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!

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! 

Mom Too Tree

So we are now in Boise. Mostly unpacked, unless of course you look in our garage where we hid all of our boxes we haven't gotten to yet. I don't know much about the city yet because we've been busy unpacking, spending hours trying to figure out our sprinkler system, buying a lawn mower, getting angry letters from the HOA about our long, yellow grass... Our subdivision is super nice, one of the most beautiful neighborhoods I've ever seen, it's really nice to live here but it also makes me feel like a hot mess. We can't figure out our sprinklers so we're out moving our sad store bought sprinkler every 20 minutes, my car is covered in cross country road trip bird poop, Cooper frequently runs down the sidewalk shoeless in a diaper. We don't really fit in but I guess they have no choice about it, fair housing act suckers.

Our house is cute and we like it a lot. But our kids bedrooms are right next to each other! Aaahhh! I'm already developing an ulcer. Cooper has always slept far away from any noise or light his whole life so I'm not sure how deep of sleeper he is. And Ruby is already not a deep sleeper despite my best efforts. Ruby still wakes up once a night to eat so I'm pretty worried she's going to wake him up too. We got so spoiled by our big Aberdeen house with its' weird layout where the bedrooms were super far apart. I loved that weird floor plan! It worked perfect for babies and toddlers! But we wanted Cooper to live in an actual neighborhood with little kids to play with and a place to ride bikes so here we are, it even has a cute neighborhood pool! But I will always miss our yellow house.

Cooper, Ruby, and I spent a fun week in Utah while Josh was finishing things up in Boise for us. We took Cooper to Lagoon twice! The first time we went with our cousins and Cooper had a huge blast, he loves those girls and would run after them whatever ride they were going on. I had to say no to many a roller coaster. Cooper loved it so much that Josh and I took him to bounce back, when he got tired we took him back to my mom's and then Josh and I went back by ourselves! It was our first date since we had Ruby and it was so. much. fun. We had so much fun in Utah, hopefully we can visit much more often now that we're closer and airplane travel is thankfully over with.

Speaking of air travel, I flew alone with Ruby and Cooper to Salt Lake and I will never set foot on a plane with my children ever again. I am not kidding. It was that bad. The airline lost the base to Ruby's car seat and some employee told me, "Next time you fly, you need to put your car seat in a bag." I then burst into laughter and he looked at me confused and I was like, "Does someone have a gun to my head? No? Then there will be no next time."

Shudder shudder shudder.

Anyway, before I slip into some post traumatic stress, let's talk about the happiest thing of my entire life!!

Cooper is making SO much progress with his speech! I've been so used to hearing people say don't worry my son didn't talk until 18 months and then I wait until 18 months and nothing and then I hear don't worry my son didn't talk until 2 so I wait until 2 and nothing, and then I hear don't worry my son didn't talk until 2.5 so I wait until 2.5 and nothing. Plus Teacher Judy and all the websites on apraxia told me that I was in for a long haul with painfully slow, hardly visible progress, which honestly I was already experiencing so I didn't really mind. I had long given up any expectation of verbal speech, I'd given up fantasizing about what Cooper's little voice would sound like, I'd given up hoping for Cooper to ever say anything to me or to call me mama. Call me dramatic but I was already researching careers Cooper could perform in sign language.

Now before you get too excited, Cooper is not reciting the Magna Carta, but oh the progress he's made has made my heart so happy.

Cooper has started repeating words! Mimicking is a huge skill and something he has never done before! Ever! He has never imitated animal sounds or sound effects. He has never responded to, "Can Cooper say _____?" A few months ago in the car I told Josh something was weird as hell and Josh said it was a good thing we didn't have to worry about Cooper repeating our language.

AND NOW WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I HAVE TO WATCH WHAT I SAY NOW! I have never been more excited to stop saying things like idiot.

My mom was watching Cooper this week and dropped something and said, "Oh shoot" and Cooper parroted, "Oh shoot!" And now he walks around saying oh shoot!

He repeats everything now! I get to hear how he pronounces everything! Orange is like orgne, with like no vowels. It's so sweet. Yellow is like yelLOW. Haha it's so cute, I could go on and on. He calls my mom (Zoe), "soe."

He says hi and bye now!! Today I walked through the kitchen and said, "Hi Coop" and he said, "Hi." Hahaha I almost walked into the wall!

Yesterday he stood up in his high chair and I said, "Are you all done?" and he said, "all done!" I almost rocked launched Ruby out of my arms so I could get him out of his high chair as soon as humanly possible. And the sweetest thing was that he was surprised and impressed with himself! He got a huge smile on his face and kept saying, "all done all done all done all done all done" like he just couldn't believe he was saying it every time. Ah I'm just so proud of my little boy!!

Cooper has been able to say mama and dada for a while but he has never said them independently. Yesterday I was hanging up a picture and I heard Ruby wake up from her nap and I said to Cooper, "Uh oh. Mama woke up Ruby." And Cooper said, "Oh Mama." Ha! I'm so used to having one way conversations with Cooper that when he responds I'm totally caught off guard.

And then the other night Cooper got out Josh's wallet and saw his drivers license and pointed to the picture and said, "Dada." Or I should say "daDAAAAA." Which is how he says it.

He is finally becoming interested in animal sounds. Something I've been expecting him to do since he was 12 months old. Yesterday he went and found a stuffed sheep and pointed at Josh and said, "baaa." And Josh said, "yeah a sheep says baa!" And Cooper said, "Sheep." And then Josh picked up the stuffed dog and said, "What's this?" And Cooper said, "dog." And Josh said, "What does a dog say?" And Cooper said, "woof woof woof."

Last one, I promise. Cooper looves numbers and counting and is always counting things silently on his fingers. Well the other night he was in the bathtub and I was getting a towel for him when I heard him softly saying something that sounded like he was counting to five so I looked and sure enough he was counting on his fingers and saying, "Mom. Too. Tree. Fo. Five!" Numbers two through five are really clear and spot on, but for some reason he says mom for one!! Hahaha I get such a kick out of that! I guess mom does sound kind of like one... Something I never thought of before.

Ah I just love him. And I am amazed at the progress he's been making. I really never thought I'd be here. He still needs speech therapy and help and time and effort but I finally feel like I can breathe. I'm finally not worried that Cooper is never going to talk. He really is going to talk one day! He says hi and bye and mama and dada and oh shoot and all done and mom two tree. And his little voice is just the sweetest little voice that's ever spoken.

Ah happy happy happy!!!!!

The one teeny tiny itty bitty negative thing to come from his progress (but really not negative because I'm so happy for him) is that we're a little worried he's not going to qualify for speech services preschool now! His evaluation is at the end of August, it's an hour and a half long and I'm not allowed in with him. So I'm like one percent worried. But not really because he still has very few words that he speaks without prompting. But I would probably laugh if after all of this he doesn't qualify for the preschool. Silly Cooper!

This probably doesn't sound like a very big deal to most people, or really to anyone. But for those people who know Cooper and who have been around him, this is huge. Any words from Cooper are just huge. Repeating words is huge. Making animal sounds is huge. Saying mama and dada and hi and bye and night night is huge. I'm just so happy for my sweet boy. I love to watch his face light up with surprise and pride when he says a word. It is the best feeling I've ever felt. I hope we have turned a corner where there is less frustration and more successes instead of the other way around. I would just love for Cooper be able to communicate with others besides his parents, my heart would just explode. So here's to hoping he keeps progressing! And that we uncover a good life in Boise! And that we figure out how to run our sprinklers!

Bye Bye Small Town

When I first moved to Aberdeen two years ago my world was turned upside down by living in a small town. It was DIFFERENT. And after standing in the checkout line for 20 minutes because the cashier knew and chit chatted with every single customer, I was immediately irritated by small town living. But then it grew on me as things tend to do and now upon leaving my heart is full of love for the cute small town quirks I've come to enjoy. I will never forget the sometimes unusual and oftentimes sweet experience of living here. 

I'm going to miss our garbage man who knows Cooper by name and gets out of his truck to talk to Cooper every week and reminisce about how fast he's growing. I'm going to miss the owner of our favorite restaurant who always gives Cooper a free bag of chips because he remembers how much Cooper loves them. I'm going to miss the people at the YMCA who keep track of how far I run and congratulate me when I make progress. I'm going to miss Josh being out of town announced on the radio. I'm going to miss the receptionist at the speech therapy office who prints out a pictures of Thomas the Train for Cooper when he's upset. I'm going to miss calling the doctor to reschedule an appointment I had to cancel and them saying, "Oh Cooper's mom right?" I'm going to miss the lady at the post office calling to tell us our Christmas packages came. I'm going to miss the librarian who double checked the hold I placed on a science fiction book because it didn't seem like what I usually read (Josh was using my card.) I'm going to miss the lady at the video rental in Safeway telling me she didn't charge me a late fee because she knows I have two small kids that are hard to take to the store. I'm going to miss whoever honks at me when I'm running down my street and yells, "Hey Orange Shirt!" I'm going to miss the employees at Bennett's fish shack who know our order and ask us where the kids are when we're there on a date. I'm going to miss how members of my choir called Josh to find out how I was doing when I had pneumonia. I'm going to miss the cashier at the movie theater offer me the standard popcorn/drink special and then look up at me and say, "Oh yeah, you hate Pepsi products, never mind." I'm going to miss telling people we live in the yellow house up Wishkah and having everyone immediately know which house is ours. I'm REALLY going to miss the small town newspaper with it's hysterical crime report. I'm going to miss how I always hear events by word of mouth before I read them in the news. I'm going to miss how fast gossip travels and how everyone seems to know everyone. I'm going to miss how sweet and protective everyone is with each other and the many, wonderful, tender hearted individuals that welcomed me into their circle-

Most of all, I'm going to miss the sweet friendship of some of the kindest people I've known. People who visited me in the hospital when I had my kidney infection, people who come over and watch the kids so I can pack, people who offer to take me on a hike I mention I want to go on but don't know the trail, people who made blankets for Ruby, people who threw me a baby shower, people who offered to watch Cooper when I had my doctor appointments, people who encourage, lift, motivate, and inspire me.

So while we may not have a Costco (or about a million other things), we do have some of the sweetest people in the world right here in Aberdeen, Plus all the trees.

Cooper's Diagnosis

This week in our session with Teacher Judy, Cooper said six new words in 30 minutes! We love Teacher Judy. While blowing bubbles she got him to say blow, bubble, and pop. Why he never says those for me I don't know... And then she got him to say Ruby for the very first time! It was so exciting! Which he pronounces Rubah or sometimes Wubah. And she got him to say Cooper, or Toopah. And she got him to say Mama. Teacher Judy was so excited about that one that she gave him a hug and Cooper immediately ran away. Apparently Cooper's love for Teacher Judy does not extend to hugs.

Josh and I love hearing him say Wubah. We make him say it all day long and then giggle about it at night in bed. Wubah.

So at the end of our session Teacher Judy told me that Cooper has apraxia. Apraxia is a condition where the brain's signals to the mouth muscles involving speech are missing or incorrect. This means that the child has no problem understanding speech but when it comes to speaking themselves, they don't know how to move their mouth muscles to make the sounds. Children with apraxia have to learn how to make each sound, and then the thousands of combinations of sounds and practice them thousands of times before they become muscle memory and something they can say independently. It involves extensive and frequent speech therapy for years sometimes. But the good news is once they figure out how to talk, they'll be all caught up on their speech. It just takes a lot of work to get to that point.

It's a daunting task and right now it feels a little overwhelming. And I'm a little sad that speech can't just come naturally to him like it does to everyone else. But I'm glad Cooper has a diagnosis so we know what help to get him. I'm glad there is help available for him. I'm glad I get to stay at home with him so we can practice our speech together. I'm glad Cooper has so many people who support him. I'm glad my husband is just as committed to helping Cooper as I am. There are many things to be grateful for.

Luckily Cooper has a few words already that help him communicate. Once they practice a word enough to have it become a muscle memory they will always have that word and Cooper already has a few words, of course "no" being one of them. And luckily he can make all his consonant and vowel sounds, he just needs to practice them and learn how to combine them into words. So he has a few things working for him already and the rest we will help him figure out.

One thing I know for sure about Cooper is that he is smart. He can count to ten, he knows the first half of the alphabet, he knows his letters, shapes, numbers, and colors. After watching a Barney episode about China, I said hi to Cooper one morning and he answered, "nee how." He is a smart boy and if he gets the help he needs, he can overcome this. And he will have the added blessing of parents who listen to every single thing he says for the rest of his life because we're going to be so delighted by every word. "Wubah" has already brought a lot of happiness to our hearts.

So now we know what to do and what lies ahead for us. Good luck buddy. Mama is always cheering for you.