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.