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!