last night Cash wanted a 2nd cookie. i said no. Cash then said,

"Cookies make me happy. You make me sad."

haircut

i don't think i've had my hair cut since Cooper was born so i went and had 8 inches chopped. i miss my long hair but i can still get in a pony tail. and hair was meant for cutting.

Cooper teeth update

no new teeth but i noticed something tonight that i'm going to keep an eye on...Cooper's upper gum where one of his top front teeth would be, is purple - like its bruised. i can either think that he actually did bruise it by chewing on something which is probably most likely since he is always putting something in his mouth and gumming it. Or i can believe one of the many scenarios going through my head where he was born without that tooth or it is rotting from the inside since i gave him a gold fish cracker the other day...

he is not nearly as slobbery as Cash but if even a drop of slobber leaves his lips Cash freaks out and uses an entire box of wipes to wipe it up or he comes to me saying, "cooper almost slobbered on me". maybe i should remind him that for 6 months straight he slobbered all over everything in our house!

Cash seems to be struggling a little bit with Cooper. Now that Cooper is on the move and getting into ALL of Cash's stuff. He crawls over and grabs onto Cash and whatever he is doing or eating. Cash is getting really frustrated with him. He's acting out a bit at daycare and having lots of trouble going to sleep again. 

Although today i caught him being good! and made a big deal about it. He was frustrated that Cooper stole his blankie and he was going to bop him on the head but he stopped himself and just petted him on the head instead. that was a pretty cool moment to see. 

Kitty the bear

Kitty the bear, originally uploaded by carolyn_martin.

its 113 degrees today. no one in their right mind is outside. we decided to get out of the house and go to the mall. we stopped into Build A Bear and picked up "kitty" the firefighting bear.

what do you do when its 113 degrees outside

go to the mall and hang out all day.

big night out

tumblr_l5qfffRjaL1qbajbyo1_500, originally uploaded by carolyn_martin.

chandler and i had a great time last night. we were lucky enough to get some free tickets to this amazing reunion concert.

post edit: my children have a way of knowing when i sit down at the computer and need something that most at that very minute. here's the rest of the story.

Amy Loop came over to babysit. Cash was a little disappointed that Thomas didn't come with her. So C and I left thinking that we'd have time to grab dinner before the concert. well the MGM and the Strip in general was a mad house on Saturday night - something you don't realize if you spend most of your time avoiding the Strip - so it took us almost 45 minutes to get through the traffic light, into the parking garage and into the Casino to even think about dinner. when we finally got in everywhere had an hour long wait so we ended up getting take out from one of the mexican places that has a "to go" window out onto the Casino so our big night out consisted of eating taquitos while sitting on the floor in the corner of the convention center. we sure know how to do it right! so then we went into the concert and had awesome seats. right up front, about 7 rows back. great seats. James Taylor and Carole King are amazing. their voices are still as great as they've always been, however Carole King has gotten old looking. and Chandler and I giggled that James Taylor was dressed like he just got home from work. They played all the great songs: carolina in my mind, you've got a friend, fire and rain, sweet baby james, so far away, i feel the earth move, natural woman, and some others i have never heard. I'm not sure Chandler enjoyed the actual concert so much as this type of music isn't his thing but he was a trooper and we had a fun time people watching and laughing at all the middle-aged women re-living their 70's.

we got home and found out the boys had a hard time getting to bed. Cash was actually still awake and Cooper hadn't been asleep for all that long. finally everyone settled down and all was quiet again at the Martin household.

of course i forgot the camera so i only got shots on my phone which are terrible. geesh, we aren't very good at getting out of the house...

On becoming my mother...

Sylvia just called. She said that Cash was shoving and pushing Emma. Emma shoved back (Emma's not a slight little girl) and Cash went flying across the room. Cash bumped his eye on the corner of the table and got a purple egg. She called to see if i wanted to come get him. hmmmm, let me think about this....is he bleeding? No? He's fine.

today in Martin land

Cash went to timeout today. I know this because Sylvia told Chandler when he picked up the boys. however, if i hadn't talked to Chandler on my way home i would have thought that Cash was a perfect little boy today. Why? Because i was met at the door tonight by Cash. when i asked him how his day was he immediately overshared (dead giveaway). He said, "it was good and i was a really good boy." right there i knew something was up so i asked him a little more. finally he gave up the goods and told me that he had to go to timeout for hitting Gabby. Right now he is into being really descriptive - everything is followed with a "like this". he told me he hit gabby with a toy, "like this -bang, bang, bang". whoops. time out for you my love.

Also, i realized tonight that Cooper is just about totally weaned. He did it himself. Cash did the same thing at about 9 months so i'm not shocked just a little surprised it was so soon. We started him on a little formula during the days because i was running out of stored milk in the freezer - no big deal, i would just nurse him in the morning and at night. well i guess he got a little used to the immediate satisfaction of formula or the bottle or something because he totally wont nurse now and turns his head away from me when i go to feed him. ok, no big deal - its his choice. he's practically eating cheeseburgers now anyway so i feel ok. i have a few more frozen milks that i'll give him and then we'll just go to the formula for a couple months until he can have real cow's milk. since my guys had bottle from so young i think they wean pretty easily. just my theory.

Cooper 7 months

Cooper can go from laying down to sitting up. its pretty fascinating to watch him do it. he is also not crawling yet but he definitely gets from point a to point b effectively by rolling and stretching and wiggling.

He eats like a linebacker. we feed him 3 meals of baby food a day, he snacks on cheerios and puffs and has 2-3 six ounce bottles. he loves the nasty, mesh sucker thing filled up with bananas, watermelon, cantaloupe, etc. he'll put anything in his mouth.

He's as happy as a baby can be. laughs constantly. laughs more when Cash is around. Elizabeth's blog the other day about Wiley and Archer laughing after W hit A - i am sure that will happen at our house too. Cash fell down the other day and Cooper erupted into giggles, then Cash did it over and over until the two were hysterical.

Cooper sleeps through the night for the most part. he goes down at 7:30pm and wakes at 5:30am but i usually leave him in his crib until 6 or 6:30. he will just coo and talk and roll around and practice crawling in that hour. he doesn't need anything during that time and its a great way for me to wake up, listening to him sing his song. occasionally he will wake up one time - the other night i think his teeth were bothering him. the thing about not nursing anymore is that night time waking really sucks because i don't have a good way to comfort him and put him back to sleep unless i want to make a bottle.

Cooper likes his dummy but isn't attached to it like Cash was (is). Cooper's top teeth are coming in and we can just see the tippy tops of them starting to come through.

bottom line: we like him a lot.

Our Saturday night

how you cool off in the desert on a summer night, originally uploaded by carolyn_martin.

We had a nice, early dinner at PF Changs on Saturday and then walked over to the carousel, which Cash kept calling the circus. it was so hot but the misters were running at full blast and if you sat right under them in the grass it was somewhat cooler. so we walked to the Whole Foods across the parking lot and picked up some desserts to share and sat in the grass to eat them. Cash enjoyed the grass because he could run around and do flips and summersaults all around.

Love & Logic

Some teachers use this thing called Love & Logic when working with their students. A fellow-teacher at Chandler's school uses it with her students and children (3 toddler/school aged children she adopted) and loaned chandler a disk. we are listening to it and downloaded a few podcasts from itunes. its pretty interesting.

Cooper seems to prefer the 7:30 pm-5:30 am sleep shift.

even though i believe kiddos should be sleeping 12 hours at night, i'm not going to mess with this.

tonight the boys and i were without Chandler because he was off playing softball. we had such a good night. Cash was so well behaved. he didn't have to be told not to do something - not even one time. he played nicely, shared with cooper, ate his dinner well. he was a dream. i made sure to tell him how happy he was making mommy and how proud i was. hopefully he likes this positive reinforcement.
the boys also both slept really well last night. Cash didn't balk at the idea of going to bed and slept until almost 7am. Cooper slept from 7:30-5:30 and then dozed off and on for another hour. they went to bed smoothly tonight. i even put cooper down completely awake.

Happy Birthday Mimi

i realized this morning that each generation of our family has a birthday with a matching month and day:
8-8 dad
7-7 emily
12-12 cooper

what have i been waiting for?

I pulled out the rubber duck bathtub last night and cooper loved it. he splashed around for so long i hated to pull him out of there. i couldn't believe how small it was though. in my memory i had the idea that the tub was huge and that Cooper would just drown in it. instead, he will probably grow out of this in just a few weeks. i don't know what i've been waiting for to put him in this - for him to get bigger? he is bigger! well, enough dwelling on that, its blown up and he will enjoy his own bath tub now, instead of having to get dipped in Cash's dirty bathwater.

i pulled up the old pictures of Cash in the duckie - maybe i should get them some bath toys so they have something else to play with!!!

four times

DSC06498, originally uploaded by carolyn_martin.

4 times last night Cooper woke up. i think he knows i've been thinking about cutting off his night time snacking. but each time i went in his room he was up on his hands and knees rocking back and forth. i think he's going to crawl really soon. no more teeth yet but lots of drool.

Cash update

cash continues to show interest in potty training. he is really good at going both #1 and #2 in the potty and can tell us when he needs to go. we have discontinued sending him to daycare in underpants though because he still doesn't like to use Sylvia's toilet so he comes home with dirty clothes every day. when he is home on weekends we can get him to go but if we go out he wont go to the potty anywhere else so we still have to wear diapers. we aren't rushing it and since we know that he can do it i think he'll do it when he's ready.
he absolutely LOVES his matchbox cars. he especially loves to have tow trucks or dump trucks - basically anything that lets him use two cars at once!
he's still testing boundaries but bedtime and drop off at school are no big deal and i would say he even enjoys both now. he has started doing this thing where he screams to get attention whenever i am trying to talk to someone else - its awful and ear piercing.
overall he is a great kid and we'll keep him for another 6 months at least.

Things Cooper does at 6+ months

Cooper is doing a lot of new things:
sitting up for periods of time unassisted
getting up on his hands and knees and rocking back and forth
eats a lot: besides baby food he eats cheerios, bananas, peaches, yogurt
takes a really good 3 hour nap in the afternoon. in the mornings he usually naps in his carseat while we are out running errands.
he has started taking a bottle of formula at daycare (what can i say)
loves his blankie. i don't know what it is about the Martin Jrs but we all love our blankies. coop is no different. if he's sleepy and i hand him his blankie he'll snuggle down into it and loves to bury his head in it while he's sleeping (just like his brother).
of course he loves his brother but now he's becoming a bit more of a menace. he steals Cash's cars and trains often and they go immediately to his mouth.
his skin is so much better. no rashes since we've started using Dove soap for baths and hair and Eucerine original for moisturizing.