Standing Tall (and trying to crawl!)

For a few weeks now, Cooper has been working on pulling himself up to standing, using whatever he can get a hold of. He's always loved to stand, but one day it finally clicked that he might be able to accomplish it himself instead of waiting around for us to assist. Finally, last week, he pulled himself up on his little toy piano all by himself (with daddy holding the piano down, so that it didn't tip over on him). Now he can't get enough:

Every time he gets up to fully standing, he's sooo excited and proud of himself, and we just love watching his expression of amazement:

This new perspective on things absolutely fascinates him, and once standing, he usually flings himself all over the piano, grabbing at whatever catches his attention. Now he just needs his sense of balance to catch up to his curiosity!

Cooper's also working very hard on being able to crawl, and started pushing himself up a few weekends ago. Mommy's first thought: "This is so exciting!! He's growing up!" Mommy's second thought: *sob* *sob* "Nooo!! He's growing up!!!!!!!!"

When he wants to go after something, he gets up onto his knees, stares intently at where he wants to go:


rocks back and forth, and then....lands on his little tummy, arms and legs flailing, excited but frustrated that it didn't work out:

That's okay, Cooper, mommy and daddy aren't in a rush to baby proof, so you take all the time you want to get mobile!

Achoo!

Speaking of being a ham, Cooper "gets it honest", as Josh and I will pretty much do anything to get him to laugh. The other night as I was warming up his dinner, I sneezed and blessed myself, to which he responded with a cackle. I then did a fake sneeze, followed by a "bless me!", which got rave reviews. I decided to get the moment on video before he decided he was bored with the game...for some reason, not only is the sneezing funny, but "bless me" is just as hysterical:

This has become our nightly game for almost a week, and never fails to get that deep, stomach jiggling, bordering-on-snorting-laugh out of our little boy. Last Saturday morning he sneezed, I said "bless you!", he laughed hysterically, and he then did three fake sneezes of his own (think, "huhhhh-cough....huuhhhh-cough"), cackling with glee every time I responded with a "bless you!". Watch out Seinfeld, with material like this, the kid's on his way to the stand-up circuit.

The Elusive Scrunchy Face

For a couple of weeks now, Cooper's been making a "scrunchy" face when he smiles at us. It's basically smiling as hard as any person could ever smile, using every possible muscle in his face, causing him to look like a little old man (or "abuelito", as our nanny Diana calls it). Of course as soon as any camera makes its appearance, he immediately stops and decides to do something else, or lunge for the camera to try to gnaw on the lens.

So far I've been able to capture it twice - once with my iPhone and once before I could get my camera's settings and focus set up, so the quality isn't the best, but you get the idea.

We laugh hysterically every time he makes it, but the best part about it is seeing his little personality developing. He's definitely a ham, loves being part of anything silly and adores being the center of attention. If I ever get a perfect picture of the "abuelito" face, it will be posted immediately!

First Post

It's hard to believe, but Cooper is almost 8 months old! It seems like yesterday I was holding a stick up to the light trying to figure out whether there were really, truly two pink lines. In so many ways that feels like a lifetime ago, but in other ways it has just flown by much too fast.


Given that more than half of Coop's first year is over, we're a little behind on the blogging front, but we figured better late than never. We plan to update the blog weekly with all the things that go on in our little guy's life...he's changing and growing every day, and for those of you who know us well, you also know that we (okay, really just one of us) can never take enough pictures, so there will be plenty of those too.



Kisses from Cooper ~