A Parent's Love

I think that I am learning more and more about my heavenly father by being a parent myself.

When Cooper was born I really thought that I loved him - and I did - but now that he has been in our lives for 4 months now, I love him so much more intensely than I did the day he was born. The love that I have for him grows so much each day as I see him grow and develop. My friend Jessica once described the love that she had for her daughter as fierce and I didn't totally understand what she meant until I had a child of my own, but now I get it - I really get it.

Also since this love has grown, my fears that something will happen to Cooper has also grown. I know this fear is not of God so I have been saturating myself with scripture lately. Meditating upon the love of God this morning, I can't imagine what it must have felt like for our Heavenly Father to see his only son on that cross. Scripture says that God actually had to turn away. How painful to be able to prevent your child from pain and suffering but know that they have to endure it. I just can't imagine.

Furthermore, how much my father loves me! How beautiful is his love for me that he would let his son - his only son - to die for me. I can't imagine loving someone more than Cooper, much less let him give his life for someone who may shun him, turn away from him, even curse his name. Knowing how much I love my own son only exemplifies to me how much my heavenly father loves me. I've always known this but now I get it - I really get it.

New Adventures

In the doorway jumper. Thanks Auntie for the fun toy! The noise you hear in the background is Sean. Cooper was laughing at Sean doing this until the camera came out... maybe next time! The giggling beforehand resulted in hiccups, as always. You may also hear me breathing...sorry, I have a cold! Parker also wants to be heard - you will hear him barking.

And eating rice cereal for the first time. He made the most horrible faces every time the spoon came close. Cooper is not sure what eating with a spoon is all about just yet.

Notice the furred brow in the first two and the obvious unhappy cries in the second two.

For Nana and Papaw

Nana and Papaw... these are for you!

Addison (and Parker) having fun in Cooper's Pool. She absolutely had the best time calling for Parker, "Doggie, Doggie," giving her best shot at throwing water on him, then laughing hysterically!

Eating toes...thanks for teaching me this Nana.
And in the church outfit that you bought him.

To nap or not to nap?

4 month check-up

Cooper went for his 4 month check-up today.

New stats:
Weight: 14 lbs. 13.4 oz. - 50th percentile
Head circumference: 15 3/4 in. - 10th percentile
Length: 25 1/2 in. - 75th percentile

Lia (yes, the same Lia from the Olympic party - we're lucky enough to have her as a friend and a pediatrician) said that he's definitely built like Sean. Okay, he's really like a mini Sean anyway. As you can see from previous picture posts, he looks like him too!

On a more serious note. I am asking for prayers for Cooper. We haven't blogged about this before because it is intensely personal to us. I still don't want to go into a lot of details but Cooper was born with a slight birth defect. It is something that the body can correct itself but if not corrected by 6 months, can lead to further complications. So far, it has not corrected itself and Lia referred us to a specialist today. If it doesn't correct itself, Cooper will have to have surgery to fix it in the next couple of months. Lia said that it is a fairly simple surgery but the fact that my baby will be taken from me, put to sleep, and cut upon absolutely breaks my heart.

If you are reading this blog, please offer up a prayer on behalf of Cooper. As our pastor said yesterday, "There is no limit to what God can do." He alone can heal our precious baby boy and I've been on my knees every night with that request.

We Won the Gold!

Well, I think it's really only glass...

Friday night, our friends Ned and Lia (and Anna Rose!) had an opening ceremony/Happy Birthday Lia party. We were supposed to dress representing a country. We chose Japan because Sean's dad visited there and brought us back Kimonos - easy costume choice. Now, I admit that I'm not the craftiest person ever but I was quite impressed with my skills with computer graphics and iron-on transfer paper to create the boys' headbands and Cooper's onesie. I was even more excited that we won the award for best costume - and there were some great costumes!

To top off the great weekend, my parents came to visit. I miss them so much and it was great to have them spend the weekend with us. Time absolutely flies when they are here and now that we have Cooper, time with them is so much more fun. They even kept him last night and let Sean and I have a date night of dinner and a movie.

Chatting with Cooper

As you can see, our boy has become quite the vocalist (wonder where he gets that?!). He's also really interested in toys now - to the point of hanging off the side of his Bumbo to reach them. He's also laughing but I can't for the life of me capture it on camera. And drool....oh my goodness the drool...

One of those days...

Have you ever had one of those days? Today, Cooper had his.

First, he woke up with his first ever bad hair day, which is hard to do with less than an inch of hair on your head. It was all sticking out in the back and sticking up on top. Me? I thought it was cute. I had to capture it on camera (Sorry for the weird lighting on the pics).

Then, all of the outfits that fit last week suddenly don't fit anymore. He has gotten SO LONG! We're talkin' midriffs and short shorts. Those sorts of things just don't work for a boy! I didn't mind so much as it resulted in a shopping trip for me. Shopping for kids clothes is SO FUN!

Last but not least, this happened:

Not the first, but definitely one of the worst blowouts. At least he ended his day with a bang!

Lazy 5 Ranch

So today, with both of us finished with all of our schoolwork and studying, we decided to take an adventure...and an adventure it was!

I'll start at the beginning. A couple of years ago, I heard about this book on our local Christian radio station, WBFJ:

I know we're not kids, and we weren't parents yet - but we're all about exploring fun places in North Carolina (there are books like these for lots of other states, by the way). We try out things in this book every so often. We love little day tripping adventures. I had been itching to try out the Lazy 5 Ranch in Mooresville. I heard that it was a very cool park. They have all kinds of exotic animals that you can see up close and feed.

Well people, this is NOT your average petting zoo! You enter the ranch, buy your bucket(s) of feed and begin driving around on the trail. We opted to take our own car (with air conditioning) instead of the wagon ride. As soon as you hit the trail, you encounter all kinds of exotic animals. Never in my life have I been so close to a zebra, a buffalo, or any of these other exotic animals. The animals are obviously well rehearsed in their job to eat the feed and try all kinds of tricks to get more. They put their heads right IN your car searching for the food!

For some reason the Emu's scared the daylights out of me. This was absolutely the first animal that we encountered and when it sauntered up to our car and stuck it's head in the window to munch on the bucket of feed that I had in my lap, I started screaming, "Don't peck me! Don't peck me!" Sean was laughing hysterically by this point. The tide turned soon though when the next animal that we encountered (a gazelle maybe!?) grabbed his entire plastic bucket with its teeth trying to get the whole bucket of food for itself. It was my turn to laugh as I watched Sean wrestle his bucket away.

We absolutely had a delightful time! They also have a petting zoo and Noah's Ark playground which will be tons more fun when Cooper gets older. He slept through the entire trail but woke up in time to look around the petting zoo. The pictures that you see of animals behind cages are in the petting zoo - the animals on the actual ranch seriously have free reign of the land that they are on. They mix and mingle together in and out of the traffic. It is definitely worth seeing!