This month we took a trip with our friends and neighbors down to Branson for a long weekend of fishing and shopping. The boys were pretty well behaved, even though they rarely stop moving. Jackson is 3 and Cooper wants to be a big boy just like him. It was interesting watching him trying to do everything just like Jackson does. We all had a good time and we all have freezers full of spoonbill now! Yum!Cooper's visit with the Parents As Teacher worker went really well this month. Cooper exceeded all of his developmental and physical milestones for his age. Miss Christy said he's more on track with a 24 month old, especially with his physical skills and speech. We know Cooper is special, but its nice to hear that someone else thinks he's pretty smart too. ;) Cooper is still right around the 30 lb. mark, but he is really shooting upward. He was wearing 12 month pants up until about 3 weeks ago, when I swear he woke up one morning 3 inches taller! So now we have 18 month pants that are plenty long enough, but he can't keep them up around his skinny butt. Its a good thing its mostly shorts weather!
Cooper is really big into helping right now. If I'm doing the laundry, he wants to put things in the dryer or pull them out for me. He's also really helpful with unfolding all the clean stuff onto the floor out of the baskets. ;) He really, really wants to help with the dishwasher, and he gets a little mad when we won't let him because of the sharp and breakable stuff. Cooper has had a really good time with Daddy out in the garage lately, working on the motorcycle. Cooper thinks he's working on the motorcycle too and he will tell you all about his "tooooools!!!!"
We also took Cooper to the St. Louis Zoo over Easter weekend. He LOVED seeing the animals, especially the elephant and the tiger. Here is a picture of him in front of a bed of tulips at the zoo, showing off how Papa Drew taught him to giggle.
Drumming has become one of Cooper's favorite activities. When he sees the shed doors are open, he makes a beeline for the drums and gets right to work. This is probably the only activity I can think of that holds his attention for more than 5 minutes right now. Last weekend I took him to see Dave's band play and he loved it. He really had a hard time understanding why daddy and I wouldn't let him play the drums there though. When he gets tired of drumming, he has to explore every inch of the yard, visit the dog pen, inspect all the cars, ride the John Deere pedal tractor and move rocks to new places in the driveway. He also runs next door to see Jackson every chance he gets. Jackson has a motorized tractor that he drives around his yard and Cooper just loves to chase him. They're really quite the pair.Unfortunately, Cooper has also started having what we think is night terrors. He wakes up at the exact same hour every night, screaming and crying and in generally inconsolable. We do our best to get him to really wake up and realize he's dreaming, but sometimes it works better than others. Hopefully this is one of the shorter lived phases. I hate seeing him so upset and not being able to fix it for him.
Until next month, we love you!
