I Talk Lot

My blog has officially turned into nothing but Cooper and his speech issues! I swear I think about other things sometimes but I enjoy documenting his progress on my blog, it soothes my neurosis.

Update:
Cooper is on his third week of preschool. I DID IT! I've even stopped telling everyone I know that I'm pretty sure Miss Becky is a convicted felon. I've also stopped hanging out in the parking lot asking parents who are dropping off to look at the boy in the Thomas shirt and see if he's ok. I'm basically a drop off pro now. Just kidding, I sit next to him while he's trying to color at table time and say, "Mommy loves you, can you say I love you too? Mommy's going to miss you. Mommy will be here as soon as preschool is over. Are you going to be ok? Do you need anything? Can I have a kiss?" And Cooper just tunes me out while he colors his turtle and Miss Becky looks at me like I'm a total freak.

Whatevs Miss Becky.

Anyway, Cooper is doing AWESOME with his speech!! He is progressing really quickly. Last week I finally stopped writing down everything he says but it was about 100 words, about 30 two word phrases, and about 15 three word phrases. Two months ago he had five words. So he's picking things up really quickly.

A few of my favorite things about his increased verbalization:

When I made dinner the other night he sat down and took a bite and said, "tastes good!" Granted he had taken a bite of applesauce, not something I had actually cooked, but oh my heart just soared!

The other day I was rubbing lotion on him, I never had to put any lotion on him while we lived in Washington so he's not used to it and he doesn't particularly enjoy it. He laid there and said, "Not good lotion. P U lotion. All done lotion." Hehe I laughed and laughed.

 The other day I let him turn on Netflix and I asked him what he wanted to watch, expecting him to go point to a show and instead he said, "Watch George Three." Which means Curious George Three. It was SO sweet.

He's finally saying, "I love you" to us! I mean I should know that he loves us without him saying it but it feels like I'm finding out for the first time that he loves me and I just can't express the feeling that hearing those words gives me.

Another one that makes me so proud is whenever I hear him say, "Cooper." He is always much more willing to say other peoples names than his own. Sometimes it's "Tooper" sometimes it's "Pooper" and a couple of times it's been "Cooper." He used to say it very sparingly but now he is saying it more frequently and it just makes me so happy. I still remember the moment Josh and I decided on the name Cooper, I couldn't wait to hear how he would say his name! Hopefully he grows out of the "Pooper" before he gets laughed at, poor sweetheart.

And "Wubah" has turned into "Ruby!" My smart boy is making speech corrections!

Then in the car he's invented a new little game where at the traffic lights he calls out, "green light go" and "red light stop."

There's a song on one of his Thomas movies where it goes la la la la la and Cooper sings along with the la la's! It's the first time I've ever heard him sing!! He has a terrible voice! Hahaha! I love it!

Josh taught him to say, "I talk lot." Which is hilarious because of the irony. We have him say, "I talk lot" and then giggle.

I really love hearing words that he obviously learned at preschool like the other night when I put corn down in table and he exclaimed, "corn!" And when I was doing a puzzle and he looked at it and said, "barn door!" (Yes, I do jigsaw puzzles because I am the definition of cool.)

He counts to twenty and says the whole alphabet!

You guys, I can't even believe the sweet little things my son is saying. I can't wait for him to talk in sentences! I can't wait for him to sing songs! I can't wait for him to tell me my hair looks bad today! I can't wait for him to scream I want cookies in the grocery store! I love every word that comes out his cute mouth!

So Miss Becky is probably helping my sweetie, even if she is a convicted felon. What do we really know about her anyway... And she's helping him create art projects which is a first! I kept leaving his art projects in his cubby because I thought they were some other little kids. Finally they stuffed like five of them into his backpack for me. Miss Becky is really impressed with me.

Oh that reminds me I taught Cooper to say, "No way Miss Becky!" Hehe don't tell her...

Preschool, it's happening

Speech Speech Speech

This week we went to Cooper's first speech session in Boise. It's amazing how many speech therapists there were to choose from, and so many that specialize in apraxia! The clinic that I decided on turned out to be a block from our house which was a a nice surprise. 

I told Cooper we were going to go see Teacher and he got so excited but then I had to tell him it wasn't Teacher Judy, it was a new teacher and he was so sad. I was too, we all miss Teacher Judy. I offered to take her to Boise with us but for some reason she didn't take me up on it. Why don't you want to live with us Teacher Judy? Our house is peaceful and calm like a zen garden I promise. 

So at the session the therapist talked to us about our plans for Cooper's speech and I told her at the end of August he would be getting evaluated with the school district to start therapy preschool and also at the end of August he would get evaluated at Idaho State University for private sessions. She told us that he would probably definitely qualify for preschool with the school district (which can I just say made me kind of sad, I wanted her to be like no, he'll never qualify, he's the world's most gifted orator! But I guess I want the services so whatever.) And then she told me that they offer a preschool there with daily private speech sessions that's paid for by your insurance so we could do that until we start the school district preschool in the fall. 

So then I got the preschool information and Cooper and I toured the preschool. The preschool is adorable. It's four days a week but they said I could only do two (yes please.) Cooper would get a one on one speech session every time as well as having a speech therapist in the preschool all the time. There are only six other kids and you don't have to be potty trained!

Basically with the insurance/payment thing it's going to be the same price for us to either have him do private speech sessions or do private speech sessions during a speech preschool so, it's a no brainer right? I'm trying to find a reason not to do it, I'm not ready to send Cooper to preschool!! 

I asked him if he wanted to go to preschool and he was excited but then I said, "Does Mommy go to preschool too?" And he said ya!! So I'm not really sure how it's going to go. 

My poor little sweet pea. 

Poor me! If he didn't have speech issues I would never let him go to preschool! Every day he asks me to snuggle him in his crib, Cooper and Mama are best friends! And if some little booger clad 3 year old thinks he can usurp me, he's going to have to hold on to his sippy....

So here goes nothing, I guess I will be crying in the lobby on Monday from 9 til 11:15. 

Hood River Hiking Weekend

A little forewarning, this is going to be a very pathetic blog post that reveals how little life I have. 

I remember writing a blog post about going on a date with Josh a few months after I had Cooper because it was so rare and noteworthy. And now I'm writing a blog post about a hike I went on because, rare and noteworthy. See? I told you it makes me seem sad and pathetic. 

So 4th of July weekend was coming up and since Josh just started a new job and can't take vacation for six months, this was a rare three day weekend that he had. We talked about what we wanted to do and Josh suggested I go somewhere by myself for the weekend as he has been away from the kids several times and I never had before. I thought about it and researched some places to hike and ultimately decided not to go. I told Josh I wasn't going and then while I was playing with Cooper I heard him on the phone booking me a hotel anyway! Oh Josh! What a selfless, generous, kind hearted husband he is! I just love the stuffing out of him. And while he was making the reservation he was spelling my name for the person on the phone and Cooper overheard and then started walking around saying, "B E A C H. B E A C H. B E A C H." Cutie. 

So I went to Hood River, Oregon because I have serious Pacific Northwest withdrawals and there are a ton of hikes to do around the Columbia River Gorge. Plus Hood River is on my list of places I want to visit so it was perfect, and only a five hour drive from Boise.

I wanted to hike as much as I could because I don't get to do "real hikes" with the kids right now. So I chose the hardest hike in the gorge to really take advantage of the weekend to do the first day and then a few smaller waterfall hikes the next day in case I was super sore from my Mt. Defiance hike. (Um I'm still sore from Mt. Defiance!) 

Mt. Defiance is the tallest peak in the gorge and considered the hardest hike in Oregon. Hikers use it to train for Mt. Hood, and actually the trail is steeper than Mt. Hood's. It's 12 miles and has an elevation gain of 5,000 feet. Um does it sound to anyone else like I probably shouldn't have hiked it? Yeah... Apparently I have really poor judgement. 

So off I went, like an idiot. I did a lot of research and had a trail map and enough water and food and everything, so not a total idiot, though I did decide to leave my trekking poles in the car (yeah, big mistake.) But I definitely underestimated the hike.

It starts out really cute and deceiving, you saunter past some waterfalls. 

Then you start a normal incline along the mountainside with some pretty views of the gorge.

This nice hike lasts about a mile and then the remaining miles are straight torture without letting up for a second. On the way up I was often using my hands to climb it was so vertical. On the way down I was repelling down tree branches or tree roots, or giving up and actually sliding down on my butt. Whhhyyy didn't I take my trekking poles! I hate myself for that. I told Josh that I wanted to take pictures of how steep the trail was but I couldn't shift my feet at all to take my pack off and get my camera or I would have fallen down the mountain. It was insane! Insane! Ha, when I got home I had to throw away the shirt I wore because I couldn't get the sweat stains out. Ahh it was so hard. 

And then I got altitude sickness. My hands and face ballooned up and I looked down at my super swollen hands, thought for a millisecond that was weird, and then ignored them as I was way more concerned about forcing my legs to keep going. It wasn't until I got back to the car that I was like, "wait, what on earth happened to my hands?!?!" I didn't even research altitude sickness or know anything about it because it was only 5,000 feet but then I read that if you're ascending 1,000 feet in less than three hours you will get sick at any altitude. I was ascending 1,000 every hour. Dummy. Most people on hikes like that take medication beforehand to help their bodies adjust quickly to the altitude gain. Big oops. 

Anyway back to me hiking unaware of my altitude sickness, eventually I reached the summit! And I even passed someone on the way up too, take that dude! I bought a premade sandwich at the grocery store to take up with me and the whole way up I couldn't wait to eat that dumb sandwich at the top. And then when I finally opened it up like 3.5 hours later I realized it had no mayo or mustard on it, I was supposed to grab one of those little packets! Ah man, it was so disappointing. I should have hauled some Cafe Rio up there instead. 

And then the descent tore my legs up like nothing I've ever experienced. When you get to the bottom of the trail, there's like a half mile walk to the parking lot and the whole time you can see your car in your sight but yet you're not quite there and I kept thinking I'm going to have to call life flight and they're going to have to chopper me a half a mile to my car. But I hobbled there myself, without a helicopter. When I finally got back to the hotel I couldn't wait to shower, remember my shirt I had to throw away? I was so sweaty and disgusting. And then when I pulled back the shower curtain I saw it was a handicap shower and the shower head was so low I had to hold a squat to shower! I thought I was going to cry. What a cruel cosmic joke! After I showed I crawled into bed at 5 pm and didn't get out til the morning! I text Josh that I really wished I had some Tylenol or something but I couldn't make it to the store and Josh said to try the front desk and I was like um I can't make it to the front desk! 

The next day I was really sore but I could actually walk so I did all my waterfall hikes that I planned. My favorite was Elowah Falls. 

And then I drove home to my babies because I missed them! 

And now I want to hike South Sister. Except it has almost the exact same mileage and elevation that Mt. Defiance does. But again, I have poor judgement. This time I'll bring my dumb trekking poles and maybe get some of those altitude pills and wear a shirt I don't like so when I have to throw it away it won't be a bummer!