of words, I think, but instead this is just Cooper quasi-singing to himself. It seems he is almost always directing this towards something, like me or a friend, his mobile, the dog, or even just a paint splotch on my teeshirt. He also likes to softly murmur to the ferns on the print of his crib guard as he falls asleep, which I think is really cute.

Oh, and lastly, it is day 9 of Pox Watch 2008. Two Sundays ago Cooper hung out with a baby-friend of his, and two days later this baby came down with chickenpox. As many people know, chickenpox is most contagious in the few days before the rash shows up. Thus, we are 90% likely to get a poxy baby in the 14 days following exposure. So far, no spots and no fever, so we are pretty optimistic that we'll be that 1 of 10 babies that don't get it after an exposure.

Only 5 more days before we are considered pox-free! Wish us luck.

Friends havin' babies!

Our friend who is also our neighbor had her baby (their second child)! A cute little boy, 7 lbs 12 oz. I think the final decision on the name was Harlan, but it was still slightly up in the air when I last visited. The baby looks great, she is doing very well (she tried for a VBAC but ended with a "CAC"...) and her 2 year old daughter is adjusting really well. The dad, of course, is thrilled.

Another couple that we are acquaintances with either had their second child in the last two days, or is still waiting to get the show on the road. Baby #2 is being more cooperative then baby #1 was, as baby #1 was footling breech and had to be a scheduled C section. Baby #2 is in the right position for a successful vaginal delivery, so that is good. When Matt and I saw them at the Farmer's Market, she looked really healthy and only slightly pissed off. I was amazed that it was her due date and she didn't have a big scowl on her face (not that she is a negative person, just that being overdue with a second baby is annoying and uncomfortable as I imagine it).

Last but not least, another friend has almost made it to the 12 week mark with her pregnancy. She and her husband are so excited that it is comical. You gotta love the enthusiasm. And, perhaps most excitedly for me, she wanted ALL my maternity clothing to borrow. Awesome! One less box in our tiny house! And she's exactly my size, so it will all go to good use.

Fur baby, number 2

Some people call their dog or cat a "fur baby."

Obviously they have never met my son.

He was born with newborn fuzz all over (very standard) and then lost all that. But now he has re-grown a full array of body hair. Legs, arms, back, forehead, you name it. He has hair on the tops of his feet and hands, and the first two knuckles of each finger and toe (ok, not the thumbs, but you knew that) just like his mom. He has hair on his ears, just like his dad.

The only thing he is missing is facial hair like dad. We'll expect that to show up in the form of a pencil thin, embarrassingly patchy mustache at the age of 17.

Perhaps most adorably, he has retained a very small percentage of his fetal head hair. These are in the form of extremely long, wispy pale brown hairs that sprout from his scalp just behind his ears. We saw this hair in the 20 week ultrasound (shocking! he had hair all the way back then AND we could see it!) and it was the longest hair he had when he was born. While it is falling out now, he still has a couple left on each side. These hairs are 2.75 inches long (yes, I'm nuts and I measured them while he was sleeping for my own edification) as opposed to all the other hair on his head, which is more like 1/2 inch long on average.

Berry pickin' good

I organized a girls and babies berry picking trip on Sunday- three girls, two babies. My non-mommy friend took a ton of photos of the two mommies and babies.

See cute photos here; http://atasteoftheearth.blogspot.com/2008/07/berries-and-babies.html

Dare I say it, the Cooper close-ups are the best shots. Nice work!

Have a good Monday, everyone!

Cooper loves to be tickled

The first ever Cooper video featured him being silently tickled. At the time, he was too little to laugh out loud, so that was no loss.

Now, he has a great laugh, giggle, squeal and coo. So I made another video (with sound!) of me being the tickle monster. It is short, but fun, and shows off his impressive foot-grabbing skills at the beginning.

And what about me?

I'm doing very well, thanks.

My hair is still falling out in gobs. It is gross. I can't believe how long this has been going on. I really thought the post-partum hair loss phenomenon wouldn't last for months. Luckily, my thick hair doesn't show it cosmetically, but the ickiness of having my hair truly all over everything is really unpleasant. The shower drain is only part of the problem- I also find it in clumps in our carpets, on my clothing, on Matt, you name it. Yuck.

My belly button has some seriously weird residual distortion. It is not flattering. The rest of my belly is passable- the stretch marks are fading fast enough that they are not bugging me, the skin is getting less saggy, and in general my whole body is coming back to a more normal place. I'm pretty sure some things, especially in the belly area, will never be "the same" but I didn't sign up for this expecting that, if you know what I mean.

Oh, and my bust is still stupidly, aggravatingly, huge. I could really do without the giant hooters. The one and only thing I look forward to about weaning is a return to boob normalcy. I have been warned they will be saggy, but I DON'T CARE. I just want to wear a sports bra and have it actually work.

4 month appointment

We had our 4 month checkup yesterday. I loooove checkups because they are a total brag-fest for us. And because Cooper is really quick at getting over the shock and insult of vaccines, so I don't dread that part at all. He's typically in sniffle and snuggle mode within about two minutes of the incident.

The nurse and doctor both said that Cooper is about as developed both physically and socially as the average 6 month old. That is pretty amazing, considering he is 4 months old. His standing, sitting, quasi-crawling, head control, grabbing, eye contact, giggling, verbal skills, and toy use are all well above average. The doctor even gave us the go-ahead to use a framepack carrier for him (usually no-go until 6 months 'cause it can give them whiplash) because his neck and back muscles are so strong. Matt is very excited about that.

He has ceased being shockingly huge and is now more like "big." He is in the 75% for everything- height, weight, and head size. That is a good place to be for a kid, and it is reassuring to see him kind of evening out, growth wise. While I'm all for a tall, healthy boy, my visions of Cooper following suit with his incredibly tall uncle (6'5"?) and second cousins (6'3" and 6'4", I think) are intimidating. I would rather avoid having to special order all the shoes for a teenager, frankly.

Because he broke out in a minor rash after the first set of shots, the doctor was very nice and obliged my request to only do one shot at a time from now on. I want to know what shot is causing the reactions, and if the reactions get worse, that way we can just eliminate one shot instead of fearing or avoiding a whole group of them.

I am sad that my pediatrician of choice is leaving her practice in a month. She was very sweet and I really liked her. I hope that I can develop as good of a relationship with her replacement- but of course her replacement didn't get to meet Cooper as a three day old bundle of cuteness. Oh well. We'll see at the 6 month checkup. My other hope is that the nurse stays the same. I like her a lot, and she is a very, very efficient baby-shot professional! It is about 5 seconds from shot to band-aid to back up in my arms. You could almost miss the whole thing if you blinked.

Stats;

Height- 25"
Weight- 15 lbs, 6 oz
Head- 75% for his age, I forget the actual number
Eyes- bright blue
Hair- tending towards sandy brown
Personality- bubbly, chatty, and adorable!

Somewhere between proud and scared

Yesterday I set Cooper in the middle of our bed (queen size) on his belly with a few toys. I was standing about 10 feet away, folding laundry and chatting with him. A few minutes passed (I was only paying marginal attention to him, honestly, as he was talking to himself happily and I was making serious progress on the laundry). I looked up because he was squealing excitedly and I saw a minor accident in progress. Cooper was 2/3 off the bed, flailing his arms vigorously in the air, and on the way down. I took about one step forward, far too late, and he scunched his butt up, legs underneath him, and launched himself full force off the bed.

THUMP!



Waaaaaaah!!!

I was alarmed, of course, but also pretty proud of him. He was very clearly not hurt (our bed is quite low, and the floor is carpeted in the bedroom) despite his screeching. Within less than one minute he was just sniffling and snuggling up to me, which meant that he was totally fine.

I can't believe how fast he scrunched his way across the bed, nor can I believe the force with which he hurled himself off the side. The kid seems to be on the brink of full fledged crawling- he now is almost always not where I left him. If I put him on one side of the crib with a toy on the other end, he is over on the other side so quickly it amazes me.

We are not at all ready for a crawler. We have an open stairwell, a huge home renovation project in motion, unsecured bookshelves, and a lot of other baby threats.

People say you are never ready to have a kid. I disagree. We were ready to have a kid. We are NOT ready to have a mobile kid. But here we go!

Baby skills exploding

In the last week or two, Cooper's baby skills have gone through the roof. Here in Kansas for my cousin's wedding, Cooper became a master of grabbing. He can grab just about anything. He likes rags, wax paper, and toys the best. Giving him regular (non-waxed) paper is a bad idea because anything that he grabs goes directly into his mouth. Or so we learned...

Yesterday, Cooper was hanging out on the hotel bed while Matt and I kept an eye on him from a distance. He was happily making a piece of paper crinkle and cooing at it- we thought nothing of this. About 5 minutes later I checked on him and to my amused horror, he had eaten almost the entire wedding schedule. Not swallowed, but wet, torn, and gummed it into bits. I fished a large wad of spitty paper goo out of his mouth and counted myself lucky that he didn't think to swallow them.

Cooper has now had his first meal of "solids" - in the form of computer paper.

Just in the last few days, he also has learned that he can grab his toes. This is AWESOME. Nothing is better than toes! Always available, always visible, toes rule.

Last but not least, he has started using body language to ask/try to grab things. If he wants something, he leans towards it, extends his arms, and makes grabbing motions. From my perspective, this is great. I am happy to know what he wants- even if he can't have it, at least I know he wants something. He loves to grab napkins, spoons, cups, toys, his shirt, towels, anything made of textured cloth (he especially loves terry cloth), flowers, grass, twigs, and lets face it, anything else in reach. Necklaces, bracelets and earrings are a huge temptation here in wedding-land, so I've spent a fair amount of time unwinding his sticky little fingers out of my necklaces in the last 48 hours.

Let's hear it for hand-eye skills! Wheeeeeeee!

Long time no post

I temporarily lost the digital camera (horrors! but it is back now) and we went out of town. Going out of town for 5 days is a task of larger proportions than average when you have 8 chickens, 1 dog, and a 3 1/2 month old baby. Thus, I have been busy.

The chickens needed water, which a parade of friends (THANK YOU FRIENDS) made sure was in ample supply. Their feeder holds over a week of food at a time, so that part was simple.

The dog needs love, attention, walks and kibbles. And pee breaks. He was cared for by two friends (thank you weekday friend, and weekend friend) and got to go on a backpacking trip, too. I think the dog had the best weekend of all of us. We packed him up like for summer camp... backpack, sleeping bag, extra leash, food, water bottle. You think I'm kidding on the sleeping bag part, but I'm not. He loves it.

That leaves us with the baby. We set out at 4:15am for the "8 hour" (pre-baby duration) drive, on the premise that the little guy would sleep pretty well for at least the first 3 or 4 hours, thus saving up his crying only for the latter half of the drive. This was an EXCELLENT plan and I highly recommend it to anyone that has a baby and is doing a long car ride. Someone asked, "Why not leave at 10pm and drive all night?" The answer to that is- truly driving all night sucks, and is dangerous. Sleeping from 10pm to 4am is 6 hours of rest before you hit the road, so less sucky, and less dangerous.

Matt and I laughed at all the things we brought to keep the little guy happy, but it was pretty minimal considering we are new at this. The portable crib worked out great, the stroller base was awesome, and the billion spit rags and cloth diapers proved crucial. I even brought the pump (to "pump and dump" for comfort) and that was very, very helpful.

Cooper was kinda frustrated with the ride to Seattle, but then again he was brewing 6 days worth of pent-up digestive matter. He had a few screaming incidents, although none were unbearable and quick walks through various parking areas of Central Washington state calmed him down. Within 30 minutes of arriving at our destination, he pooped (quite loudly and dramatically) and lost an estimated two pounds of body weight. It was horrendous. And stinky. And he was MUCH happier after he was done. Needless to say, it was nice that he did that two days before the wedding, and not during it. Timing is everything.

The wedding was a pleasure and Cooper was on his very best behavior. He didn't spit up onto anyone's suits or dresses, he gave fair warning before getting upset and therefore was whisked out of the church just in time without anyone noticing, he ate fairly quickly and thus allowed me to be in all the formal photos I was supposed to be in, and he clearly enjoyed smiling and giggling at all his admirers. Perhaps best of all, he remained in good spirits for the whole day- no meltdowns, no terrible fussiness, no getting overwhelmed. I am so thankful that he was as good as he was!

The drive home was totally awesome. Exhausted after a long weekend of being held by friendly strangers, Cooper spent the drive alternatively sleeping, chewing on his hands, and making cute baby noises. We only had to stop once (not counting the gas stops that are also feed and change stops) to walk and calm him down, and therefore the drive took less than nine hours. Outstanding! It helped that he had a pretty empty colon, of course. Much nicer for him.

Now we are home, working and renovating, and getting ready for Summer '08 wedding #2. We have about 7 or 8 weddings this summer, which is nuts, and I think we are going to almost all of them. There is one that I might just let Matt go to by himself so that I don't lose my mind. Wedding #2 is in Kansas, and I'm looking forward to being there, but I'm not looking forward to baby's first plane ride. We'll see how that goes, but my guess is that it will be stressful pretty much no matter how well Cooper behaves.

My latest plan is to send most of our formal stuff to Kansas ahead of time in the mail. I think this is brilliant- no checked luggage! Yeah! So Matt and I are going to pack our formal clothes and a few other things that are not easily stuck in carry-on bags and ship them so that they get there the day before we do. How smart is THAT! YEAH! Its not that I don't think we'll be able to fit everything; it is that I don't want to have to try.

why yes, I AM living under a rock

I just found out some man, who used to be a woman, is having a baby in Oregon. I am still reeling from this, which I think was an eventuality but of course is surprising none the less.

Matt informs me that yes, I am actually the last person on earth to find this out, and yes, I must be living under a rock to not already know about this. Even my husband knew about it. He just didn't blurt out, "Dear LORD!" when he saw the photos.

Anyway, my basic reaction is, "Good for him!" Do what you want to do, dude. If you have the equipment, it is your right to use it.

3 vs 4 months

I have an acquaintance that I've lost touch with over the last 6 months or so. Just this last week, I found out from a friend that this acquaintance is pregnant- quite pregnant in fact; about 6 months along. We'll call the friend "Fran" and the acquaintance "Ally" for simplicity here. Fran and Ally know each other well.

Fran was saying how exciting it was that Ally was pregnant, but that Fran could not believe how on earth Ally kept her pregnancy a secret for well over four months. Four months! Fran said that by the time Ally finally told everyone, she was really starting to show, and Fran was relieved- she was worried Ally was sick or depressed or something because of the changes in her body and mood. Turns out she just had morning sickness and 1st trimester exhaustion- very normal.

The whole time we talked about this, I had to fight the urge to explain what I am 99% sure was going on. Ally had a very unusual complication with a pregnancy a few years ago. She ended up needing to terminate the pregnancy at around 3 months (the baby had already passed away at that point) and she and her husband were understandably very upset. Not many people know about this, because she chose not to tell anyone about this first pregnancy until the three month mark and then decided she didn't really want to go through explaining their loss after it had happened. She told me about this one day in a casual conversation while we were talking about something related, and she was very matter-of-fact about it.

I can see why she would have waited an extra month beyond what is considered "normal" waiting time to tell people you are pregnant. After the first loss, it is easy to imagine she'd be even more gun-shy with the second pregnancy. I just found it really hard to listen to Fran talking about how crazy it was that Ally waited so long, etc, without blurting out that I was pretty sure I knew why. But I held my tongue.

Our son, the jock

Our little guy is advancing in his small and large motor skills so fast it is frightening. He can roll over both directions- which is pretty cool except that once you can roll over both ways, you can essentially tumble off anything. Like Mom and Dad's bed, or the changing table. He hasn't done that yet, but we are wary of the possibility.

Likewise, he has started to do a fairly impressive pre-crawl. This scares me, frankly. I am not in the least bit ready for crawling, and thus, pre-crawling is a bit nerve wracking. This takes the form of stretching his arms forward, scootching butt into the air, pulling knees under butt, and then plowing his forehead downward and forward. This is in pursuit of a toy, of course, and in short order he can move about three feet forward before erupting in frustrated screeches as a result of jamming the crown of his head into the crib's walls. He usually misses the toy entirely, plowing right on by and getting even more frustrated. His speed of movement is pretty impressive, considering the friction he has to overcome from his face and chest still being mostly flat on the mattress. Watching him do it, you can see that all he needs to do is figure out that his push-ups (which he is very good at) need to work with his knee tucking and then he'll be fully crawling. Oh dear.

He's also getting really good at his practice sitting and practice standing. He can practice sitting for a few minutes, as long as my fingers are in his hands (which means my fingers are in his mouth, and he's balancing himself using just his gums). His practice standing is unbelievable- he can stand with just minimal balance control from his hands- about the same skill level as his sitting. He can't get into either a sitting or standing position by himself, but once there, he's quite good at practicing the activity with my or Matt's help.

Cooper also has recently learned that his hands will do his bidding. This is almost always grabbing something and bringing it into his mouth. Exciting objects include his own shirt (a favorite, as it cannot be dropped or lost), his various spit rags, house keys (oooo! jingly!), his elephant toy, his crinkle-bee toy, his pineapple rattle, our fingers (salty!) and Matt's jackets. Matt likes to place his jacket on Cooper's "lap" when he's in the car seat as he takes Cooper to the car. Matt always says, "Cooper, can you hold this for me?" and then says, "Thanks!" as Cooper smiles up at him and joyfully stuffs large fistfuls of the jacket into his mouth. Cooper doesn't "hold" the jacket for Dad once he's in the car (suffocation/choking hazard for sure) so he has to revert back to sucking on his fists or a nice safe toy at that point.

Most of these skills are far ahead of the average baby motor skills chart. What is amusing is that his social abilities (smiling, laughing, cooing, eye contact) are very average and normal.

So basically, he's a jock-baby.

Lastly, I learned a few weeks ago that all the Rad-siblings learned to walk at 9 months old, including the middle child who had to have corrective surgery on his legs (not from the early walking- from a preexisting issue). I'm seeing this coming, I think. That will be just in time for Christmas!

Major disappointment

I'm really bummed about something here. A few days ago I ate a whole bunch of roasted beets. They were delicious with butter and dill- mmmmmmm...

Beets turn just about everything fuschia; first your hands, the cutting board, and your teeth turn pink. Then, you can count on light pink pee about 8 hours later, and pink poop the next day.

I am really disappointed to report that breastmilk does not turn pink when you eat beets. I know it was a stretch to think the beet pigments could get into the milk, but I also know that some artificial colors get into breastmilk (I read that some gatorade flavors will make your milk look light greenish-gray) so it didn't seem thaaaat unreasonable. So yeah, I'm disappointed. I was really excited at the prospect of pink milk.

A little person

Some might argue that Cooper has been a little person for a long time, like since birth, or even before that. I know that I'm not supposed to say it as he is my kid and all, but really, to me he wasn't much of a little person until he was about six weeks old. Before that he was really just a newborn. As a newborn he didn't have a lot of amusement value or socializing abilities. Mostly he concerned himself with spastic movements, bodily functions, and extremely loud crying. Oh, and being loved unconditionally, of course.

Since about the six week mark, he's gotten far more "little person." Smiles, good steady eye contact, clearly showing that he recognizes us, being soothe-able the majority of the time... these are the marks of a reasonably human-type infant (in my book).

Now that he is three months old, I feel as though he's really blossomed into his personhood. He smiles, laughs, and giggles. He loves to be tickled, and clearly appreciates it when we make funny, unexpected sounds (by opening his eyes really wide and waving his arms excitedly). He talks to us in his soft, throaty baby voice, and makes cooing sounds when he wants our attention. He grins broadly at strangers who then almost always smile back, which makes him get excited and squirm in glee.

Cooper's coordination and movement skills are improving daily. He now bats at his toys on purpose and occasionally grabs onto things, which inevitably then leads to sticking them in his mouth. He can roll over both ways and has become a very opinionated side sleeper- I can gently roll him onto his back 5 times in one nap without dissuading him from rolling onto his side when I'm not looking. He skootches around on his back in the crib and has made it from one side to the other in his sleep. In fact, he does this so much that he's developed a bald spot on his head that was never there before. I'm pretty sure it is from the skootching about, or possibly his daily lengthy conversations with his mobile.

If I put him in a sitting position and coax him into holding onto my thumbs like the handlebars of a bicycle, he can stay sitting with just those fingers to help as he watches the world go by, sucks on his knuckles, and smiles at me. He's also gotten quite good at his "practice standing" and now can stand totally alone for a fraction of a second without any support, before he topples over into our hands. Of course he can't get into a standing position without us putting him there, but once there he can stay up for a pretty decent amount of time as long as we prevent him from toppling with gentle rib-cage support.

I can't believe that at three months our kid can do so many real baby things. It shocks me daily how fast he's changing- one day he can only stare at a toy, the next day he can grab it and stick it in his mouth.

The one thing he has yet to do, or want to do, is drink from a bottle. Sure, he's taken down 1/2 and ounce, and even almost 1 ounce a few times. But lately all we get is intense screaming fits... oh well. I guess I can applaud his dedication to the anti-bottle cause.

I read a few days ago that some babies can learn to drink from a sippy cup at only 5 months. We are SO THERE.

Hold it!

Cooper has started a new trend that is apparently common in breastfed babies- holding it. Oh yes, he still pees at least a dozen times a day, but as for pooping...

Try every 4 to 6 days.

Now, you might say, "My god! Poor thing is constipated!" But I can verify both through personal observation and extensive reading of baby health literature that he is not constipated. Apparently, this is pretty standard for his age and diet. However, no matter how normal you can call it, it is a long time to hold it.

So now you are curious, I know, about what happens once he reaches capacity? A physically improbable amount of material comes right on out, all at once, filling not only his diaper but also the lower end of his shirt and quite a large part of his pants. Difficult to clean, totally gross, and frankly- hilarious.

I'm glad he doesn't seem bothered by this. As for Matt and me, we are starting to be concerned about the timing of these events. So far we've been lucky and it has always been at the house and pretty contained in scope. But each time, after about three days, I get concerned when we leave the house. Will this be it? Did I remember to pack a spare outfit? I kinda fear the day he decides to let loose and I'm wearing a nice white shirt, or better yet at some sort of a social function. Yikes!

Stylish baby?

I just noticed that a few of Cooper's favorite outfits have 3/4 length sleeves, and 3/4 length pants.

Some might argue that he has grown out of them, and that they would be full length if he fit them properly.

NONSENSE!! I'm not in denial, I swear.

Photo reminder, and lilac love

First, a reminder. If you have not seen the albums "Cooper" (which is 0-6 weeks) and "Cooper II" (which is 6 weeks onward) on my Kodak site, and you would like to see them, email me on my yahoo account and I'll send you the links.

Now, the fun part.

Cooper gets sweeter and funnier by the day. He is a contagious smiler and when his needs are met (i.e. when not hungry, exhausted, or sitting in a yucky diaper) he is a near constant source of giggles, smiles, and chatty baby coos. He smiles out at the world with his gummy grin and charms everyone that sees him. He enjoys being tickled, looking at his toys, sitting on our laps, walking around the house in our arms, and touring the yard while mom or dad waters the gardens.

Recently the weather here has become extremely pleasant. Therefore, I have started putting Cooper on a comfortable play-mat under the lilacs in the shade during the day occasionally. He quietly talks to the trees ("oooo? goo? eeeeeeee!!!"), waves his little arms and legs excitedly, and looks at the moving branches and leaves. He is happy under there for up to 15 minutes at a time, and then he usually either wets himself (which often results in screaming these days- the kid hates a wet diaper) or falls asleep. During his chill-out sessions with the lilacs I typically pull weeds in the garden. Excellent multitasking.

Superbaby!

Cooper made his mom and dad very proud at the official weigh-in today (a.k.a. 2 month checkup). While we knew he was a big boy, we were excited to find out exactly how big he was- and he is HUGE! He weighs 13 pounds and 10 ounces, which is 95% for his age. His height was 24 inches, I think (I didn't pay very close attention to that part) but I do recall that his height was also 95%. His head circumfrence was in the 75%, which seemed odd to me given the other two 95s, so I asked. The nurse explained to me that this means he is both big and tall, but not "giant for his age." She said it was normal for heights and weights to align and head size to be different.

Our boy also decided to show off his amazing baby skills of smiling at himself in the mirror, doing push-ups, making excellent eye contact, and flipping himself onto his side from his back. I'm proud to report that all his physical skills are a few months ahead of average- he is apparently quite advanced at things like supporting his weight on his legs and keeping his head under control. His social skills are just about target for his age, although the fact that he laughs out loud is unusual for a two month old. I like to think it is because he is such a happy baby!

He was pretty crabby to begin with at the appointment, but he recovered nicely once I changed his diaper in the exam room. He loved looking at the doctor and the bright colored stethoscope, which made life easier in terms of the exam. Sadly, he got upset (of course) and thus even crabbier than he started after his first ever vaccinations. But he had a great nap afterwards in the stroller, and seems only slightly irritable at this point. The doctor said he might not sleep too well tonight due to the vaccines. Oh well!

May update

Updates on currently burning questions;

How is your rash?
The evil post-partum rash is on its way out. After two courses of steroids and a whole lot of anti-histamines, it seems to now be simply going away on its own. Slow but steady improvements. Thank god.

Is his hair red or what?
Independent opinions of strangers concur with our general idea that his hair is reddish. The reddest part of his hair is at his temples, so in direct sunlight and wearing a hat he gets quite a few comments like, "ohh! he looks like he might be a redhead!" from admiring passerbys.

Eye color?
Still blue, getting bluer. No signs of hazel or green.

Still big?
So big. Official weigh-in tomorrow. Very exciting. He's almost outgrown his favorite socks, and I might need to break down and buy him a bigger pair soon.

Are you losing your hair yet?
Yes, but luckily I have such thick hair anyway that the only noticeable effect is a nasty shower drain.

Does he take a bottle?
No. This is becoming very frustrating. After an initially encouraging start, he is now on strike and won't drink a single ounce. It is demoralizing for Matt and frustrating for me.

How is work?
Good! I'll be going back full-time soon. While I'd sure love to wait longer that isn't financially feasible, so I'm glad I can work from home.

Any new skills?
Cooper is starting to roll over. He is fairly good at front to back, and pretty bad at back to front. But he has done both several times, and no longer can be trusted to remain on his stomach for more then a few minutes. He also has become a master of escaping a swaddle, so now we have to swaddle and also pin him down with another blanket, or use a sleep sack. Both are viable and safe options.

Has his baby acne gone away?
YES! Finally! Yeee haw!

Laughing

Cooper has graduated to a whole new realm of fun sounds. He now laughs out loud, giggles, and says a whole bunch of consonant and vowel sounds. One of the most fun things is that when he is being chatty, if you prompt him, i.e. "Cooper will you say Goo? Goo... Gooo... Goo... Do you want to say Goo for momma?" then at least 50% of the time he'll put in some kind of good try. Maybe he'll say Ooo or Coo instead, but it is certainly in response to my or Matt's efforts. His real "talking" sounds are very quiet and shy in comparison to his laughs and screams, which is very funny and rather interesting. You practically have to strain your ears to hear some of his newer experimental sounds, like his hard "C" (like 'Kuh').

We ran into a very nice family that we met at birthing class last winter and their baby is very cute (although their 2 1/2 year old was cuter and extremely funny, I have to admit). It was fun to chat about our experiences, briefly, and see how they are doing after having kid #2. They had a very scary, unhappy (although in the end, perfectly healthy) birth with their first child in the hospital, so I was really psyched to hear that the birth of their second went so well at the birth center.

In a testament to the "Moby Wrap," the mom confessed that she owns 6 different infant carrying devices... slings, wraps, more conventional "baby byorn" type things, etc. And what was she wearing her four month old little boy in? The Moby wrap, in cherry red.

We love our Moby wrap too. It might be slightly a pain to get it on just right, but good lord does it work nicely once that baby is in there! Totally worth it.

The big world out there

Up until a few days ago, Cooper wasn't really that "into" the world around him. Sure, a toy might catch his attention, or a bright light or big colorful object might get stared at. For instance, when the city bus drove by the bay window- oh boy did that look neat!

It seems like overnight he decided the world is really exciting. He has begun enjoying sitting in my lap facing outwards, where he can watch terribly exciting stuff like Dad shoveling gravel. Oooo! Crunchy sounding AND watching Dad! And Matt has started stuffing him into the wrap with his body facing out, rather than inwards, and by golly is that the coolest thing Cooper has ever seen. He stares out into the world, waving his arms excitedly from time to time. It is so darn cute!

I'm not sure if this represents a pure mental shift, or a mental plus eyesight improvement (along with huge strides in upright head control), but it is very funny and interesting to watch Cooper engage with the world around him. Stuff that previously was ignored is now utterly fascinating. I feel like he must have a constant running inner voice that goes like this...

"LOOK! There is that big black dog again! and a window! and now we are going outside! There are plants outside! And we are going into the shed! There is pointy stuff in the shed! And we are going outside AGAIN! So exciting! LOOK! A chicken! And there is our house! And more flowers! So exciting!"

As an added bonus, he likes to look at himself in the mirror. He smiles at "the other baby" that lives in the mirror and seems to really get excited when that baby is also smiling. Of course, "the other baby" simultaneously gets excited, so the whole thing feeds itself. Very funny.

My giant baby

OK, Cooper isn't THAT big. But he's a big kid. People often guess his age as several months older then he is, and when I put him next to babies his age he is almost always much, much larger. He fits a lot of his 6-9 and 6-12 sized clothing, and some of his 3-6 stuff doesn't look right anymore.

On Saturday I saw a cute baby and asked how old he was- he was 4 days younger then Cooper. He looked soooo small to me, and had these teensy weensy feet. Like TINY feet. This kid's feet must be what they manufacture most baby socks for! We had two sets of baby socks- one set of two pairs of smartwools (which are AWESOME and I highly recommend them) that fit really nicely, and one set of three pairs of cute fuzzy cotton baby socks.

When Cooper was a few days old, I put the cotton socks on him. They were too small.

Note to everyone who ever wants to give anyone a baby gift- buy big. Not tiny. All babies grow (fast)!

I exude pure lard

Matt left out a used and rejected bottle for a while yesterday- it doesn't matter because you can't retry a bottle that has been mouthed and sucked on. Some bacteria from the baby spit could get in there, and then they could breed and make him sick. Better safe then sorry.

After about an hour, the milk separated into the fat and watery parts.



Delicious!

Apparently, I'm creating milk with about 10% fat. No wonder he grows so darn fast.

Squealing

Cooper squealed, unmistakeably, this morning.

Matt was playing with him upstairs while I got some work done and I heard this loud "Yeeeee!!!!" that was sort of like a cry but different. Matt reported later that it was a squeal of glee. Awesome!

Cooper is so expressive with his sounds. We love it! His new sound vocabulary such an amazing improvement over the incredibly loud crying that he used as a catch-all for the first month. Now he's got all these funny noises and different sounds and cries that mean different things. Sad/lonely cry, hungry/impatient cry, really upset cry, exhausted and crabby cry, happy coos, excited vowel sounds, and now super excited squeals. I gotta say it is much, much easier to keep him happy (and us happy) now that he can communicate his basic state through sounds.

Updates

Here are some updates to burning questions...

How is Cooper's hair doing?
Good! His infant pattern baldness has stabilized (he still has a very nice, fluffy, and pretty thick head of hair for a little baby) and some of the newer hair has an auburn tint. We are still crossing our fingers for a redhead.

What color are his eyes?
They are getting clearer and bluer.

How is your belly-button recovery?
Slow. I still kind of have an "outie" right now, which is annoying.

How is the introduction of a bottle going?
Mediocre. The boob pump and I are good friends- that part is easy. The bigger problem is that Cooper is too smart, and he rejects the bottle after 1 or 2 ounces in favor of screaming until I give him a boob. Progress on this is slow.

Are you back at work?
Yes, part-time, from home. This is going well. Matt watches Cooper while I work, so that is convenient and simple.

Is he still huge?
Yes. He has outgrown much of his first month's wardrobe, including his Super Cooper outfit, his cute green striped jumpsuit, and many of his waterproof diaper covers. He wears some 0-3, some 3-6, and some 6+ clothing, depending on how the brand fits.