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.