The Philadelphia Zoo

Our first big outing was to check out the Philadelphia Zoo.  Spending time with Matthew taught Cooper quite a few new words - and his first one was "animals."  The zoo was the perfect place to check out tons of animals!

The boys and Abby headed to the reptile house while Hannah and I stayed safe outside.  We headed over checked out the monkeys, but Matthew kept asking for the tigers. 

Since the monkeys didn't hold their interest long, we made our way to the tigers with a quick walk through the garden.

Matthew almost had an encounter with a peacock...he got about two feet away before we stopped him.  I'm pretty sure he would have actually touched the peacock if he hadn't intervened.

After the tigers, we stopped for a quick lunch before checking out the sea otter & polar bears. 

We made one last stop to see the hippos and attempt to get a photo of the two boys.  Of course, they looked at everything BUT the camera.

The kids had a blast at the zoo, making one last run around before we headed home for an attempt at napping.

That brings me to a lesson learned.  We learned on the trip that Cooper isn't a fan of sharing rooms.  I think.  Either way, he didn't sleep well.  At. All.  The first night I thought it was a fluke...he was just too tired.  The second night he did better, but after the second nap was a complete waste of time and resulted in fights between all of us, we decided to move him down to the laundry room.  He still wasn't a fan of napping, but he did sleep better overnight.

That afternoon we spent more time outside swimming and taking batting practice.

19 Months Old

I know, I'm really behind.  On a lot of things.  I've been busy with quite a few projects and blogging has been moved to the bottom of the list.  I will catch up one day...I just don't know when.  Maybe when life slows down a bit.

For now, I'll update a bit on Cooper at 19 months.  The good: we've hit the official 18 Month Word Explosion.  Every day is something new.  Meaning, we probably need to start watching what we say.  The bad: he's learning how to test us.  Each and every day, that kids pushes the envelope.  The ugly: we're cutting canine teeth.  Cooper has always been a pretty good teether.  He's cranky, but he still sleeps.  And really only gets fussy late in the day.  These suckers are taking their dear, sweet time and killing us all very slowly.  Knock on wood, he still sleeps, but for the love of all that is holy...that kid whines.  And whines.  And whines.

Random Funny Stuff:

• Cooper learned to say "oh man" from his buddy Eileen.  Except it comes out like "ohhh meee!"
• He also started saying "uh oh, Pooker."  Another Eileen lesson.
• After spending time sliding with his buddy a few weeks ago, I scoured craigslist for a slide.  We found one in pretty good condition that didn't cost and arm & a leg.  I'm about 99% sure when Cooper saw it he peed his Huggies.  His eyes got huge and he started jumping up and down saying "Side...side...sidesideside!"  Like most things, the novelty wore off sooner than I would have hoped, but he still makes a few runs down the slide each day.
• A few weekends ago my sister dropped a gallon of milk on the floor.  I jumped up, yelling shit crap over and over, running to grab towels before it really saturated the carpet.  Cooper started crying.  Big tears, saying "oh no!" over and over.  I don't know if he was upset because we were yelling or if he realized it was milk on the floor, but we started laughing uncontrollably.
• I'm very proud to say that he sings along to "Zacchaeus" and does most of the hand signs. 
• One night we (jokingly) told him that he would need to recite his ABC's before dinner and he responded very quickly with "A-B-C."  This morning I decided to sing the ABC's on the way to school and he filled the S before I could say it. 

Our biggest issue right now is the hitting.  Like most toddlers, he reacts when he is really mad by swatting/hitting at people.  Most of the time he just does it to us and he goes in to time out.  However, time out seems to be a little trying right now.  He's realized that he can get up and run away...and does so laughing the whole time.  He also started this super strange (and rather dumb) thing of biting himself.  I know he realizes that biting gets attention, since he gets bitten at least once a week at school.  But really...when he does it to himself I just really want to laugh.  I'm going back and forth between telling him it hurts my feelings when he does that and just ignoring him.  Hopefully something will work because I don't want him to look abused!

Cooper's First Vacation

Earlier this year Jason and I started talking about taking a trip to visit friends.  His best friend lives outside of Philadelphia and we haven't been since before having Cooper.  Plus, they were having their second baby sometime in May, so getting to meet the new kid on the block would be an added bonus.  Except when you add in three and a half hours on a plane with a toddler.  After discussing it for months and shopping online for flights, we finally found an option that would work with our time off (and budget).  Once the tickets were booked, we couldn't back out.  I asked around and read online and headed to the airport equipped with a DVD player, three DVDs, coloring books, stickers and enough snacks to feed half of the plane. 

Cooper did great going through security and in the airport.  We let him run around while we attempted to eat an early dinner.  Then it was time to board.  I prayed.  I asked everyone I know to pray.  And off we went.  Thankfully the flight we were on had just two generously sized seats per side, so we didn't have to worry about him climbing on a random stranger.  He did pretty good for the first two hours...coloring, stickering, climbing over us.  Then he wanted down.  And he sure as heck didn't want to watch a movie.  We somehow managed to keep him still and in the seat until we landed, which happened to be pretty late.  Thankfully he crashed shortly after we got into the car.

The first day there was pretty relaxed.  We all went out to lunch and that afternoon we let the kids play in the yard.  Cooper developed a love for sand, slides and baseball.  Meaning that when we got home, I scoured Craigslist for a slide (score!) and Jason picked up a tee-ball set at Target.  We've yet to cave on the sand.