Cooper at 3 1/2 months old

Our little (but growing!) bundle of joy! He is getting so big these days, and we've been remarking almost daily about how big he seems. As I sorted through old clothes from Thomas, I found 9 month old Seahawks pants that fit and an 18 month old shirt that fits, although long in the sleeves. When John saw him in it, he reminded me about the pictures on our wall where Thomas is walking in that shirt. "Yes, I know that. But he's growing, and..." I think I need to get on some shopping. Coop has a doctor's appointment coming up, so it will be interesting to see what his measurements are these days. We haven't weighed him since his two week check, so it's been awhile.

During the reunion, it came up several times about our choice of names for Cooper. Where did the name Cooper come from? Hmmmm...good question. It was very, very difficult for us to have to find another boy name, as most names that we would like or others would suggest for us held some sort of bad, horrible or just totally unacceptable story behind it from our days working with mentally ill kids and juvenile offenders. My folks thought we were just holding back on them. Honestly, the night before Cooper was born, as I lay in the dark of the hospital room, I still did not know what we would name our little boy. I played the lists over and over, the names that John had written down on a short list, hoping that it would suddenly come to me. I may have written this before, but it was during that night I decided. Our two names, Max and Cooper, had to be decided on. Max was cute, but out on the playground or in the lockerroom, it could be easily turn into maxi pad. Cooper could easily turn into pooper-scooper Cooper as well. Which did I think more acceptable? Cooper won out. No way would I subject my son to a name that could turn into a feminine hygiene product! When I shared this with John, late that night in the dark, he agreed and we didn't speak of it again until Cooper was in my arms and we looked at each other. Cooper it would be. (Punkie mentioned Pottery Barn Kids magazine the other night...yes, I think Cooper landed on the short list because I saw it in this catalogue and thought it looked pretty cute, too!)

Cooper continues to be total joy. Today he giggled for the first time, and continued to do it when he saw my absolute shock and delight! No, he figured out that sleeping through the night was overrated, so he hangs out with mom briefly during the night, but I'm learning to be okay with it. The hard nights are when Cooper wakes me up, only to find Thomas waddling into our room just minutes (it seems) after I've managed to get my eyes closed again. It usually turns into musical beds, but these days John ends up on the floor to avoid Tommy's deadly and spot on kicks. Cooper likes to rise early, though, so I'm still calling on the swing to help out for another hour or so of sleep before Thomas wakes up around 7 or 8 am. If I'm lucky, John will drag himself out of bed and watch the kids until he has to leave for work, allowing me another hour or two of sleep to fill in the gaps from the middle of the night. Thomas still needs to nap in the afternoons, but when he does, he's up until late that night, so although I dream of an afternoon nap to keep up with them both, it rarely happens anymore. I wanted to run out of my house with my fingers in my ears the other afternoon when both boys decided to melt down at the exact same moment and were howling at the top of their lungs. Instead I just looked at the wall and wondered if God was smiling at me then. The wall didn't offer much sympathy, but I was able to gather myself and figure out who needed me most for that second.

The picture above, of Cooper in his stroller, was taken by Grandma Lil after a family reunion hike up to Fir Cliff and then on to Camp Firwood. Cooper enjoyed every minute of it and smiled throughout. He is quite the early adventurer!

UPDATE-
We took him into get his shots today about a month and a half late. He's at 15 pounds now, which puts him into the 70th percentile and although I can't remember his height right now, he is in the 70th percentile there. I thought he was a bit more of a chunk, but apparently not. The scratches on his face and head that I thought were him just rubbing as some sort of developmental stage that he missed as an infant? Yeah, turns out the poor kid has eczema. We've treated him for two days now and he's slept through the night again! Unbelievable. I feel so bad that we let it go for about three weeks with him scratching away while he tried to sleep and I had no idea. His skin was dry and I just kept fueling it with more lotion. Hopefully this little phase won't last long. Poor little dude!

New progress....

Almost rolling over from his back to his tummy, just gets hung up on his shoulder
Trying new foods. Once a day I try a bit of oatmeal with a bit of something else, like squash or sweet potato. He doesn't need it just yet, but we're getting there.
Sitting up with a steadier head on his shoulders. Not so "wheeble-wobble". He's not very content just kicking back now. He has to be sitting up, looking around at all the action.
Chattering more and more, growling his displeasure if he's not attended to when he thinks he should.
Not very content in the swing anymore. Why did I worry about it? Now I beg him to take a longer nap in it to make up for his short cat naps throughout the day!