Building character

Cooper has been having a character spurt during the past couple of days. Now, when I say character, I really do mean character. For one, he has started to sing his own super Cooper theme song. He chants, 'da da daaaaaaaa!,' claps his hands, and ends with a fist in the air like a superhero. Then, in case your hearing may have been impaired in some way, he continues by happily repeating his personal anthem a significant number of times for the enjoyment of all.

Cooper has also learned 'nose,' and can point to his own and say 'doze.'

Additionally, he has become incredibly confident in using the word 'no.' He is not shy about saying it or using it at any time or for any reason he feels it is appropriate. Nor is he reluctant to solidify his position on a matter by repeating it in rapid succession, 'no, No, NO!' ::sigh:: Where on earth did we get such a strong willed kid? Sarah and I certainly never deserved this.

On a completely separate note, I have uploaded more pictures to our online photo gallery. You can find the link on the right and look for the most recent album.

beach time

Sorry for the long silence, life and stuff you know.

The other day we took Cooper to the beach for some family time. We swung, we played, we took a walk down by the water. I got into the water ankle deep to show Cooper that it was safe and fun. However, He seemed unsure about the water moving up and down the sand with the ripple size waves, so he backed up a few feet and plopped himself down on the sand thinking he was safe from the water. Well, just as he was settled on the sand a bigger than normal size ripple washed up the shore, and raced over Coopers legs, making him freak out with the shock of cold water first pushing and then pulling at him. Mommy rescued him as fast as she could, but it was too late. Cooper was wet waist-high and whimpering. Poor kid, mom and I could only laugh at the hilarity of the situation. Cooper spent the next half hour playing at the beach playground on the slide. But, every time he came off the slide he would fall into the sand and add another layer of sand to his wet pants. The sand acted like a dry lubicant, and every subsequent time Cooper would fly down the slide faster and just launch off of the end. It was highly entertaining.

After that we went to McDonalds to treat Cooper to his first ever ice cream cone he could have all to himself. It was a hoot. By the end he had a full ice cream beard and an ice cream icecicle hanging off his nose. We highly regret that we didn't have our camera to capture the beauty.

A Post from Sarah

On Saturday night I put Cooper to bed as usual. About
half an hour later things were very quiet and I
decided that I should check on him. (As most parents
can attest being really quiet is either a really good
or really bad thing.) Cooper wasn’t asleep yet, and
so I told him, “Cooper, go to sleep.” He looked at me
as innocent as can be and said, “K. Bye-bye.” Before
I closed the door to leave I told him, “Love you.”
Too which he replied, “Love you.”
This is the first time he has ever told me that he
loves me and nothing could be sweeter. It’s moments
like these that make being a parent all worthwhile.

Bridging the species gap

Cooper does his very best to communicate. Even though he can't yet form sentences, he still points, says 'peez,' and cries to get his basic points across. He is now at the stage when, quite often, he will mimic what we do as he tries to master our (at times lacking) communication skills. Cute as it is, he is also carrying this technique to try and communicate with other . . . um, species. For the past couple of weeks, whenever he hears one of our cats, he will invariably try to 'meow' in reply. One of our cats hides under the sofa for 15 of the 16 hours of the day; and when Cooper hears her, he gets on his belly, looks under the sofa, and meows at the cat for the next minute or so. I don't get the sense that the cats are as enthusiastic about the mimicking thing as we are, though.

What a treasure

Sarah and I have just discovered a little treasure we didn't know we had. The day Cooper was declared officially ours by the Hong Kong courts we also moved house from South Horizons to Discovery Bay. At the courtroom, our social worker gave us some mementos that he couldn't give us until everything was final, and since we were moving we just shoved them in a box and never considered what was inside. Well, just last week we stumbled upon the contents of what our social worker gave us, and lo and behold it contained photos. The 'orphanage' had kept a photographic record of his life before we got him. We were overjoyed to have a visual record of that time period. We rushed out and got them printed right away for a special scrap book. Anyway, those photos have now been posted online. The link is here. We hope you enjoy these special pictures as much as we do.

With Cooper you cannot sneak out

Today we needed to leave church a little early. We thought, 'well, we're sitting near the back, so it should be easy to sneak out without disturbing the meeting.' We got ourselves together, and when the moment was right we stood up to duck out quickly. Only one problem. As soon as Cooper understood what was happening, he did what he usually does in that situation. He put his right hand into the air, flapped it back and forth, and said as loudly as he could, 'bye, bye. bye, bye,' and was blowing kisses to everyone he could see. Ah, what a cute little boy, and what embarassed parents! I looked up and, sure enough, several people were waving back at Cooper as we made our exit. Note to self, sneaking out is no longer easy to do.

Cooper the virtuoso

Quick chuckle time. The other night Cooper woke up in the middle of the night, hummed a little tune of his own making for a few minutes, and fell back asleep. Now, every once in awhile he will wake up and cry (if his teeth are hurting him), or play, or just kick the wall with his feet. Never, though, has he woken up to serenade the night. That's our funny little boy!