How do you like them apples?

Coop got his first taste of a WHOLE APPLE today. He's had plenty of apples in his lifetime (ha, all 18 months of it) but normally he gets them cut up into slices or even small pieces of Mom's bite. We've given him whole peaches and plums, but for some reason or another we've never given him the whole shabang of an apple. Most of the pictures are a bit blurry because it was hard to get him to slow down and pose while prancing around and strutting his apple goodness. Apparently apples are very exciting. Who knew?

Digging for seeds
Apples. Good. Nom.Nom.Nom.Nom.Nom.Shhlurppp.
Apple High

Apple Delight

Ooops. Looks like someone is about to swallow a seed.

Side Note from Cooper: Mom was too busy capturing my cuteness and didn't notice the Kid About to Swallow a Seed Moment. Capturing the perfect shot can be extremely dangerous. Oh well, I'm sure Mom will finally notice the seed when it reappears in a couple of days :).

Just Like Daddy

Coop’s mimicking has been going on for some time now but it’s starting to take on a whole new level. On occasion, Coop’s Dad has been known to use a Koozie to keep his beverage of choice nice and frosty cold. We have a drawer full of them and quite an extensive collection. Over the years, we have given each other Beer Koozies as gag gifts (sorry Mark if you didn’t think it was a gag) and the collection seems to be rubbing off on Cooper. Coop now insists that we put a Koozie on his sippy cup. He prefers his Dad’s favorite John Deere one (apparently it has some history behind it). I would prefer he use the cute one in the shape of a black bear, or trout or alligator but he MUST use the one his Dadda uses. As soon as the sippy cup comes out and before we’re finished pouring, Coop goes straight to the drawer, grabs his Koozie and says ‘cu’ (that means cup in case you needed a translation). This should be a hit at the playground. At least he hasn’t taken a fancy to the Master Bait and Tackle Shop Koozie. That would be far more embarrassing. And you got to give the kid props for knowing how important it is to keep your beverage cold.

Another Milestone

Last night was officially Coop's last taste of his Mother's Milk. Yes, I’m emotional but also ready. Let’s just hope Coop is ready too. My goal for breastfeeding was non-committal. From the very beginning, I thought I’d see how things went. Well, Coop took to breastfeeding like a champ. After we made the 1year mark, I figured I’d wait for signs that he might be ready to quit. That never seemed to happen. He started asking for ‘mook’ and even started lifting my shirt. That’s when I realized that he might never be ready to quit and I wasn’t prepared to stop by his kindergarten class daily for “milk and cookies” so that we could keep with our feeding schedule.

I did quite a bit of research on different weaning methods and decided to try the gradual method. Honestly, I don’t think there really is a “proper” method or "right way" (as I’m beginning to learn is the case with everything when it comes to parenting). Slowly, I started omitting a feeding a couple of weeks at a time until we were down to 2 a day.

After we finished last night, I kissed Coop on the cheek , thanked him for the wonderful ride and told him he could now no longer think about breasts (mine or anyone else’s) for at least 20 more years. That’s realistic don’t you think? Mark has a long weekend so we decided this was the perfect time to get things rolling. For the next couple of days, he is now in charge of putting Coop to bed and rescuing him from his crib when he cries. We figured it would be best if I was completely out of sight, out of mind. (Thanks Kristin and AJ for the tip).

Did I ever think I’d be talking about this on the wonderful World Wide Web????? That would be a big fat NO. But this is a big deal and this is now my life. Once again, here I am blogging about it. Do I think Coop is going to want to hear about this down the road or perhaps ever? Probably, not…but for me, it was a precious ride, a beautiful gift and bonding experience that I never imagined would be so amazing. Just another example of why I love being Coop’s Mom.

Here I am wanting to take a picture right before I feed our little baby for the last time:

Notice I seem to have time to pose for a shot and Coop just wants to get the show on the road.

Wish us luck for the rest of the weekend.

a boy and his backpack

It appears that Coop has a new favorite accessory. His 'ba pa' (pronounced just like backpack but without both ck's). This may just be a phase, but the boy can't get enough of his backpack. He's obsessed. His Grandma Linda gave him a darling little "my first backpack"over a year ago and Coop rediscovered it yesterday. We were going through his mountain of soft toys trying to coax him out of a borderline afternoon melt down. I was getting desperate so I grabbed the first thing I could reach and you would have thought I handed him a bunch of bananas. Bananas you ask? Is that a good thing? Yes!!! Coop is crazy about 'nanas'. He would eat 10 a day if I (and his bowels) would allow it. So I use bananas to describe this love as chocolate or baby porn just wouldn't be as fitting.

I showed it to him and asked if he wanted to wear his backpack and you could just see the light bulb go off. He knows all about the backpack he rides in and gets very excited anytime we use it. He had this look like he understood that he was going to wear the backpack and he was all for it. And that's all it took. He has pretty much worn it ever since. He wouldn't take it off to sit in his highchair for dinner last night and wanted to put it on first thing this morning.

Why would I dedicate a whole post to this? Well, it's pretty darn cute (right now) and I thought I better document this now before it gets annoying. Only time will tell if this little fetish will last. Until then, here are way more than necessary some pics to show it off............

Side note: It's purely decorative. He doesn't want to put ANYTHING in it and for the LoveofSweetBabyJesus don't even think about trying to adjust it. Right now, Coop is all about acessorizing and wants nothing to do with function. I just hope that he doesn't start worrying about matching his shoes with it anytime soon.

Watching his birdies

Have caboodle will travel

Summiting
Modeling
Riding

Here are some shots of Coop displaying the backpack's actual purpose. Cute AND educational. What more could a kid want? Coop isn't quite embracing the educational part just yet.

nursery rhymes

abc's too?!?

numbers even!?!

pretty cool 'ba pa'

I'd say....pretty cool indeed

Happy Fall Y'all

Fall is here and I have pics to prove it.

Leaves

Pumpkin Patch

Sizing 'em up
So many choices

Oh ya.....

Do we have a winner?

Scarecrow Art (Coop isn't all that impressed)

It's important to pick Mums that match your pants.

Foot Sniffin' and Stompin'

Coop’s a foot sniffer. Plain and simple. What started off as a fun little game has developed into a full time obsession. He reminds me a little bit of Molly Shannon’s Mary Katherine Gallagher on Saturday Night Live. Minus the school girl get up and with feet instead of armpits. Whenever the subject of feet come up you can be rest assured that Coop will start a sniffin’. He also thinks that everyone else needs to smell his feet. What’s even creepier is that he feels it necessary to smell Mom, Dad, Targhee and Kokanee’s feet. Someday he will be soooooooo sceeved (not sure this is a word but thought it was fitting) at the thought of even touching his mother’s feet. Here’s a video from over a month ago when we were still living at the cabin. This was back when his little fetish was still sweet and innocent and proof that I might have had something to do with it :). Warning: you may need to turn your volume down as I tend to be a little loud. Shocker, my loud mouth is overpowering my son's cuteness.

Coop also loves to dance. Here’s a video clip of him slow groovin’ to Bob. One of Coop's slower numbers. It's as though he's really trying to soak in Bob's Irie Vibe. Notice the sopping wet shirt. No he hasn’t been sweatin’ to the oldies. This is what his shirts end up looking like towards the end of the day thanks to his CONSTANT drooling. Please don’t hold anything against Cooper for the state of his hair. He’s kind of going through a transition stage while his parents figure out what can be done about his little mop. He’s still recovering from his HORRIBLE 1st hair cut thanks to his Mother (5 months after the fact). Luckily his Dad has trimmed his “bangs” since this was filmed. I have been banned from ever cutting his hair again. He’s well on his way to rockin’ a fine mullet. Judging the state of his hair, one might think he should be groovin’ to Foreigner instead.

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County Fair and Dollywood

Hee Haw! We had a very busy weekend. To cap off a fabulous visit with Grandma Mickey we decided to throw in some fun excursions. We hit the aquarium (forgot the camera), The County Fair, and DOLLYWOOD. Cooper enjoyed them all and so did Mom, Dad and Grandma. We visited the aquarium once before when Coop was about 7months old but this time he was able to walk around on his own and play in the Kid Zone. After the aquarium we went home for a power nap before we hit The Fair. The Fair was perfect. It was only 15minutes away from home, small and full of everything a fair has to offer. We watched a Dance Show which consisted of little pageant looking girls wearing much too revealing outfits and waaaay too much makeup as they shook their little bon-bons. Cooper enjoyed dancing along with them and I was happy when he got excited when the much more conservative ballerina hit the stage. Although he did enjoy dancing along with the hoochie mama toddlers, he just stared at the pretty ballerina. I think it was her shiny tu tu, but I'll humor myself and think it was because of her classiness and grace. Note to self~cut back on listening and dancing to Beyonce with Cooper.

Next up, the petting zoo and Sheep Show. The Sheep Show was new to all of us. It consisted of different age groups demonstrating their ability to "show" their sheep. Translation: wrestle and force the sheep to stand pretty while the judge soaks in all their sheepness. The little kids were sooooo cute and VERY serious about their skills. I was drawn to this little boy that was really prepping on the side lines as his father coached him (rather sternly) before his big reveal. Sadly, he took last place.

Of course the fair was filled with Carnies and GREAT people watching. It reminded Mark and I of living in Carlsbad when the Carnies came to town. We never could figure out why the Carnies came to town so often. It will always be a mystery I guess.

Here's a pic of Cooper at the Fair SEP '08 (what a difference a year makes) Checking out the Sheep Show ("what are you going to do with that sheep?")
More Sheep Show how now brown cow

The next day, we hit Dollywood. One might think that with all this fair talk, that the Fair trumped Dollywood. But that is not the case. Quite frankly, Cooper no longer feels it necessary for me to be typing on the computer this morning. Can't he see I'm trying to document his childhood? Children can be so selfish. The pictures say it all. We had a fabulous day filled with Dollywood and all of it's glory. So much so that we decided to buy a season's pass. So don't you fret, there will be more Dollywood visits to blog about in the near future :).

obligatory pic in front of Dollywood props
Tea cups

Awesome Jungle Gym

Sliding is fun (I promise)

Coop at the Wheel

Driving off into the sunset (The perfect end to a perfect day.)