Tall and lean!

I took this pic on Friday when we were in a bit of a clothing strike, lol...He's getting so tall! My hubby is on the taller side (6'1") so I guess he's going to take after his daddy!

But, seriously, I think this kid is going to be a swimmer with lats like those!

Pindicted!

Here are two more educational crafts that I did the last few days. The things needed to do these projects are normally things that you have around the house so it takes nearly no time to do or you can use naptime like I do :) I love to give credit where credit is due so you can click on the pic description and it will take you to the original blog!

ABC sticks!

I bought a pack of 100 popsicle sticks at Hobby Lobby (which I go a few times a month anyways!) for like $2 and I chose the pics off of clipart. I have a hotglue gun so these bad boys were done in like 10 minutes!

Color Matching

First, excuse the messy craft table! This is the one mommy area of the house and I try to spend as much time as I can here!

We have tons of construction paper, I had left over popsicle sticks from above activity, I have every paint color in the rainbow, hotglue gun and toilet paper rolls!

Easy Peasy!

I'm alive!

I had the worst sinus infection on the entire planet last week but I'm feeling much, much better! All I know is a sinus infection and chasing a 2 year old around is hard! And, my hubby was out of town all last week so we were a hot mess!

Anyways, I'm totally ADDICTED to Pinterest! What did I do before Pinterest? Oh yeah, I spent all my internet time on facecrack! I love Pinterest because it inspires me to cook, to craft and gives me great ideas of things to do with Cooper! One of the activities that I found was to do a glowstick bath....The picture quality sucks because I couldn't use the flash...

Seriously, I bought the glowsticks from the dollar section at Target. I turned off the lights and threw them in AND he had a blast! He was a total prune when I got him out of the bath last night!

All we need is sunshine!

We love being outside so give us just a little sunshine and we're gone! We headed to a local park yesterday for our Vitamin D treatment and had a great little time! I have a head cold so I was trying to enjoy it from a little distance!

I love sneaking in some pt homework ;)

"hello, up there!"

Who's the big boy that goes down the slide all by himself now!?!

I think he's having a good time :)

Observation

As in the observation room at Cooper's therapy which I used yesterday for the first time! It's this room with a television and you watch your child while he's doing his therapy. Cooper has been in therapy since he was 6 months old so 20 months and I've always been in the room with him! His speech therapist has a student with her now that is going to be with her for several months so 3 women with a toddler in a little room was a little much so they asked if I would like to observe the session...

He did awesome! I even heard his speech therapist say "who is this kid today!?!" The coolest thing was they were working on a puzzle and when he was done he exclaims "I did it!" and throws his hands up in the air! I have to admit it brought tears to my eyes!

The crappy thing about Apraxia, is that it's very difficult for him to say things on command so when "I did it!" will come out of his mouth again and it perfect context is unclear. This week he has said duck, cow and baaa without blinking an eye! He watches your mouth when you talk and you can see that he's trying so hard!

But, Cooper is a fighter. I mean not to sound vulgar but he's making hypotonia his bitch and I know he'll do the same with Apraxia...it just takes time...

Here is a pic from last weekend...I spend a small fortune in this machines!

Imagine it!

We took Cooper and my 2 nieces to Imagine It Children's museum last Sunday and Cooper had so much fun! My nieces are 13 and 10 so they were too cool for it...

Cooper loved playing in the exhibit that showed how food gets from the farm to your kitchen table. He LOVES play food and pretending to cook and eat so this was right up his alley. He even tried to milk the fake cow! I'm going to get an annual pass because I think this is going to be our go to cold weather activity!

Cooper driving the tractor...

Grocery shopping...

And, making dinner :)

They also have a hands-on fairytale exhibit which is adorable! If you live in Atlanta, especially if you have a little girl (hint,hint Joshua!) then you need to see this exhibit! I loved it especially because they used some traditional fairytales but then also used fairytales from other countries that (maybe) you haven't heard before...I think it's only there for a couple more weeks so go see it soon!

Cooper, my prince, getting into the royal carriage...

Busy, busy, busy

Sometimes I feel bad for Cooper that he just can't be a 2 year old that's only expected to play. I would put money on the fact that he's one of the busiest 2 year olds on the planet!

Take yesterday for example, we woke up and left the house by 8 am so we could drive in Atlanta traffic to get to physical therapy by 9 which was then followed by occupational therapy at 10. We discussed in PT about him being seen once a week now (versus every other week) since he's making some great progress lately and they want to capitalize on all his new skills. This is great news for him although I'm sure he wouldn't and won't see it that way! (Oh, and we do speech therapy twice a week!) I joked on fb yesterday about you know you're somewhere too much when you have a favorite row AND spot in the parking deck. Thank God for the $5 parking pass that pays for 5 exits...

So, then we had lunch in the hospital cafeteria because he had his Syna.gis appointment at 1:30 so I wasn't about to drive all the way home for 2 hours. I decided to drive us to Toys-r-us to pick up play food and cookware (another blog post for another time) but he fell asleep on the way there (his pt is no joke and she wears him out!) so I pulled into a parking lot and sat there for an hour. Luckily, I had my iPhone and Nook so the hour moved fast. I took him for his Synagis shot which sucked. He gets a shot in each leg and unlike a baby that forgets the shot in 30 seconds, he's 2 and is pissed for a while.

Ugh. I seriously wonder what "regular" stay at home moms do with their time. We've been going like this since he was 6 months old. We don't have a lot of time for activities that are just fo fun which makes me sad. I don't get the chance to take him to toddler storytime at the library or any of the things that I envisisoned us doing together when I was pregnant with him. Life certainly throws you curve balls and you have 2 options, learn how to catch them (which I'm trying to do) or move out of the way so the ball doesn't hit you and knock you out.

The reason why I always attempt to stay positive is that he's awesome. Every thing about him, even his wicked teeth, and I love seeing his smile when he's learning something new. His PT said yesterday that she notices that he always looks back to make sure that I'm watching when he's doing something new or conquering it. I hope he always knows that I'll be right there every.step.of.the.way.

I took this pic last week while he was doing his standing exercises. I got these Vday decals from the $1 bin at Target...again, love them!

A fresh perspective...

Thanks for the supportive comments , facebook messages and phone calls in response to my last post on my little biter! Ahhh, I'm glad that I'm not alone in this frustrating issue! I really felt like a loser mom last Wednesday but I feel less so from hearing about how other parents have dealt with this biting issue. We had my 13 and 10 year old nieces with us from Thursday until yesterday so they were quite a distraction and I really, really feel better!

We can't come to the next MOPs meeting anyways but I think I'm going to ask them to just keep a really good eye on him at the next meeting that we can attend and I'm going to make them a communication book, as well. A travel size communication book with just the essentials in it to maybe alleviate the possibility that he's acting out because he's unable to communicate with them.

I have actually been taking a pic of Cooper every day so I'm still keeping one resolution! The one with me not drinking as much Coke as been thrown out the window sadly to say...

Ugh.

I just have to vent for a moment. Today, Cooper bit a kid at MOPs today. Seriously, I was shocked that he did it...and, moritified.

We're a difficult spot because he's 2 and has a speech disorder. So, not only is he a 2 year old with his own set of goals and wants BUT he has no way of effectively communicating them. My hubby and I are pretty good at figuring out what he needs with signing and his picture book but average people aren't able to yet.

I know that toddlers will bite when they're stressed and don't have a way of communicating these feelings. I don't want to make excuses for him but they said that the victim of the biting had been crying off and on for the entire 2 hours and the room was very, very choatic when I went in there to get him. Cooper's life is very peaceful and calm. He has 3 little friends that he sees a couple of times a week and he's known these 3 kids for about a year and a half so they're the closest things to siblings that he'll probably ever have. The moppets room is crazy and he's not used to crazy. Plus, he didn't want to be in there and followed me out of the room 3 times screaming and hanging onto my legs. It was just a crazy morning.

My adrenaline started to rush when they called me out of the meeting because I thought Cooper was hurt. They told me that he had bit a little boy and the boy was wailing (rightfully so) when I got to the room and Cooper was off playing by himself. I picked Cooper up and he immediately started kissing and hugging me and he just had no idea that what he had done was bad. I mean, he's 2 and doesn't have the true capacity to understand right from wrong and that his actions can hurt others. My question is why didn't they call the hurt kid's mom out first? I get there and the poor kid is screaming for his mommy and I get to stand there and feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world while they go to get his mom...

This whole parenting thing is hard, so much harder than I ever imagined.

Give me advice, people, if you have it about what to do about biting! I need help! I mean, I can google advice but what has worked for you in real life?

The $1 bins at Target...

supply my house with a lot of fun!

I got these little capsules for Cooper's Christmas stocking and decided to do them as an after lunch activity. I remember doing these in elementary school but haven't seen them in years! I was delighted to find 2 packs in the $1 bin at my local Target. I got a pack of zoo animals and a pack of underwater creatures. It was cute and a quick little activity before naptime :)

He's a hardworking little boy!

Well, sort of...

We got Cooper this Lit.tle Tik.es workbench for Christmas and just got around to putting it together today. Cooper likes it but I think it's going to take a little time for him to use it for it's intended purpose for longer than 10 minutes...

Doesn't he look all handy?

Or, maybe, it just makes a better chair?

He's my silly, silly boy!

Hello 2012!

One of my resolutions for 2012 is to take a picture of Cooper every single day! Time moves so quickly and I just don't want to miss a.single.moment!

Today, it was 67 degrees so we headed for an afternoon at the zoo and had a great time! I don't know where everyone was today but it was rather vacant so we got upclose and personal with all the animals...

Cooper was looking at the Bush dogs...I don't know where they are right now, lol..