Goodbye 2011!

Wow, where did 2011 go? Time just flies now! I thought it would be fun to share some blopper pics from this year :) I have a silly boy!

January~ surely, you've heard the story of the rednosed Cooper?

February~

Cooper with Benny, my hubby's childhood toy...Benny is a little scary and I think Coop is trying to figure out exactly what Benny is supposed to be, lol...

March~
Cooper never took a paci (thank God) but we did have a teething one that I bought out of desperation that he did like to chew on..

April~
Cooper + any cabinet= mess

May~

Cooper playing in his tent...he was just learning how to go through the tunnel...

June~

He eats like a teenage boy already, lol

July~

I don't know what he's doing here...I guess I caught him daydreaming!

August~

After a bath in his favorite Ik.ea towel

September~

I love these skeleton pj's, they even glow in the dark!

October~

Helping clean out the pumpkin

November~

Play hard, sleep hard!

December~

Cooper dipped 40 peas into ranch dressing...hey, he's eating his veggies!

Yes!

I'm not such a crappy mom after all and found Christmas day pics on our camera! Jackpot!

Everyone else see the brand new Little Tikes workbench? Yeah, Cooper was way more interested in the coffee for my new Keurig (score for mommy!)...

"You mean this candy cane of reese's cups is all mine?"

"This is the best morning ever!"

Someone is a little sleepy...

But, he loves his new Little People's pirate ship! We watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates everyday so he's really loving his very own Bucky :)

Seriously!

Did I really only post ONE time for the entire month of December??? I got an iPhone (which is a huge leap for me because I've been using the same crappy Ver.izon phone for a few years!) and have been snapping photos with it instead of the regular camera. I emailed myself all the pics off my phone so I'm going to make a smoragasboard post of our lives for the last couple of weeks. I guess I could write posts from my phone but I type better and quicker on my laptop...

Daddy teaching Cooper to be a rockstar. For the record, this Elmo guitar is the most obnoxious toy on the planet which makes it Coop's favorite...

"Hey, you have a little something on your face." Yeah, this kid loves ketchup...

Cooper loves to sit on top of the car. This is my hubby's fault. Coop likes sitting up high and waving to everyone! My hubby is right there so no worries. Put down the phone!

Yes, I am one of those obnoxious parents that lets their kid play on the coin cars without actually inserting coins. Hey, he's 2...to be fair, I did let him ride in the car while it was moving once. I only had 3 quarters and the freaking change machine was broken. So there.

He got this Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ball pit for Christmas. He loves anything Mickey so this thing was a hit. A hit to my lungs from blowing it up but he loves it so it was worth it.




He loves all things Mickey Mouse and anything pertaining to making a mess...again, he's 2 so this goes with the territory. His favorite stomping grounds these days is the pantry. I need to childproof this door handle, lol...

Where's your pants, yo? This was a no nap day...

Cooper's Christmas pic for this year. This photo shoot was a NIGHTMARE. I had a hard time using my $9.99 coupon. Seriously. This one is cute though and it has Cooper AND Lilybear :)

We have found a new indoor play place and Cooper LOVES it. My mommy bootcamp was cancelled last Wednesday and I still got a great workout from chasing him everywhere!

We had some great weather (like high 60's, low 70's) about 2 weeks ago and we lived at the park :)

We've had a wonderful 2011 with many trials but with many, many blessings! Cooper is such a fun little guy and has brought so many smiles and laughs into our lives! I'm looking forward to 2012 and thank you so much for reading this year!

XOXO~

Jen, Cooper and Lily's mommy :)

MRI

Cooper wanted to let you know that his MRI turned out to be normal! The MRI was of his brain so he has a nice and normal brain which is awesome news! Our journey for answers continues to march on!

Now, the actual MRI experience was horrible! They blew 2 of his veins while trying to get an IV in and they blamed it on his anxiety! I talked to one of my nurse friends (that doesn't work at this hospital) and she said that was just a line of bull. They ended up giving him this drug to relax him (and, evidentally, it also causes amnesia so hopefully, he doesn't remember the horrible IV experience!) and boy, was he a hoot on that relaxing drug! I've never seen him more chilled out! He was all smiley and funny!

A life update...

It's been awhile since I've done just a life update so I thought I would bore you all with the things going on in my life that keep me up at night...

First, I guess the biggest thing we've got going on right now is that Cooper has been diagnosed with Apraxia. In laymen's words, the brain doesn't know how to tell the mouth how to form words. For a more clinical description, click here. Really, I have been worried about his speech for awhile but kept telling myself that he wasn't talking (much) because his brain was focusing so much on learning to walk. I mean, really, he doesn't have more than 3-5 consistent words. He rarely says mama but calls me Ada so he just changed Dada to a word for me. The thing with Apraxia is that he'll come out with words spontaneously, even 2 word phrases like "what's that?" but he's unable to do them on command. We're in speech therapy at least twice a week and that will be for a long time! It's frustrating but there is one word that he can say on command without fail and that's "love" and I think that says a lot about our household...

Secondly, he's doing awesome in physical and occupational therapy. He was fitted for an SPIO that he wears almost all day. It's a stabilizing vest that he wears on his trunk so that when he's walking, all he really has to worry about is his legs. It's a miracle worker! Luckily, our insurance covered 100% of the cost and I just wish that every kid with hypotonia could have one! He's doing so good but I have to retrain him on not defaulting to crawling. For instance, he'll get really upset during our daily exercises because he wants me to stop so that he can just crawl to whatever we're walking to. I mean, he's only human, and we all want to do what's easiest for us. At this point, it's not strength that's our problem, but teaching him how to balance. I mean most kids start walking when they're 10 to 15 months so they're about, guessing here, 30 inches tall. He has an extra 5 inches that he's got to learn to balance upright. It's tough and he's so tall that conventional walking/push toys are impossible to find.

Here he is in his SPIO and I'm pretty sure that one day, he'll be pissed that I put these pics on the internet, lol...

Third, we have switched to a new neurologists because we were unhappy with the lack of progress on finding a cause for his Hypotonia. Well, they wanted to do a muscle biopsy but why would I do that when it's obviously NOT a muscle issue because he always makes progress and never regresses with his motor developement. Also, he has passed every genetic test related to muscle conditions. So, we were at a stalemate and really, if you don't have anything else to offer then let's get to the point where we can diagnosis him with Benign Congential Hypotonia. He has an another MRI scheduled for December 9th to see if there have been any brain changes since the first MRI that was completed when he was around 9 months old.

Fourth and Finally, I have a 2 year old! He's totally awesome about 99% of the time but he's giving us a run for his money with tantrums. He's speech therapists and ped seem to think it's related to not being able to communicate the way that he wants to which I can imagine has to be super frustrating to anyone, especially a 2 year old. Otherwise, he's so funny, inquistive, and loving. He makes my heart hurt because I just love him so much!

This video is from his speech therapy appointment on Monday. We just LOVE our speech therapists and Cooper has really connected with her. Here they're playing cars and he actually said "boo!" for "boom" right before I started rolling but you'll see him doing his sign for "more"...really, I love this video because he has the sweetest laugh!

Priscilla the Pink Pig!

We took Cooper to see Priscilla the Pink Pig at Macy's on Tuesday for the first time! I've heard of this pig since I moved to the Atlanta area but didn't care really because I didn't have a little wee one to take to ride her...BUT, now I have a very energetic and curious 2 year old who LOVED it!

The wait was a bit crazy because I took him during a week when school was out (duh!) but we had a lot of fun!

Yeah, this was as close as he wanted to get. We're skipping Santa this year...

Everything was pink in this room which was great for me because I love the color pink, lol...

Even we were pink!

Better late than never!

Cooper's birthday is November 1st but we rescheduled his birthday party since he was just getting out of the hospital and he was still too sick to have his very thought out birthday party. We had his birthday last Sunday at Gym.boree and it was fun. Although, I should be honest and say that I did at Gym.boree because my brain is so tired these days and they run the party mostly, lol...

His party theme was "Blast off with Cooper!" so it was space themed...

First, some party favors :) I made these t-shirts for my older neices because the goodie bags would've bored them...

We made these cd's for the goodie bags with all of Cooper's favorite songs. We called it "Cooper's out of this world" mix :)

The water bottle labels and the cupcake toppers matched. I'm a little miffed that I didn't get a picture of the cupcakes!


Cooper was in a weird mood at the party. He's not much on being the center of attention in a group of people but he still had fun!

Perfection

We planned our trip to Florida around Cooper having his 2 year pics done by a blogging and blm friend, Cass, who is an amazing photographer. She a facebook page, Artful life photography, if you want to like and share her page. She sent me a disk with 60 pics on it and I swear that I love every.single.one of them!

So, here are several of my favorites!

Would you look at those eyelashes? Seriously, it looks like I've been applying Latisse, lol...