Mikey hopes Cooper soon learns the meaning of "gentle."

Another variation: Where's the musical fish?

The fish plays short clips of "Sailing, Sailing" and "Hornpipe." We hid it behind a tower of blocks, made it sing, and then waited to see if Coop could find it.

Genius, I tell you. Pure genius.

Then we hid the fish under a diaper rag.

Coop was not fooled.

Firsts of many

First drink from a sippy cup (It actually didn't go as well as this photo makes it seem. I'm not sure he got any liquid out of the cup this time around...)

This is much better -- first Diet Dr. Pepper!

I'm not sure if you've noticed in the last several posts, but Coop no longer has the long wispy hairs that hung down by his ears. I unceremoniously snipped them off with the kitchen scissors. Not a great "first hair cut," so I'm not really counting it. But I did save the little curls I cut off to put in his baby book.

See the light brown circle about two inches above Coop's belly button. Yup. It's Cooper's first bruise. He face-planted forward from a sitting position and landed on a block. The triangle-shaped block, and not the circle block, of course.

Cooper, where's the fan?

So if you ever need help finding the ceiling fan in any particular room, Coop's your man!

Variation on a theme

Where's Daddy?

Peek-a-boo!

Engaged!

My baby sister Kelly and the fabulously cute and charming Sylvester!

Swinging

Cheerios

Cooper's working on his pincer grip, on hand-to-mouth coordination, and on eating things with texture. As much as he loves to eat, he's not a big fan of things that require gumming/chewing.

Where's Cooper?

Peek-a-boo!

More new things

Beautiful!

It's been interesting to see Cooper next to Baby Parker. Coop looks so big! And then I dressed him in jeans one day, and he looks like he's almost 12 years old. Good grief!

This is the face he makes when a new tooth is almost here.

And here it is! From this angle, the new tooth is just to the right of the bigger, more visible tooth. Yay!

The Labor Day Edition

Mikey snoozing in the carseat.

This clever gizmo has a mesh pouch on the end, so we put in a piece of watermelon (or banana or whatever) and let Coop suck on it. Nifty!

Maybe you can't tell, but Coop was less than thrilled about the jogging stroller on the country roads. He doesn't seem to enjoy his front-row seat to the traffic. Yet.

At long last, Coop's friend Parker arrived this weekend (fittingly enough, on Labor Day). Here's Kristen holding the two boys. I think they're going to be trouble in the future...