The end of the 4th Trimester

Well Cooper Eric Maddex, you have officially made it to the end of the 4th trimester.  You survived.  We survived.  We couldn't love you more, but let's be honest - it was touch and go there for a while.   But we made it!  And you are growing leaps and bounds every single day.  We comment regularly that you are a little boy now.  You aren't as delicate, you are learning to entertain yourself.   You are curious and inquisitive and interested in the world around you.  You'd still prefer to be bouncing in one of our arms at all times, but you've learned to enjoy being other places for an extended amt of time.    We think you are about the cutest kid to ever walk the planet.  How did you get to be ours?

In just the last two weeks you have learned:
- To sleep on your own - you go down between 7 and 8:30 and generally will sleep 5-6 hours (this is just in the last week or so).  Mommy will usually dream feed you around 10 or 10:30 and you'll go back down until 3-4am and then again until about 7am.  We cannot complain with this schedule and are just working on shortening the time it takes you to fall asleep in your crib on your own.
- To love the swing - and not only let it calm you down when you are upset, but also want to enjoy it for 2+ hours at a time. 
- To nap.  Long, glorious, PREDICTABLE naps.  Dare we say, an actual schedule???
- To smile and laugh and coo on command.  And boy, does that make us do back flips.
- To put yourself to sleep.  Not every time, and certainly not as a blanket statement, but you have learned to be in your crib by yourself, and soothe yourself to sleep.  The longest we let you whimper is 20 minutes and the longest we let you REALLY cry is 10.  So far it seems to be working, and you still like us in the morning, so we call that a win win.
-  To love the car.  You just sit back there and smile.  Look around.  Be.  You don't "be" very many places, but the car is one that you seem perfectly content.

We think you weigh about 13.5lbs. 

You have new friends and seem to love going on outings.  You are so very happy in the mornings and give daddy your best smiles when he takes you from 630-8am.  You also just love laying on your changing table and looking at your wall map.

We are working on getting you to be more interested in toys and tummy time and are hoping you start to roll over / grab for toys soon.  You are showing signs of moving in that direction but we aren't there yet.

Mommy seems to mostly call you:  Buginator, Lambchop, Love Muffin and Buggy.
Daddy still gravitates towards:  Buddy Boy and Mr. Man.

We can't wait to see what the next month will bring.  We are simply besotted with our little boy.