• Holding bottle on his own. Sometimes I still hold him to feed him just because I can, and I know he loves it.
• Falling asleep on his own after eating bottle/ falling asleep more easily for naps. Yay for this.
• Using forefinger to poke at things/ move things around.
• Splashing water in the bath. This is nearly all he does in the bath every night. Forget toys, he'd rather splash. He continues to love the bath. Every night I sit on the side of the tub with him on my lap, and turn on the water. The instant I turn it on, he gets all wriggly and excited, turns and looks at me and grins, then turns and looks at us in the mirror, which he can barely see into above the counter, and grins and giggles, then looks back at the water, and tries desperately to get into it until I let him.
• Saying consonants/vowel combinations. Bah is starting to be said more often to say bottle. He continues to say Nee to say he's hungry. He is also saying Nah and Dah, but it's just jibber-jabber. I am going to predict that Dada will be his first word besides Bah.
• The beep-beep game. Cooper will giggle to no end if you touch your nose and say "beep-beep." This game can go on repeatedly for 5 minutes without him becoming bored of it, as we discovered the other night. He thought it especially funny when both Nathan and I did it. If only all things in life were so simple.

Cooper is such a joy. Nathan recently commented how nice it is that we're starting to be more in his world, not just him in ours. I liked that perspective. He clearly understands that we are his parents and our role in his life. It is fun to have him show us what he likes or dislikes, and what makes him happy, sad, or excited. He has quite the personality, and I look forward to getting to know him more and more every day. Love you Little Boo!

I was going to wait and blog about this on Mother's Day, but I'm afraid I'll forget by then, knowing the forgetful mommy brain I have as of late.

Saturday I took a half hour to myself instead of doing dishes, laundry, cleaning house, running errands, or any of the other hundreds of things there are to do on Saturday. Coop was asleep for a morning nap, and I jumped on the opportunity to have some me time. Out of the all the things I could do with my half hour, I decided my feet needed some attention and opted for a self-pedicure.

I'm too cheap/practical to spend money on getting a professional pedicure. Don't get me wrong, I love going to the spa and such, but even a $15 pedi seems to much to spend when I know I can do it myself and spend the money on something more lasting or entertaining. This do-it-herselfer hasn't had much time for such things in the last six months to do more than the occasional clipping of toenails and pushing back of unruly cuticles, and occasionally applying some lotion. Er, well more like nine months. I well remember the last time I painted my own toenails because I was UBER prego and could hardly reach my own feet through some serious yoga-like moves, and had to come up for air in between brush strokes. Glad that's over.

With warm weather finally here, and wanting to wear open-toed shoes in public, it was time to give my feet some TLC. As I sat down and examined the damage done over the last nine months, I could not believe my eyes. It was like staring down at my mother's feet.

Now let me intercept here with an explanation--this is NOT a bad thing. I am a chip off the old block. I don't know if my mom has ever had a professional pedicure. She's not that kind of woman; Mom is the kind of woman who goes around shoeless in the yard, and would prefer to not wear shoes anywhere. It's from Mom that I learned to appreciate the feeling of cool grass between my toes. I recall several times when I gave my mom a pedicure on the back porch or the couch. So I know what those feet look like. And mine are starting to look just like them.

As I sat there with my pumice stone and nail polish, I thought about my Mom. I thought about how I had always told myself that I would take better care of my feet so my heels don't get like Mom's, or that I would at least wear nail polish more often. Huh. That was before I had a child. Now I could appreciate how those calloused feet got that way, and appreciate what it meant. As a mother, who has time to spend on her own feet? Most of the time a mother's needs are the last to be met by herself, and her feet, well they're at the bottom of the list of priorities. Literally.

So to me, seeing my feet look like my Mother's...well, it was an indication that I have been being a good mom and wife, and a relization that it's all about the journey, not what our feet look like along the way.

Now if only he could figure out how to get back down. Yesterday his adventures resulted in several bumps on the head, two of them resulting in pretty sizeable goose egg-protruding bumps, and a couple other bruises. Poor little fella. Unless we have our eyes on him all the time, or are right next to him, he seems to be pretty accident prone.

This week has also been hard as Cooper and I are still sick. Took him to the doctor last Tuesday. Prognosis: sinus infection turning into an ear ache (antibiotics for this), and causing the puss oozing out his eyes (eye ointment for this); teething of top 4 teeth still coming in (tylenol/motrin for this); fever of 100.4 either caused by sinus infection or teething (tylenol/motrin for this); and a viral infection that has moved to his chest along with a nasty cough (albuterol through nebulizer for this). Add daily vitamin supplement, humidifier, chest rub, saline drops and nose syringe to all this and I feel like we have a baby pharmacy. The pharmacist at the local CVS knows us by name, as do the nurses at the doctors office.

Today we stayed home from church again because we're both still sick. I have the same viral infection and cough. Thank goodness Nate still hasn't caught it (knock on wood). Let's hope this week is better.

Last weekend we had a last-minute opportunity to go rent a cabin near Helen, GA with a bunch of friends. They called us Friday morning (I think someone who was supposed to go dropped out), and we left Friday afternoon at 3:30. It was crazy to do something spontaneous like that with a little one, but I was glad for the break.

The "cabin" was a lot like the one we stayed in before, fully equipped with a ton of bedrooms; a hot tub; pool table; grill; and a fun pond just steps from the front door, with paddle boats, a fishing dock, and a canoe. The cabin even had satellite tv, so we were able to watch General Conference on tv, which beat the internet viewing we would have had at home. We went with 3 other families: 8 adults and 9 kids, the kids ranging in age from 7 to 6 months. It was a house full of crazy fun.

Here is Cooper on the shore of the pond with his friend Gwen, deciding whether he liked sitting on the grass. Pretty soon he not only liked sitting on it, but pulling up fistfulls and stuffing them in his mouth. This was the first time he got dirt under his fingernails.