Thursday, August 28, 2008

6months already

it is so hard to believe that our cooper is 6 months already. i remember just last summer while studying for boards, eating tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots in italian dressing what the little someone was going to be in my belly. dreaming of all the possiblities this little creature could become. I would sit and stare at this picture of his/her face wondering what it face was going to be like, who's eyes would he/she have. would there be hair and would i know how to mother... so any things and so many thoughts and here we are here we are a year later and Coop is 6 months already...


When he was born - after17 hours of labor and 2.5 hours of labor i was so overwhelmed. the poor boy didn't have a name for 8 hours because we couldn't decide. it is such a big decisions that literally effects a child for the rest of their life. i didn't know how to make that decision!!! now we couldn't imagine him being anything else but Cooper - coop or coopie








I have had to go through clothes again to pull out more things that do not fit him. it is sad in a lot of ways to see just how big our little coop is getting and how fast. I remember looking at some of the clothes thinking "he'll never fit in these" and here they are too small already!! and we never even to got see him in premie clothes and only about 1 week of newborn clothes (he was a oinker at 8lb 14oz!)



He really is a great kid! we can't complain too much. he cut 2 more teeth over the last week so he hasn't been his usually happy go lucky baby. meaning he cries a little more and wants to be held (esp when he naps) but still he is amazing. We like to say he is 'high maintaince' but we know he is far from it!!! only thing he is high maintaince about is eating - still won't take a bottle from his mama (as kev says he want the booby milk) he takes the bottle great from other people though (thank God!) in the last few weeks he has also got to adventure into eating food - he has tried squash, carrots, green peas and green beans. He doesn't really like any of them much at first but he always wants more!!!

He has mastered the art of rolling around and has started the army crawl places. In ways we are surprised he doesn't crawl crawl yet - however we know life changes once that happens so we wouldn't hurry him too much!!! :)

He just loves to be outside. We have found when all else fails in trying to get him to calm down and stop crying we just bring him outside and lay him on the grass and he loves it. He will lay there on his back for 20 minutes with his arms out just in awe of the sky, trees and heavens above. He really seems to be at peace when he is out there.





You can see here that about 5 months he was completely bald and started to grow back his blonde locks of hair - just like his papa!!!
















He has developed quite the personality these days!!! He can make us laugh for hours. He has a jumper-roo that he absolutely loves (thanks hallins!) he can jump forever in that think and do his 'irish jig' dance in it! We can also make him laugh by putting the blanket over his face and saying "where's cooper? where's cooper?" pull the blanket away..." there he is!!!" he'll laugh everytime!!!!! it is hilarious!!!!


thanks for taking a little walk down the months of cooper - we love him so much!!!!! Enjoy his smile as much as we do!!!!!!

Monday, August 11, 2008

kidney follow up for the wee-man!




as many of you know when i was pregnant they noticed something called 'pyelectasis' on my prenatal ultrasound. it is a collection of fluids in the renal pelvis (kidney). they monitored it closely while i was pregnant and it stayed present but his kidney continued to function fine - noted by the amount of amniotic fluid present (which is urine from the baby) since we was born he was put on a low dose of amoxicillin to help prevent a urine infection - which can be associated with the fluid in the kidney. we had to bring him in at 5 weeks of age for follow up. he had to have a kidney ultrasound - which showed the left kidney to still be enlarged with fluids. A VCUG - which checks for urine reflex (where the urine would back up from the bladder to the kidney - not good can cause an infection) NOT PRESENT! AMEN! he also had a lasix renogram - which monitored the function of the kidneys. this looked good too - his left kidney was still a bit sluggish but working great. we met w/ dr. shukla - the ped urologist who gave the okay to stop the amoxicillin (poor cooper he loved this stuff!) and he said then that he wanted him back at 6 months for a follow up ultrasound to monitor the status of the left kidney.




well 6 months has already come believe it or not! we went in last week and this time he only had to have the renal (kidney) ultrasound and we met w/ dr. shukla. the US still showed that he had fluid on the one kidney thought it wasn't worse. Dr. shukla was happy with it and wants to keep monitoring cooper so we'll go back when Cooper is a year old. Dr. S was also happy because cooper hasn't had any infections or illnesses since he was born. Cooper did wonderful and loved not having the catheter and IV placed this time. It was also fun for mom because he got to see all the people she works with!!!
Also Cooper was 18 lbs!!! we take him in on 8/13 for his 6 month check up!

meeting new family and saying good-bye


Cooper and his cousins slate and sierra


one of our favorite days of the summer is when our family dana, mark, slate and sierra come home for the summer from kenya and our least favorite it when they have to go. sadly enough we had to say our goodbyes last weekend ofcourse w/ lots of tears. Cooper fell in love with his auntie and cousins this summer and misses them so much! ofcourse we do too!!! we are already counting down when they get to come back!!! 10 months! june 2009 - to think of how different he'll be then!!!
Cooper and great auntie dana


one fun part of them being here is all the new family cooper got to meet -his great aunt annette, his cousin kacey and her daughter (his 2nd cousin once removed i guess is the term) ainsley. we did all sorts of fun things this summer when everyone was in town - bbq, downtown days, ride on the light rail, swimming, twins games and so much more!
Cooper with GGma (great grandma joan) and Ainsley


Cooper with great auntie annette, cousin megan and great auntie ginny


Coop also got to see his cousins madison and ella when they came down to visit and skate at their skating competition. he was super excited to have them at his house and for them to meet his kittys - lucy and gracie! They even did a dance show for him at auntie courtney's house and he laughed and laughed and laughed!!!


cooper and madison



cooper and ella



here is a link to check out even more pics of our man cooper!


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045591&l=c083e&id=63804669