Bubble Night

I have recently seen your shy side coming out. We went to the library for bubble night, and you showed your true colors. Wanted to see everything but didn't want to participate or talk to anyone. And, honestly, Mommy didn't want to play with the bubbles. The second time around a little more willing, and slightly more by the third - but mostly bored. And then on to the books for the first time. Wanted to pull everything off the shelf and read it.

Came home with "Goodnight, Gorilla" - mostly wordless but pretty quick to tell what's happening. "Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?" - your first book to have you repeating with me "just like me and you" - and amazing how quickly you catch on. Same thing goes with "The Very Busy Spider" - very busy web.. repeating. That is you're in the mood. Not so much looking forward to having to explain to you about taking the book back to the library.
Before we left the library we had a lesson about not making the library sad and being nice to the books - a rule you were eager to reiterate to Daddy when we got home. Did we mention later tearing the cover on the 20 year old Curious George book? You are very excited that you have a George doll just like in the book!
Didn't really get the whole pulling books off the shelf thing. Wanted to pull them all off! I do look forward to all our library trips in the future!
Had to go home and have our own experiments.

Attempts at Family Picture....

Meghan's 29th Month

You my dear are a handful. Mommy was gone last night to church, and you were very clingy tonight. Sweet girl for the most part. Still the jealous one "I can walk too, Mommy"... case in point. Yes, Meg, we know you can walk.. :) A good big sister but getting to be a little rambunctious. Bubba seems big enough to wrestle, try to sit on, try to climb over, but still small enough to walk over his head when he's sitting? Can't have the best of both worlds. Try to be a little mommy and bossy, but the majority of the time, just loving. Lately you want to hold his hands and try to get him to walk with you.
Night time routines - in bed for sleeping by 8:10 at the latest. After hugs all around, especially bear hugs complete with growls. (You are very affectionate and want a hug and a kiss - and know they are stall techniques). All after brushing teeth complete with your new skill of spitting. Love to watch you move your lips around and "swish". Two or three books.
And a little mischievous - did we talk about you being ugly to Daddy during nap time and ripping the pages out of your Curious George book? Your vocabulary is amazing. I don't know where you get all these words. And you pay so much attention to everything! You have purple sandals - which, by the way, reek since your feet are so sweaty! - we introduced as "look at your cool new shoes". Now, they are "my cool shoes". Funny.
You are just now paying attention to the TV - have discovered Monsters, Inc. We happened on The Wizard of Oz - and you sat and watched it. Entranced by the animals dancing. Only to request the "tiger" the next day. Not so interested in Mary Poppins. Quite bored actually. And just now discovered John and Kate Plus 8 - guess you like the kids. And, of course, even when you don't seem like you are watching it, you don't want it turned off. Making Mommy and Daddy reassess what they are watching and how it might affect you.
Still calling it "mustik" - we love mustik in this house and quickly caught on to dancing. "Dance, Momma" she says while bobbing her head to the music. You love to sing in the car, love to make up songs with Daddy (a fact he loves) - love to learn new songs saying "again" - you want to learn it! Definitely your favorite melody is Frere Jacques.. which you have figured out is the same as Where is Thumbkin - so we sing Bubba all the way through... Mix the words all together. Always singing. Put Cooper's bottle bag around your neck - as always to help Momma carry stuff to the car after daycare - and started drumming it. Would love to figure out how to foster this!
You are sleeping in your big girl bed now without the railing. You hadn't ever fallen out so we went ahead and took it off... Even moved the bed to the middle of the room. I jokingly asked you if you fell out, and you said yes. Don't think you really did though. We even took the gate down from the stairs in the night - you maneuver them pretty well so not needed. You stay in bed well through the night and usually either go see Bubba in the morning or come down to see us, whining for your milk. The only issue at night is if it is raining. You do not like loud noises. Freaked out the other night when I ran the food processor. Did we mention you fell off the counter and almost knocked some teeth out the other night with the water filter guy here? Mommy was letting you watch and turned away for mere seconds... that won't be happening again. And then it was even more traumatic when he made noise - we seriously had to go outside! Could be worse I guess.
So back to your stories. You can't be trusted with your school stories. We are still battling on the potty training thing. We went completely pull-up free one long weekend and tried at school - making them and us frustrated. Multiple accidents a day. Refusing and throwing fits when they try to get you to potty. Playing on the potty instead of going. They don't have time to physically get you to sit on the toilet and, of course, when they ask you if you need to go, you say no. One day it was really bad, when Mommy and Daddy decided to lay off for awhile, and it seems you were traumatized a little. I asked you about it in the car on the way home, and you informed me you didn't want to talk about it. I asked you want you DID want to talk about - "Jesus". "Okay, does Jesus love Meghan?" "Yes" "Does Jesus love Bubba?" "Yes"... Jesus loved everyone but Miss LuLu that day - obviously we were not liking Miss LuLu at this time. Usually, we love LuLu - seems you usually were getting excited when she showed up in the morning.
So the end-all, you are stubborn. This potty battle has been going on for a very long time. Do really well at home for the most part - once again depends on your mood. And then something happens and we regress.... You even have figured out that big girls wear panties - so you inform us you are a big boy instead. That way we don't have to and can excuse the diapers... :)
Cooking is you favorite thing to do with Mommy. One of our definite routines. If Mommy's in the kitchen, you are there. You drag that stool around after me all over the kitchen. And truly it's amazing how quickly you catch on. The other night you were helping me make a fruit salad, grabbed the lime and started rolling it on the counter like you had seen me do. I never taught you that! And we were making guacamole the other night when you started digging through the drawers exclaiming "Can't find it"... Looking for your masher so you can be in charge of the avocado. The only 2 year old who knows how to work a garlic press, break eggs, pepper grinder... one episode of burning when you reached for a pan after the oven after being warned... staying away from the oven and know it is hot. No knives. It's a good practice for counting and identifying our food and measuring... I LOVE that you love to help. If only Bubba would be more tolerant of being stuck in his highchair playing with assorted kitchen spoons :) we could play longer. And you, stubborn child, always give Bubba a big spoon when you set the table and keep his spoon for yourself... Very proud these days of your "big plate" - you want a real one and not plastic. And quit wiping your hands on your shirt!!!

(Written 07/28/10)

Cooper at Ten Months

Oh, sweet boy. Or "Pudge" I tend to go with that nickname sometimes for obvious reasons. Went to the pediatricians for your 10 (nine) month check and you are a little anemic and in the 75% percentile for everything. Just adorably round that's all.
This ball. I won't forget how excited you were when you discovered it. Chased it all around the hallway. Loving balls - makes me nervous though as you try to walk on it for support.
You are so close to walking. Sissy tries to "hold you hand" and help you walk. Getting better at your pusher.
And speaking off.... you are so hard to capture on film. Moving all the time. And definitely makes it hard for a posed picture.
Still at those six teeth. Kinda stopped adding more after the all-at-once explosion. Still pretty lazy with the food. Want to feed yourself but so picky. Pretty much will eat any baby food - not so sure about those chunks still. And lazy with the bottle too. Would much rather someone sit and hold it for you.
Mamamama - that was a phase. Thought it was directed to me as it seemed to come out when I was busy and you wanted to be held. But now you've moved to dadadda so maybe we're just testing it all out.
In typical boy fashion, you manage to love cords and pretty much touching everything you shouldn't be.
For the most part you sleep through the night. Still not the cuddliest kid. Want to be on the go. It is rare when you will actually allow rocking to fall asleep. If you do fall asleep, 90 percent of the time you wake up and end up crying yourself to sleep in the crib; only for a short amount of time though. Meg one morning, after you had a fussy night, told Daddy "Bubba make Jesus sad" - aka Bubba shouldn't have been doing what he was doing last night and he should get in trouble. :) You like to mess with toilet paper rolls more that Meghan and looking in potties (yuck!) and opening cabinets and shutting doors - getting stuck away from us to only fuss afterward. Meg is pretty good at telling us what you shouldn't be doing... early tattling I guess.

This is pretty much the view all the time. Still running away. At the same time, however, very content to just explore for the most part. Unless you remember Mommy isn't there and then get fussy. Not really any separation anxiety or anything at church or school. And they love having their boy. Fight at church over which of the ladies gets to have you.


You go through these tongue phases where it is always sticking out. :) Sadly, the little phase with twirling the feet and hands at the same time is passing. Haven't seen that in a while. It was quite enjoyable while it was here.
Bathtime is a favorite. Nice to have you both sequestered for awhile - and you are both content. We are working on sharing toys though - and discouraging Meg from trying to help too much. You refuse to stay seated in the bathtub - sometimes you just gotta give up trying!
The tongue again :)
Oh, Bubba. You are such a sweet boy and everyone is always coming up to us to tell us how cute you are! Hope those little cheek dimples stay as you grow up! Which is happening way too quickly by the way. Lets just slow it down - if we both agree, then it shouldn't really be a problem, right? We love you!

Swishin' and a Splashin'

Who is that stud? :) My cute husband of course! He was in charge of the kids on the Saturday I decided to work... The day started out with pulling out the pool. Hard to go to work with all that going on let me tell ya!



Greg said the fun lasted for several hours. Running through the sprinkler, splashing, sliding, puppy baths... Our backyard is only in the shade in the morning... in the afternoon these kids would ave been blistered up!


Meg was very excited about putting on her swimsuit.... said we were going to Nanny's house to go swimming. Have I mentioned how cute my kids are? :)

A Fourth at Home

It is a rare occurrence when this family actually gets to be home on a holiday. This was an exciting holiday of mostly nothing - just like we liked it. In the tradition of the American requirement, we had steak, potatoes, and watermelon for supper. Mommy was semi-nonexistent as the majority of the weekend was spent reading the 4th in the Twilight series... started and finished and now can go back to real duties :)
Coop had cheese :)
And Meg made a mess. Because the kids had managed to have pretty long late naps, we decided to risk finding some fireworks. Little did we know (or think ahead) about getting there hours in advance to have a parking spot that was ideal... but we made do.
Once we decided to go, we started talking to Meghan about it. About the noises and the lights. She was getting very excited - super cute considering she didn't know exactly what we were talking about.
We parked across the street from the lake where the fireworks would be shot off... in a park on a hill with our blanket. I must say, both kids did very well. Coop was a little fussy toward the end (it was like 9:30 afterall) but no big fits. We were far enough away that the noises were very muted so not scary. There were probably 5 or 6 areas around where fireworks were going off so plenty to keep Meg's attention. Still plan maybe to just stay at the house next year and see what we can see.
Fun park - will have to go back... without mosquitoes perhaps.
This is the age we are in... the age where we intentionally ruin pictures and do not smile. This stage only last 15 more years, right? Mommy and Meghan played with the swings and did some climbing. I must say, and don't judge the following statement, only in America (and definitely more likely with Houston) do you look around on the 4th and realize you are some of the few definite Americans there for the celebrations. Saw some (?) Vietnamese, Indians, and lots of Hispanic people. Maybe we were part of their sightseeing trip too :)

And again you see... At least we got to wear our flag shirts again!