TOOTH!

Cooper's first tooth has popped through!! Bottom right (his right) and I discovered it the day before he turned 6 months old. I still can't believe it...this may be one of the bigger "moments" I've had as a mom, the one where I cry "my baby is growin' up!!!!!!!!!!!" in my head. I mean really, is it that time already?

At least we now have definitive proof that all the drooling and odd-timed irritability was due to teething. And something kinda odd and cool just occured to me: the date that I felt Cooper first move during the pregnancy was Oct. 17 and the date of his first tooth coming through was Sept. 17 and my favorite/lucky number is 17. Hhhhmmm, coincidence? Oh well, who cares...Cooper has his first tooth!!!

Hopefully only a week until Bob gets home from this damn mini-deployment. I'll try to get some more photos posted here soon, especially as a milestone for Cooper's half-year birthday. But for now, the couch is calling my name because I'm wiped out. Coop didn't nap well today, so we had a long afternoon...

More later!

Off the charts adorable...

NFL Opening Night...GO GIANTS!!!

September...already?

Okay, so I've been a bit lax about updating via this blog. Sorry 'bout that. We hit the ground running after returning from Canada...Bob went straight back to working full-time (actually more than full-time, but that's a different post full of vitriole towards Camp Lejeune and its inferiority complex), and Cooper, the kitties and I hopped right back into unpacking, organizing and getting settled after quite a crazy summer. The house is just about finished, only a few more things to hang on walls and some organizational projects that aren't necessary, just things that will make my anal-retentive self happier to have done!

Cooper is just a delight. After a couple weeks of rough sleeping shortly after vacation, we seem to have settled into a routine that helps Cooper get (mostly) a full night's rest with only occasional awakenings. And for that we are VERY thankful. His eyes have turned brown, although they do seem to be a lighter brown than Bob's (mine are hazel), and he's mastered the art of rolling onto his tummy but is still learning how to roll back and makes it very clear when he's frustratingly stuck. He's also doing really well with reaching for and holding onto things, and I found that sometimes all it takes to calm him down when Bob and I are eating out is to give him a paper napkin. That can buy us a good 15 minutes of quiet! :-)

Pretty much the highlight of our days is when either/both of us can make Coop laugh and I also find myself willing to do just about anything to make him smile.

It's the start of the NFL season so Bob is currently watching the Giants, and I think I'll go join him since Cooper is down for the night. I just wanted to let anyone out there who might be checking this once in a while that we're still here and I hope to get back to semi-regular postings now that we just about have the house under control. Of course, right when that happens, Bob will be leaving for a 2.5+ week deployment, so who knows if I'll have any free time until next month???

By the way...Cooper had his 6 month check up today (a bit early, but I wanted to get him in before Bob leaves), and he's now 16lbs 6oz, 26.25" long and trucking along right in the middle of the "percentages" that doctors throw at parents and that we don't particularly worry about as long as he's doing well within his own development. We'll start trying out solids in a week or two...I'd better stock up on paper towels!

Oh, and stock up on water and ice and non-perishable foods and candles, since it also seems as if another of Cooper's firsts this summer will be HURRICANES! Woohoooo, dealing with hurricanes is good times people, good times.

Until the next time, here is a recent photo of our cutie:

Home

We got back from Canada late last night (heaven!), and Cooper decided that he would prefer sleeping in the pack-n-play instead of his crib...communicated to us by waking up and crying every two hours. What fun!

Anyway, lots of laundry, mail-sorting, cleaning, bill-paying, grocery-buying, unpacking to do but I hope to do an update here sometime very soon. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Vacation

Hi all,

Been busy unpacking, wondering why the heck Cooper is suddenly waking up so often at night after maybe about a week of gloriously sleeping through the night (nice fake out, Cooper), and fighting off a cold (Jen). Now we're frantically trying to get ready for the annual trip to Canada and packing for a trip when you're not quite sure where anything is located can be a bit of a challenge!

So I've had no time to post, and I apologize. To tide anyone who may still be reading over until we get home and settled into more of a routine...which means I'll have a little more free time...here is a recent picture of our cutie-patootie playing with his friends on the playmat:

And here is Cooper's first July 4th:

And spending some quiet morning time with Daddy:

We'll catch you all (or, "y'all" here in North Carolina speak) on the flip side of vacation!

The bugs...oh, the bugs!

Well folks, we're officially in Jacksonville, NC. Bob arrived at the house around 6pm yesterday (I think...it's all a bit hazy), while Mom, John, Cooper and I arrived shortly before 9pm. It was a looooong day with way too much fast food, but Cooper was an absolute angel and only had a small meltdown once we got to the house. And that was probably because he was hungry and quite tired of being in the car. As we all were.

The house Bob chose for us is just about perfect and is wonderfully larger than our MD townhouse. It's nice to be back in a single family home with a yard and some trees, and we're located at a very quiet end of the street. The movers showed up with our stuff this morning and now I'm sitting here surrounded by many, many boxes wondering why I'm on the computer and not in bed!

Anyway, we'll be in touch via email soon, but I did want to let anyone who's still reading know that we're not going to have a land-line phone number until sometime next week. So far we're not too impressed with Time Warner's customer service (long story), but at least we now have cable/internet and we just have to wait until the 9th to get our phone hooked up. Thank God for cell phones, eh?

Have I mentioned that I'd completely forgotten about the bugs here in NC? Yeah, well, I had. Oh. My. God. The bugs. They're awful. I was trying to kick a particularly large, and alive, one out of our garage this morning when the movers started unpacking the truck. I was having good success with kicking it a few feet each time, and had just about gotten it out into the yard. By the way, I would like points for not just outright killing it (my love for animals does not extend to insects), but the darn thing was so large it would have left a mark on my flips and I didn't feel like cleaning up bug guts this morning. So I'd just about gotten it outside, wound up for and delivered one last kick, but I didn't see it land. Humph. Where was it? Can you guess? Yeah, on my foot. ON MY FOOT! It was a classic sitcom blonde moment where I started shrieking, immediately kicked my flip into the yard and hopped around trying to get it off my foot. Fortunately Bob was running errands, Mom and John were inside with Cooper and the movers were in the truck...so while yes, I have to admit it was a funny moment, I'm sorta glad no one witnessed my spastic get-the-enormous-bug-off-me-now dance. :-)

I do not like bugs.

Cooper & Mommy

Just posting a photo I like that was taken yesterday, by John, at Grandad's house....