Cooper

O.K. as you can probably tell by my writings, I'm still trying to figure out Cooper. What does he like and what motivates him. It's easy to say, he likes Tradd and whatever Tradd likes but that's not really the whole truth. So, I've been paying closer attention to who he really is. Everybody that has seen his pic says "he always looks like he's up to something." Well, I think there's a lot of truth to that. But what I've been observing is that he's learning to enjoy ruining things that Tradd is doing or likes. Some conversation was flying around yesterday about what they wanted for their birthdays which are coming up quickly. Cooper said he wanted a "rat shooter." Well, that's only funny if you knew how much Tradd is in love with rats right now. We have four of these ugly, fake creatures around this house right now and Tradd takes every opportunity to draw them, color them or otherwise make play dough rats. So Cooper, loving the reaction he gets from Tradd when he "messes up his game," has decided he wants a rat shooter for his birthday. That pretty much sums up this little man. Constantly antagonizing Tradd. I guess it would be really funny if it didn't come close to driving me insane. Actually, I laugh at it quite a bit and the rest of the time I try to ignore it.
We changed the boys' bedroom around the other day. They have this really bad, ready to fall out or in, window in their room. We moved this huge book shelf in front of the window and moved their beds away from it. This really improved their night coughing by the way. Very glad we did it although blocking a window goes against my decorating tastes. Of course, duct tape and plastic on a broken window also goes against my tastes for interior design. Anyway, Cooper sleeps on a trundle that pulls out from under Tradd's bed. Because their bed is close to the door now, we put Cooper's away when they're done sleeping. Last night he was ready for bed and he sweetly said, "I can't find my bed. Where did it go?" Oh, how precious!! This window problem is only one of the problems with this house that we have loved but quickly outgrown. This past week we looked at tons of houses online and then decided we should just build because that would be cheaper. Well, we got a little ahead of ourselves because although it's a buyer's market and we could buy/build for pretty reasonable, we'd have to sell ours which is not in very good shape, and it's January which is not a good month, and the market has really slowed since about mid summer '07. So, we continue to wait on the Lord. This has gotten increasingly more difficult as we look around at all our projects. As much as that is frustrating, I'm quickly reminded that we have more than probably 95% or 98% of the worlds population!! Pretty humbling thought!