Daddy the barber!

We typically go to a local salon that caters to children to get Cooper's hairbut but there are times that I am brave enough to let my hubby do it. He's good with the shavers but my heart always drops when I see Cooper's hair start to fall off. Cooper always looks good afterwards and hey, it's nice to save the $16.95 that we would've paid at the salon!

He's not a huge fan of haircuts in general so my job during the haircut is to distract Cooper with toys and songs. It mostly works but we're all tired by the end of the haircut! There are only so many times that you can sing "the wheels on the bus" and "BINGO," ya know?

I was joking with Cooper about how the ladies don't like hairy backs :) Well, I know that I don't anyways!

This look is like "why did you let this happen to me?"

Cooper IN the stander!

I finally have pics to share of Cooper in his stander. The stander is kept in our basement and we live in a 3 story townhouse so if I forget the camera then we're just out of luck for pics! BUT, today I remembered to bring it down with me! High five for mommy!

Cooper rarely watches tv so I bribed him with Curious George! He was captivated and never whined while in the stander. We're going to be doing this everyday and we're starting out with a 15 minute interval. Cooper isn't used to standing on his legs so 15 minutes is a lot for him!

Awesome news, the other day at therapy he stood for about a minute with very little assistance. He even was holding himself up on a table! I've never seen him do that so what is a mommy to do but CRY! I was so happy and proud! His PT put some special bands around his knees to keep them straight and it really helped...so, of course, I will be purchasing some of those special bands to use around the house!

I stuck that ABC wheel toy in the bowl for kicks but he was really more interested in....

...Curious George!

Back view (obviously)

Side view

And, looking right past me so he could continue watching cartoons!

The braces and the stander~

I mentioned many posts back about Cooper getting braces for his legs. They're called solid ankle foot orthodics and they go from his ankels to just below his knees. He's not a huge fan but I know that he's getting better when he points his legs and tries to push them into the braces on his own. He's awesome and such a trooper!

His PT also recommended that we get a prone wooden stander for our house so that he can do standing exercises in it. I have a toddler who isn't able to pull himself or hold himself up...so, guess who does 90% of these standing exercises at this point? Yep, mommy! I'm going to have some killer arm muscles though! The stander will give him the opportunity to feel weight on his legs and to get his legs stronger.

My prayer is that between his braces and the stander that he'll start using his legs for their intended purposes. I keep telling him that they're used for more than just kicking my tatas around during diaper changes ;)

Mommy's little helper!

Cooper loves chores...yeah right, but he does love to play with the towels while mommy does all the work! He loves a good ole game of "where is Coopie?" and he makes any mundane task just a little more fun :)

Cooper pretending to work ;)

Where is Coopie?

There he is!

Two things:

1. His shirt makes me laugh everytime!

2. I have some pics of what my living room looks like before and after Cooper gets to it that I will need to share one day, LOL...my ideal reality would to have a really clean home and a toddler but that reality doesn't exist!

Rainbow pegs~

I am constantly on the look out for any fun items for Cooper to work on his fine motor skills and found this great Rainbow peg play activity set at The School Box. Last week was my first shopping experience at this store and we will be frequenting this store often. We also bought some great ABC and number flash cards that we've been working on. He's getting good at his color and shape flash cards so he (and mommy) were ready for something else to work on!

This activity set is great because he puts the pegs in and pulls them out, one side has numbers so we can practice counting, and he also likes to stack the pegs on top of each other. He really concentrates with these pegs and would play with them for hours if I let him!

Cooper and finger painting

We played with our fingerpaints on Friday and had a lot of fun! Cooper made some masterpieces for his daddy :)

Birthday party fun!

One of Cooper's buddies had his first birthday party last weekend and Cooper had a lot of fun! One of the cool things about this party was the train that was set up for the kids to play and ride on! I've never seen a train for kids as cool as this one because it actually has a pedal to make the train go around the tracks...I wish I had one of these trains when I was a kid!

Cooper having a blast on the train :)

Cooper telling me about the cool train ride...

Cooper playing on the rocking horse...

Would you just look at that cute little face!?!

Sometimes, I like to make an appearance on his blog, too ;)

Chuckie Cheese!

Ahhhh, I have to be honest when I say that going to Chuckie Cheese's was one of the things that I looked forward to the most when I became a parent. I mean they have food, drinks, games and toys so what more could you ask for when planning some time out of the house! Cooper had a great time in the toddler area and he had a great time hitting all the buttons on the big kid games...oh, his face when the tickets would slide out of the machine was a riot!

As far as Chuckie goes...well, let's just say that Cooper likes him as much as he likes Santa Clause! He's at the age where he doesn't like anyone in a costume but who could blame him, really?

The awesome thing about having older neices is that there is always someone willing to ride on these types of rides :)

Babies don't belong in trees...

Coopie having some fun with daddy!

Having a little fun!

Cooper and his buddy, Devin, played at a local jumphouse yesterday and had a great time! We spent most of our time in the baby corral but Cooper still had a blast! Cooper's rolling and pivoting has given us an opportunity to do events like this and I'm glad because he really enjoys all the sights and sounds of this place...and, he always takes an awesome nap when we get home so it's like a win-win ;)

Someone really wanted to eats this pony's ears...blah...

"How do you get out of here?"

"Hey, Momma!"

He was looking at Devin in this one :)

It takes him a few minutes to get warmed up to the place...and, as you can tell by the absence of his sweatshirt in most of the pics, he did just that!

Thanks for playing with us, Devin! I wish I had gotten a good pic of you big preemie boys playing together!