His 5 Month Development Update

Hi Everyone. Apologies for those that check this on a regular basis. Real estate's in its busiest time of the year, so I've not had tremendous time to do much with the blog. There are some pics that we posted recently. Enjoy.

In the past month, Cooper's demonstrated that he's able to control some of his motor functions. Meaning, he can now control his limbs to a certain extent. For the past few weeks, he's been reaching out to toys and objects quite frequently. Shake a rattle in front of him, and he gets this look on his face like, "ooooh" and reaches out with both hands. Just don't get your face too close to him...he's fascinated by hair and loves to grab it. Ask Abbie. And she's got that interesting red hair. Daddy's black hair isn't all that. Of course, I keep it short enough that he can't grab it. Ah, its good to be a man.

So, since he's able to grab hair, you should've guessed that he's able to control his grip a bit. Before, he had two modes, open hand or closed fist. No inbetween. He's got it now where he has some dexterity with his hands, and can very easily and adroitly grab an object, and bring it to his mouth, relatively speaking. His favorite pasttime is pulling his binky (pacifier) out of his mouth. For those that don't have kids, this is fun because when he doesn't have his binky, especially at night, he cries and screams. See the catch 22 here? It's great that he can use his hands, unfortunately, he's using them for evil. I've sat and watched him when trying to put him to sleep in his crib, reach up, hook his thumb in the loop of the binky, and yank the sucka out. That's followed very quickly by a crescendo of a wail. His cry is quicker than my binky reinserting ability, I'm afraid.

Up until Sunday night, he was sleeping in his crib at night for the first half, swing for the second. Dunno what happened, but that whole crib thing went out the window. Abbie thinks he's going through a cognitive and physiological development stage, which, her friend Jamie Mitchell told her, is usually accompanied by an inability to sleep. We've definitely got an inability to sleep.

Also up until Sunday night, he was having great naps. He used to only nap for about 20 minutes at a time. Very frustrating for Ma and Pa. For the preceding week and a half I would say, I had great success with getting him to nap, in his crib, for over an hour at a time. That's all gone now. We're back to the 20 minutes at a time thing. Man, sucks to be us.

Ask G.G. (Wanda), and she'll tell you that she believes that Cooper's destined for a future in music. Whether performing or producing or whatever...maybe he'll just watch American Idol all day long in reruns, but music of some form will be important to him as an adult. He seems to have a affinity for music. He'll stop and listen to songs. He knows songs that he likes. He'll even throw his arms to the beat. He'll watch music videos sometimes, too. But what Abbie discovered is that we may have a little rock and roller on our hands. She had VH1's video channel on, and Coop was in his exercauser. His back was to the TV. Some rock song came on, and he stopped what he was doing, turned himself around, and watched the video, quiet as a mouse with rapt attention. So, great, we've got a Bo Bice on our hands (he's that rock dude from American Idol in case you've been on Mars for the past 13 weeks).

Physically, we think he's over 15lbs now. Just ask my left arm, which is the arm I carry him in. He's also standing and sitting. No, he's not standing on his own. But with assistance. We brought him to a BBQ on Sunday for Memorial Day Weekend, and Katie and Bruce's baby, Emily, was standing with minor assistance (she's a month older). So, suddenly, Cooper starts doing it. Now we can't get him to stop.

Grandpa Gene visited last week, and made a comment about Cooper's back muscles needing to strengthen so he could sit up. Well, Dad, he's on that route. Check out the picture above!

Finally, it appears that his eczema has decided to return for a visit. He's dry and its itching. We do have a scheduled visit with Children's Hospital soon to check on his allergies to see if that's what's exacerbating his eczema. Some literature says that eczema is cyclical, and may apper to go away, and then come back in full force. Well, his came back on our flanks and took out our eczema-free jubilation right quick. I feel so sorry for the boy. Late nights now. Lots of wake ups. Itchy skin like no tomorrow. I just want him to get better. It kills me to see him in pain.

But y'know, look at the pic above again. Tell me he ain't a cute bugger!