Update

I have a lot of blog catching up to do!

First of all I should probably update about Ruby. Poor girl, I haven't written a word about her since she's been born. With Cooper I wrote a post every month. I love the stuffing out of her, but Cooper takes up so much of my attention. So, catch up time.

Ruby started solid foods about three weeks ago. Cooper hoovered everything we gave him but Ruby is already picky about what she eats! She doesn't like applesauce, Greek yogurt, green beans, or avocados. Pickiness already is not a good sign.  Both my kids just might live off of chicken nuggets and flinstone vitamins their whole lives.

Ruby loves Thomas the train. I think it's because she sees Cooper playing with him all the time but she is always trying to roll and kick and wiggle over to Thomas and usually she gets to him and then is met with a loud, "Hey, no, that's mine!" from Cooper.

Ruby is trying to get into stuff and move around like someone who is much older. She will just launch herself right out of your arms and face plant in Cooper's bowl of goldfish crackers. And then she gets stuck face down in the goldfish and it makes you wonder what she thought was going to happen. Poor sweetie, she is desperate to be a big kid.

Ruby is rolling back to front and sitting up for short periods of time. Mostly she likes to stand on her legs and pretend to walk rather than lay on the floor so I think she will be a walker before a crawler, maybe.

Ruby loves to watch people, but her favorite person to watch is Cooper. Especially when he's crying. When he starts crying, she starts laughing her head off at him, which makes him even more upset and then he cries harder and sobs for her to, "stop it" and then she laughs even louder. And then I burst an organ trying to restrain my laughter. Oh man, I feel bad for Coop but it is a funny situation.

Ruby's not very snuggly and instead wants to be on the go all the time. I thought by having a girl I would get someone calm and relaxed who just liked to sit and do crafts for hours, but so far she's just female Cooper. I'm going to have to start tripling my protein when she becomes mobile. Why are my kids so active?! I blame Josh.

Ruby has separation anxiety already! Man my kids just can't get enough of me! Just as Cooper got over his, Ruby is starting hers, we're destined to never leave our kids! We dropped Ruby off the other night at our aunt and uncle's and she screamed like a banshee. Poor babysitters! It makes me feel a tiny bit good to know that Ruby likes me though. I like you too Rube.

Poor Rube has a clogged tear duct that if it hasn't cleared up by October she'll have to go in and have it "probed." Probing is horrible, they strap the babies down and go down their tear duct with a big needle to clear it and then flush it with water. I'm already a total wreck about it. How awful does that sound?! Poor baby Ruby and her eye boogers!

Ruby has no teeth yet. She's the 50th percentile for weight, 75th for height, and 95th for head circumference. The nurse laughed out loud when she measured poor Ruby's head and then asked me why I didn't think it was funny. But Cooper had a giant melon head as a baby too so I'm just used to it. Apparently my kids are destined to be big headed, hyperactive, picky eaters.

Ruby is a sweetie and has the prettiest blue eyes anyone has ever seen. She has delicious fat rolls and thunder thighs and huge squirrel cheeks. I love her chinless smile and squeaky laugh and larger than life enthusiasm. Six months to twelve months is my absolute favorite baby age, they're so fun and so cute and I am so glad to experience it with my sweet Ruby.

Now for our anniversary weekend (or 28 hours not that I was counting or anything.) It's the first time we've spent the night away from our kids in two years, so it was wildly exciting. We left the kids with my mom and went to Park City. We went to Over the Counter for breakfast and went to the outlet malls, played some tennis, rode the chairlift up Park City Mountain Resort and trail ran down, went to dinner, had a caramel apple, sat in the hot tub and watched the Theory of Everything (SUCH a good movie you guys!!!) It is so fun to be alone with Josh, SO fun! People should pay to hang out with him, he is that much fun to be around. I started laughing so hard I was crying while we were trying to order Mrs. Fields, I couldn't even order my cookie, Josh had to order it for me. We have fun when we're with our kids too but when we're alone, we pretty much spend the whole time laughing. It was so nice to have that 28 hours. SO nice!

Now for Cooper's speech progress! Everybody's favorite topic that I never shut up about. His evaluation with the school district is coming up on the 28th. He has to be functioning at 30% less than his age group for speech. I think he will probably make it, plus I don't think he will talk to the evaluator much so that should help lower his score! I'm hoping it will be a smooth transition into the school district. We only have like 5 more weeks of his private preschool left, surely it can't take more than 5 weeks to get him in right??

Cooper is speaking more and more, he's using longer word phrases as time goes by. He's using more verbal requests rather than gesturing which is a double edged sword. It's great that he's using his words, but a lot of the time I can't understand what he's saying and he gets frustrated and that absolutely breaks my heart into a million pieces. I hate watching that, it's weirdly sadder to watch him not be understood than him not using words at all. Poor kiddo. But he is getting better and better all the time! Preschool has been amazing for him, he has picked up so much language there, and he really loves the other kids. The other day I picked him up and he was playing with his friend and I asked him what his friend's name was, expecting the teacher to answer for him and Cooper surprised me by quietly answering, "Robert." This week is "fall break" for preschool and I'm worried Cooper is going to be upset about not going for a week, he just loves it so much, and it's been so good for him. I'm so grateful we found this special school.

Cooper is such a smart boy. I can't wait for his speech to catch up with him. The other day I realized he can read the word Elmo. I spelled it out with his alphabet magnets just to make sure and sure enough he says, "Elmo!" Silly boy is obsessed with numbers and letters. He counts to 30. He recognizes his name, his preschool friends names, and several other words, now including Elmo.

He has started to ask some what/where questions which is a big speech milestone! I love it! His trains always end up all over the house (and once outside buried in the dirt) because he plays with them so often so sometimes he'll say, "Where are you Percy?" when he's walking around looking for him. Or when we're driving he loves to cross the railroad tracks so one day I heard him in the backseat say, "Railroad crossing, where are you?" And the other day he asked his very first "what" question! He pointed to the angry birds app and said, "what's that?" I was so excited, I gave him like a 20 minute diatribe on angry birds.

I love that he is getting more able to tell me what he's thinking. We went to the library the other day and he opened the bin with the Disney logo on it and looked inside at the books and said to himself, "Don't see Mick Mouse." And I kid you not, I ransacked that library, I was going to get him a Mick Mouse book if it killed me! Today we were playing and I was able to decipher from his words that he wanted me to come play trains with him in his room with the light off and then after that he wanted to look through his dresser and put on sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and a tie. That probably seems so normal to everyone but it's amazing that Cooper is learning how to communicate his wants and needs through his words! It's my greatest desire to know what he's thinking and I'm finally starting to see it! He thinks a lot about trains, and snacks, and tv shows! And when I read him The Three Little Pigs in the afternoon, he's still thinking about the big bad wolf in the evening! Now I guess I know that maybe he's scared of The Three Little Pigs and we should probably stop reading it!

I'm so happy with Cooper's speech progress, even with the moments where I can't for the life of me understand what he's saying and I worry no one else will be able to either, even when I think he's doing so well and then I hear another kid his age speaking in paragraphs and it eats at that part of my heart that is tender, even when I ask him a question I think he can answer and he looks at me with that look in his eye and I know he wants to say the word but he just can't. Even with all that stuff that hurts more than I admit, we have gained so much ground! One day Cooper will go up to some little kid at the playground and say, "Hi, my name's Cooper. Do you want to play?" Or maybe he'll just say, "You smell like boogers!" Either way, I'm going to be pleased with his speech!