18 Months Old on Easter!

Happy Easter!

This year we celebrated Easter by having brunch, a late afternoon shrimp boil, and an egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's.  We were joined by Uncle Clint, who came down from San Antonio, and our friend Dana.  Everyone enjoyed the brunch cooked by Grandma.  Cooper ate a huge meal of scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage and fruit.  After brunch Cooper ran into the living room and discovered what the Easter Bunny left him.  He exclaimed, "OH WOW!"  when he saw the mini wagon, bubble gun, Thomas the Train toy, and hot wheels cars.

Next we all trooped outside so Cooper could hunt eggs.  He got mad at first b/c we were trying to steer him into a part of the yard (where the eggs were hidden) that he didn't want to be.  He got into the hunt pretty quickly though when he found out how fun it was to find an egg and place it in the basket.  Every time he found another egg he would  exclaim, "OH!!"  He also quickly discovered how much easier it was to put the eggs in the basket instead of trying to carry 4 or 5 eggs in his hands.

Sunday also marked Cooper turning 18 months old.  At his well-baby appointment this morning, he weighed in at 25 lbs, 4 oz, and was 33' long.  That puts him in the 75th percentile for length and 50th percentile for weight...He is a steady Eddy as far as his growth goes.  I suppose the biggest development for Cooper right now is language.  He seems to pick up a new word at least every other day and is in the beginnings of stringing words into phrases.  It is hard to remember every last word he knows but a few of our favorites are:

Daddy, Mama, Ralph (our dog), Le-le (next door neighbor Layla), Pa-Pa (Grandpa), Nana (banana), ball, buppo (hippo), fruck (truck), gar-gar (car), bebes (baby), bubbos (bubbles), ook (look), off, yeow (what the kitty says), gog-gog (what the duck says), and choo-choo (what the train says)

His phrases include "all gone", "all done", " oh wow!", "uh-oh", "oh no!" and "ew gross!" and "bye-bye" but he says it with a southern twang and follows it with a "mmmmuh!" while blowing a kiss.

Cooper also likes to brush his hair when Mom brushes hers, and grab anything somewhat flat with buttons (like the remote control) put to his ear and say with zeal, "Ello!"  He can also give you five, eat with his fork (even though he doesn't like to), color, and he loves to flip through his books all by himself.  He has developed somewhat of an obsession with Thomas the Train and we made the mistake of letting him watch the one Thomas dvd we have.  Now he runs to our room, turns on the dvd player, and if the remote is in reach, turns on the tv, snuggles up against our pillows, and watches it.  Then he pitches a huge fit when I turn it off or try to get him to do something else.  Last night we closed the door to our room so he couldn't even go in there and he flopped himself down on the floor by the door and screamed for 15 minutes!  I can't believe I am already having to put my foot down when it comes to tv watching!

That is Cooper in full-swing toddler mode in a nutshell!  Next I suppose is the terrible twos, which I think have already started!