Just some pictures

A "first" for Cooper

As I was cleaning today I noticed a bag of bread come flying out of my cabinet. I turned around and Cooper was dragging all of the food out of the cabinet. Cooper has never pulled things out of a cabinet before. Odd for a two yr old..I know, but he always just opened cabinets and closed the doors. It was good though because he made me see how nasty my cabinets were. I had to vacuum out a bunch of rice and chip crumbs. You can also see from his bib that he had more chocolate ice cream today. Im going to have to just cut out eating ice cream since Cooper begs for it every time I have it. I also got a Sox update today!! I was pretty worried about him. His new owner says even though his water dish is full, he keeps trying to knock over their water bottles and drink from them instead. He wouldn't eat the first few days he was away but now he wants to eat constantly. He loves laying on the stairs at their house, and he still hisses at her 3 yr old everytime she comes near him. Hahah.

                                                      Look at that precious guilty face...

                                    but then I said "Cooper what are you doing"? and he flashes me this grin

Belly Shots

Cooper is so funny when it comes to my belly. Anytime we are in the grocery, he sits in the cart and rubs my belly and laughs. So this morning before church I tried getting some shots of him playing with my belly. He loves rubbing it, then he just tries to hug me, but we managed to get some pictures. While picking up Cooper from the nursery this morning, we learned that he sits nice and still and listens to the lesson in class. We also discovered that Cooper goes and sits in the teachers lap when it is time for the lesson. But if you know Cooper, if you are reading to him, he absolutely must be in your lap. Thankfully the teacher did not mind holding him.

Book

As I was getting my hair done today, Zac called to tell me that Cooper signed "book" for the first time. I was super excited, then I got home and got to see it for myself. Zac was reading over Cooper's medical records and said book and Cooper climbed into his lap, signed "book" and was ready to read. It's precious.

Saturday

Today I had a fabulous day. Zac stayed home with Cooper and I went to Murfreesboro to get my hair done and to have lunch with Kristin. I had been craving Demos' so thats where we went. It was so refreshing to eat a meal without entertaining a 2 yr old. I have't seen Campbell in about a month, and she had already changed of course. Im going to go ahead and apologise to you other mama's, but Campbell is absolutely the most beautiful little girl ever!! I swear I could not wipe the smile off my face.

Thank you Zac for a day off and Happy Birthday Kristin. Now I am sitting down to some ice cream and some episodes of 30 Rock!!

The story of Sox

I feel that since today is the day we are giving Sox to a new home, it is only appropriate that I write a little something about him. For the past year I have basically hated Sox. He gets in my way, he wakes Cooper up, he paws on doors and is loud. He spills drinks and chews plants and the list really goes on. But just like the movie Marly and Me, Sox once started out as our most loved little family member. I got a call one day a few years ago that Zac was at the vet with Kitty (our first cat). He was having to make the choice to put Kitty to sleep and I was in Manchester and couldn't even be with him. We were completely broken over the death of Kitty. So I was on a cat hunt. I only heal if I have something to take my mind off the pain and take care of something else. So a day later mom and I found a lady at the vet with a little kitten. She found this kitten sittin on the edge of the road watching cars go by. She picked him up and took him to the vet and we were able to take that kitty home and nurse him to good health. He was scraggly, he had fleas and he had an infection under his chin and needed meds for about two weeks. But that was what we needed. We needed to take care of Sox and make him feel loved. Sox has been a great pet to us, he stayed by me every second of my pregnancy, came and sat in my lap whenever I would cry about Cooper and faithfully slept with me on the couch right by my belly the whole 7 months. But now as I am about to have another little baby, Sox keeps getting pushed further and further away. It will be much easier on me if he is not here. So I am taking him this afternoon to a lady that really wants him for her 3 kids. Zac and I will both be sad but it really is what I want. Ugghh, and....now Im crying.

Bathtime Fun

Bathtime is still Coopers most favorite time of the day. I cant wait until this summer when I get that waterbaby back to pool. Hopefully Hank will cooperate and lay peacefully in the shade while Coop and I swim.

Belly

I usually dont take belly shots, but as I looked at myself in the gym mirror tonight I realised..one-my belly is huge and two- I need to have at least a few shots of the Hank belly. So here it is...sumo baby at 23 weeks.

 I also realised that darn eliptical is getting harder and harder and the weights are getting much heavier.

First Basketball Game

Tonight we took Cooper to the Lipscomb basketball game. All the pharmacy professors and students had to go and promote the school. So we went for the first half of the game. Cooper was terrified at first at the buzzer and the loud noises. He eventually loosened up and started playing ball in the hallway. Zac and I took him to the mall to play today and he started throwing up again. He threw up about 3 or 4 times. We finally realised he has some sort of soy allergy. I gave him soy yogurt today and soy chocolate milk the other day when he was throwing up. So we cleaned out the fridge today of all the soy products. He still has to have lactose free milk but the ingredients are different in lactose free and soy milk. What a gross way to make that discovery huh.

Lazy Sunday

We came home from church today and have watched football all day and just layed around. I went to babies r us to work on my registry, but then I came back home and took my spot on the couch. When Cooper woke up we read him his sunday school lesson. Now that he is in the 2 yr old class, they put a lesson in their bags. Cooper gladly backed up and sat in Zac's lap to get his lesson read. Later in the day he found the yard stick. He strutted around the house with his cane like Gandolph for awhile before he got bored of it. I feel cruddy today because I feel really heavy. Hank is head down and burrowing into me. I do not appreciate it.

These close up shots are because Cooper comes running to the camera every time he sees it and I can never get the shot I want. I always get a super close up of his face. My camera can hardly even focus in time as he toddles so quickly toward it.

Eat

I haven't posted a picture yet of Cooper signing eat, so I got that picture this morning. He is just like me, he wakes up in the morning starving. Of course he has to take nexium and then wait 30 minutes before he gets to eat. He follows me around for that 30 minutes and signs "eat" non stop. I feel awful. Use to he would sit and watch cartoons and wait so patiently. But now he whines and signs eat.

Appointment Day

After a nice puke session out of Cooper last night, I called OT and cancelled therapy for this morning. This morning however, Cooper was feeling just fine. So mom came up and took me to my OB appointment. She held Cooper while they checked out how Henry is doing. The calcifications in his liver are still there and still the same size. The high risk Dr I saw today decided he wants to keep watching them. So it looks like I will have regular appointments with my Dr plus appointments with the high risk team. He also sent off some more labs. Basically every Dr tells me their opinion, which is different. So from here on out unless they find something, I am just saying, we wont know anything until the baby is born. Of course I will know what each Dr tells me, but instead of having a new story every time, I am just going to keep it to myself and tell others that we will know when he is born. When Henry is born they are going to do an ultrasound of his abdomen and do some blood work on just him. Yesterday, Cooper had an appointment with his GI Dr. They took one look at his skin and called cardiology. Cardiology brought in a pulse oximeter and blood pressure. Soon, they decided he was just cold and has bad circulation. After we got home and ate dinner, Cooper started throwing up. He did that about 6 times and then it was over. Today was also his Down Syndrome Clinic day. We were there for 2 1/2 hours. We saw the Dr, had some blood work done and an xray and then we were finally done for the day. Luckily Liz and Carter had clinic at the same time and stayed in our room with us. Cooper and Carter had blood drawn together and xrays together. Haha. They had all the same testing done. And one more thing on the Hank front....he is still massive. 97th percentile, and now instead of ultrasound measuring him as one week ahead, he measured 3 weeks ahead.

Cooper Claps

Last night Cooper started clapping. (Well, his version of clapping). I would clap his hands for him and then he would bring back his right hand and clap it into his left. But his left hand doesn't move. He has lower muscle tone in his left arm, so this is how his clapping turned out. He clapped for himself all through therapy this morning. He actually does it well, but in the video, he was to excited about the camera so it just looks like he's swinging his arms. But you get the gist.

More fun in the snow

When Zac came home from work today he took Cooper out on the sled. Our snow is melting really fast though, so they didn't get to go down the big hill. Cooper had a much better time this afternoon. I also have some pictures of him stuck under the kitchen table. He was chasing his ball today and it went under the table, so he climbed through the rungs of the chairs. I was quiet impressed, but when he quit concentrating on the ball, he forgot how to get back out. Then he started crying and bumping his head trying to stand up.

Snow

I took Cooper out in the snow this morning. He was ok until the snow touched his hand. It was all over from that point on. Zac is going to try to take him sledding tonight, maybe Cooper will like that better. We have a perfect hill for it.

Yum

Guess who shared a half pint of chocolate ice cream with mama today? He would take a bite, walk away and play and then come back and sign more. Big surprise when he didn't want his vegetables today. He managed to get them down anyway though. Todays chunky food...whole peas and corn.