My little quick study!

Our friend and neighbor, Sarah, watches Cooper on Wednesdays now since our regular sitter can only work four days per week and yesterday was Sarah's first day with Cooper. He had a fantastic day. He had a wonderful long walk which included a stop at a park and playground - a first for Cooper as he's never been on outdoor playground equipment before and apparently he was amazed by all these giant toys to climb on and swing in. While there, he was about to put his hand in his mouth and Sarah told him not to and he listened and then ten minutes later he was about to do it again and she watched him catch himself and put his hand down to his side all on his own, without her saying a word about it.

Later in the day Sarah told me that Cooper knew where his eyes, mouth and nose all were and could point them out when asked. I already knew about the nose - and had been trying to teach him mouth and eyes but had yet to see him correctly point them out so it was awesome that she was able to get him to that point in just half of a day of play and learning. We have the first set of "your baby can read" materials that my sweet mother in law sent to us and Cooper loves the reading picture cards - he loves to open and close them (they have pull-out pictures that illustrate the word on the card) and yesterday when the "dog" card was shown to him, he yelled "dog!" before pulling the picture out of the card! Way cool!!! We aren't actively trying to teach him to read or do anything earlier than usual either - believe me, we have so much going on here that I don't have time or energy to work on such ambitious goals with him so it was truly a shock and delight to see that, in spite of our passive approach, he is picking up some really cool stuff from mere casual interactions and materials.

At the end of the day, Cooper tried to skip his usual late afternoon nap but he clearly needed it - he was getting wobbly on his feet and grouchy - so Sarah took him to his room for a nap and he just refused to settle down so she took him for another walk in the stroller and he was out like a light. She brought him back in the house and we left him asleep in the stroller in the family room to be sure he got a good nap in before our friends would arrive for dinner. Well...the dog made some noise and woke Cooper up (about 40 minutes into his nap) and Cooper sat up and yelled so I went to pick him up and talk to him and he looked at me, put his finger to his lips and said "shhhh!" and then put his head on my shoulder and went back to sleep! It was hilarious! He has been seeing us say "shh!" to the dog when she barks and his other sitter, Esperanza, has quietly/gently "shh"'d Cooper when he was restless and didn't want to sleep or was having a tough time getting comfortable and then a few times when he was yelling while in the high chair...so he's figured out what it means and now he's using it on us! Too funny!

This past week has been chock full of developmental achievemtns for him, plus he cut a molar (his first) and is about to cut another one. Yet he's had the best sleep week ever which is so amazing (and so appreciated by me!).

It's hard to believe he's approaching 15 months old but seeing him grow and develop every day, displaying all these cool accomplishments is so awesome.