Busy Week!

It has been a very busy week here! On top of all the craziness we have all been sick, well everyone but Matt really. Here is what we have been up to:

Me: I am trying to make some kind of income to help pay for Cooper's new school. I spend almost all my free computer time working as a guide for ChaCha.com. I answer questions for 10 cents a pop, it sounds easier than it actually is. I am only making about $3/hour right now but I am hoping to get "top guide" next week and make $6/hour. Yes, I know it is still less than minimum wage, but I don't have a lot of options. I will try to update this blog more, sorry about that.

Cooper: Cooper started at his new school this week and he loves it!! Even though he was sick at first he was thrilled to be there and have all these girls paying attention to him. He gets so excited every morning when I say "Do you want to go to school?" and when we get there he can't wait to go back to the classrooms. Next week the tough stuff starts so we will see if he still loves it. They really love him there, I have had multiple people tell me Cooper is: delightful, so much fun, adorable...yeah, I know....now make him talk! I appreciate the sentiment but I am not paying you people ridiculous amounts of money to enjoy my sons company! :)

Quinn: Quinn has had a hard time adjusting to Daddy putting him on the bus and Grandma Berta taking him off. I think he actually misses me, those two times of day were serious bonding times for the two of us. I miss it too. The last few days he has been giving the ladies on the bus a hard time when getting down the steps. He has also been refusing to walk for Grandma Berta and she can't carry him. It has been taking about five minutes of pushing and crying to get him in the house. So this morning I had a long talk with him and told him he couldn't do that anymore. I told him that he had to smile at Grandma Berta when he got off the bus and then walk like a good boy into the house. I guess he understood because that is exactly what he did this afternoon, thank god!

Portia: Poor Portia, she hates our new schedule! She has to spend a lot more time in her cage now that I am driving Cooper back and forth to school everyday. I have considered taking her with me, but I am on the fence on that one. Maybe when Cooper starts his actual class, then all I have to do is pull up in front of the school and they come get him out of the car. That will be really nice of snowy cold days!

Cooper's Trip to the Pumpkin Farm

The pumpkin farm was full of old structures from the old Enchanted Forest. This little house had a "real" piano in it. Cooper loved playing it and kept trying to put down the lid even though it didn't move.

I don't know if he was making this face at me or the kid standing right in front of the window, but it was funny!

There was a gazebo with a huge plaster birthday cake in the middle. Cooper had a great time running in circles around the cake.

Taking a break from the cake running. Right after I snapped this Cooper squeezed his way through that tiny opening. He must take after Grandpop Bill.

Checking out the animals at the petting farm.

Going down the slide, very disappointed it wasn't a fast one.

Cooper examines his first pumpkin.

Nope, gotta find the perfect one!

Picking seeds out of an open pumpkin, yes he ate one..but he spit it out right away!

This looks like a good one!

Cooper amoung the pumpkins.

Walking through the mini corn maze.

Tonight we went to the mall for a family date. We only do this when we are forced to because no grandparents are available for babysitting, but it was actually very nice. We ate dinner at the food court, really the best plan with two young kids. They can cry all they want and noone will hear them! They didn't cry though, they were both very good. We got them McDonalds and Quinn ate the nuggets and Cooper ate the fries. Everything was going great until this family sat down next to us. They had a very cute little girl and Cooper was looking right at her and making his happy sounds. I told Matt how cute that was that Cooper seemed to really like that little girl. Then she moved a little and I realized Cooper wasn't looking at her at all, he was looking at her pizza! He then made it abundantly clear to us that he wanted pizza...now! No problem, I ran off and got him a slice of pizza and he happily ate it. It was right out of the oven and really hot, but he took lots of little careful bites, it was so cute.

After dinner I took Cooper to get his haircut. We had to wait for a really long time so Matt took Quinn and they walked around the mall. Cooper was really good while we waited. He watched the other kids get their haircuts and played with the toys they had there. He only tried to escape a few times. When it was time for his haircut I gave him one of the lollipops that they had there, but it was a mini tootsie pop and he just didn't identify it as a lollipop. He held onto it but didn't put it in his mouth. Luckily, I had some organic lollipops (like he is used to) with me, so I gave him one of those after he got in the haircutting chair. It was so cute, he popped it in his mouth and then tucked the other pop under his leg. Cooper is really good at getting his haircut so he did great. In the middle of his cut he finished his lollipop, handed the stick to me, and then reached under his leg and got the other one! What a funny kid! Once again the lady couldn't believe that he was only two, yes he is huge :)

Up, up, up!

Cooper's speech teacher came over today. She brought a Little People set that has a slide with it. She took one of the little people and walked it up the steps to the slide and said "up, up, up". Believe it or not this was followed closely by Cooper grabbing the little person, walking him up the steps, and saying "up, up, up"! Wow! That is some seriously amazing imitation for Cooper. I was so proud that I started telling the speech teacher about how he has been saying "eat" occasionally. So what does Cooper do? He starts saying "eat, eat, eat"! This is the first time Cooper has ever said an actual word in front of his speech teacher, and she got two!! WTG, Cooper!

Quinn didn't go to school today. He had another long night. Not sure why, no sugar or anything this time. Oh well.

I got the best letter in the mail today! It was from my amazing niece Emilia. It was awesome and totally made my day, thanks Emilia :)

Off the bottle!

Believe it or not, day one of "Operation Bottle Freedom" was a huge success! When Cooper woke up early this morning I brought him a cup of pretzels to snack on and a straw cup with grape juice. He happily took the straw cup and layed down to drink it. I thought he would cry hysterically when there was no morning bottle. Last night I removed all bottle paraphernalia from the former "bottle drawer" and only left sippy cups. Cooper spent a few hours this afternoon and evening closely examining everything in the drawer making sure there were truly no bottles left. He seemed pretty calm about it. The big test was going to sleep. Cooper has never been able to fall asleep at night without a bottle. We simply put what we usually put in his bottle (Carnation Instant Breakfast) in a straw cup and layed him in bed with it. Not one complaint! He went right to sleep!!! Is it too early to refer to this as a miracle? Who would have ever thought it would be this easy? I am so proud of my Cooper!!!

In other news Cooper went to the county's preschool Wednesday class for the first time today. When his teacher said I should bring him she forgot to mention that parents do not stay for the Wednesday class! I was extremely nervous leaving him, but I did. I wasn't so much worried about him (I trust Ms. Dorothy like family), but I was really worried about the teachers and other kids. I was sure he would cry the whole time. He didn't, he did wonderfully! He took turns playing with one of the teachers, even looking to her to signal it was her turn. He sat in circle time (with a little help) and he put stickers on paper for the art project (he even put out his hand to ask for more stickers). When I went back to pick him up he was happily playing with the parashute (his favorite), but when he saw me he ran right over with a huge smile. I thought he was going to try and push me right out the door so we could leave, but instead he pulled me over to the parashute so I could play with him! Once again, I was so proud of my Cooper!!!

Quinn also had a good day. He had speech at Loyola and did a great job working with his new communication device. He was really concentrating on looking at the pictures. His therapist read him a book and had matching pictures on his board and he was very obviously looking at the book and then looking to the board to match it up. As a special treat they decided that today they would let him play in the water table. He was thrilled and had a wonderful time soaking himself, the therapist, and the OT. I won't be suprised if the water table doesn't happen again for a good long time :) I had to take his shirt off and he just wore his jacket home, but he really enjoyed speech today!