Dancing King

Mommy bought my soon to be one year old possible future wife, Kirsten, a neat magnetized farm animal contraption thing. As it turns out, she already has one of these so I got to keep it! Thanks Kirsten.

Kirsten's Mom told my Mom that Kirsten likes to jam out to Farmer Tad's rocking banjo tunes rather than using it for its intended purpose of matching farm animal parts to one another and learning about them. I determined that if I am going to one day woo her, I'll have to learn to like her music taste and be able to keep up with her on the dance floor. Here I am busting some moves:

I'm also considering trying out for "So You Think You Can Dance?"

Advice for new mothers of toddlers...

My parents are learning so many new things in this parenting process. I'm going through another life change into full-blown toddlerhood and its taking some getting used to for them. Here are a few tips I've taught them the hard way:

1. We toddlers love to help with all of your chores, dishes especially, and will always grab for the sharpest knife first. They're so shiny and pointy! 2. If given large quantities of blueberries for dirty-messy-fun-food-before-bath-time, we will pass black stools. This will send you into frenzied-internet-search-for-"toddler black stool" mode while assuming that your sweet child has some rare intestinal disease.
3. Two wobbly toddlers trying to hug will inevitably end up on the floor! And where there are two wobbly toddlers, there is bound to be an Aunt (or two) with a camera.

4. If you own a dog, you will need to switch his food to a Diet version, as he/she will gain immense amounts of weight from toddler food droppings and handouts. Also, it may be a good idea to invest in pet insurance as the full sippy cup thrown at the head of the dog from a tall highchair could risk injury. Shiner, too, has had a few months of learning about toddler habits and now resides under the highchair during mealtime for protection.

5. Go with your gut and take your baby to the doctor if they are acting strangely and causing you to miss out on sleep for long periods, there is probably a culprit....like a DOUBLE ear infection! That mixed with Mommy's sinus infection can lead to some unhappy times as Mommy discussed here, citing these circumstances, I've decided to forgive her for being short with me.

I think things are changing for the better now that I am out of daycare and spending my afternoons with one of the sweetest women ever! Maybe I'll even go a week without a cold...so far so good and its Thursday. :) Wish me luck.

Go Cowboys!!!

This Sunday was the first Cowboys game of the season. In my efforts to prepare for my future football career, I asked if I could start wearing a helmet around the house. Mommy has been a helmet advocate ever since I was born but Dad just refuses to let me have one. So I decided to be constructive and created my own facemask...this thing is funner than any of my toys!





Here I am doing my best Tony Romo impression and calling out plays to my team(Mommy and Shiner).

Super "Immune System" Cooper

If you've been one of the unfortunate recipients of one of my Mother's invite refusals due to "Cooper being sick AGAIN, I swear!" Rest assured, she is not suffering from munchausen by proxy. Its been a rough two months for us all. It started with an awful cold with fever that caused me to miss the entire second week of my new school. Followed by a nasty bout of pink eye, a few other colds, another bout of herpangina (my body's favorite choice of throat virus), a double ear infection, and now another cold....or is it a tooth? or another ear infection? allergies?

Either way, I've heard a lot of talk from Mom about "going insane," "all of our money going to Cook's children's," "people are going to stop believing that he's sick, maybe I should just stop telling anyone," etc. So I'm here to vouch for my Mom's sanity....I have, in fact, been sick approximately 75% of the past 2 months. What a way to bring in my toddlerhood!

The doctor, who knows my throat, ears, and parents debit card number all too well says this is pretty common when starting school for the first time. He said that after 6 months (WHAT?!!) to a YEAR (WHATTTT???), I should have this super immune system and will miss less days once I start big kids school. I hardly ever got sick when I stayed with my beloved Abby & Caleb, but apparently schools harbor many more drippy-nosed toddlers and, thus more germs for my body to ingest! School is also tons of fun, though, I have so many new friends:

A photo of some of the culprits...their images have been blurred to protect their identities. I am the 3rd from right, showing off some dance moves.

So, please don't think my mother is insane (at least when it comes to this subject), she is just weary from worrying about me being sick and never getting a moment to herself because I require myself to be in her arms at all times when I am under the weather.