The Gummy Grin!

Check out the devilish smile on my little angel.



I thought Cooper only looked like his Daddy. Then he started smiling and now I can see what he got from me; a devious, crooked grin that says, "I'm up to no good! My own shenanigans crack me up! HA HA!"



He also got my rebellious hippie nature. Power to the people! Right on!



And there's even some 'theatre' in him. Look at this Broadway bound baby! "Clang! Clang! Clang! Went the Trolley!!!! Ah Cha Cha Cha!!!!"



And he loves monsters. Look at him staring up at his Red Sox Green Monster mobile. We feared that perhaps those rotating Wally dolls might frighten him. He digs it the most!



Yeah, he still looks like his dad. But I'm starting to see myself in him, too.

What's That Up in the Sky???

It's a BIRD!



It's a PLANE!



No. It's SUPER COOPER!



Currently weighing in at a whopping 10 pounds & 4 ounces, (WOW!) he's CooperSized! The nurses at the pediatrician's office were practically high-fiving me.

Way to put it away, kid.

Being Your Mom...

Of course, being your mom has changed my life.



Being your mom means not sleeping very much. This is kinda tough. I love to sleep. I'm a big fan of sleeping, dozing, napping and dreaming. But when I see your little bell-shaped mouth smiling up at me, I'm fine with getting up at 3:13am and trying to appease you until 5:44am. Plus, we can browse through all that cable has to offer in those wee hours of the morning. But I think we can both agree to never watch 'The Brothers Grimm' again. Yeah...not so good.



Being your mom means talking in silly voices and singing utterly redonkulous songs made up on the fly, such as "Burp It!"
(sung to the turn of Devo's 'Whip It')

"When you've eaten for too long,
You must burp it!
When your tummy's feelin' wrong,
You must burp it!
Burp it up!
Into shape!
Don't miss the bib!
It's not to late!
For you to burp it!
Burp it good!"



Or 'Take a Bath, Wash Yourself,' (Sung to the tune of Mystikal's 'Shake Ya Ass.')

"Take a bath!
Wash yourself!
Take a bath!
Show me where the soap is at!!!"



As I watched my mom (your 'Grannemarie') leave on a plane to go back to New England, my heart felt like it was breaking in two. I'm going to miss her so much. She's my mom. She raised me. She comforted me. She used to get up with me in the middle of the night and sing 'You Are My Sunshine.' And now there's country between us. It's just the way things worked out. I wish she lived closer.

Being your mom means understanding that someday you may live far away from me. Being your mom is knowing that I'll always be there for you. Being your mom means loving you. Therefore, being your mom comes naturally.

To My Son...Happy 'One Month' Birthday

Dear Cooper,

Today you are a month old. Oh. My. Gosh. That went by really quickly. You're already growing up too fast. You flip yourself over. You hold your head up. You push yourself up with your uber powerful legs. You've started cooing and even smile (but ONLY when you're asleep! What's so funny when your sleeping, huh? Why is it not funny when your awake? It's some joke, right? I don't get it). Has it really been a month? I fear that I'll blink and all of a sudden you'll be a ten year old asking me for cash so you can go to the movies to see 'Spiderman 6' or buy the latest video game. If it's 'Zelda,' mom will play, too. If it's 'Madden,' see your dad.



I love the way you look at your father and me. You study us. You also study the kitchen window, the lamp in the corner of the living room and my artwork. You seem to like my paintings. I hope that's true. Art critics don't mean squat to me, but it would set my universe a glow to know that you enjoy mommy's pictures. Perhaps you'll paint yourself someday.



You adore your 'Grannemarie.' Well, heck, what's not to love? She's great at holding you, entertaining you, walking you around and she's already spoiled you with fashions from Baby Gap. Your lucky to have the grandparents you have, kid. On both sides of the family, you hit the jackpot. They all love you tremendously and your first month of life has been amazing for all of us. I don't often use this word because the meaning changes from person to person, but you are a blessing.



Sometimes when you love someone so much, your chest aches in a special way. It's like your heart floods with love and it feels as though it's growing too big. It's the most powerful emotion you'll ever experience. You'll feel it some day. I know you will. For some, this feeling makes them weak. But it makes me feel strong. There's only two people in the world who inspire this huge feeling inside my chest, your father and you. I love you both more that I can find words to say.

Happy One-Month Birthday, Cooper.

As I keep repeating every time you're eating (because I KNOW that's when you're looking right at me and paying attention to what I say), Mommy loves you...mommy loves you...mommy loves you.

For a bunch of new Cooper photos, click here to visit Flickr.

Nickname BONANZA!

Jakob saw Cooper dressed in this outfit and asked him, "So...when's tee time?"



We've come up with a myriad of nicknames for Cooper.
Some of them are lame (please remember that we ARE sleep deprived).

*Super Cooper
*Cooper Hero
*Cooper Star
*Cooper Sized!
*Mini Cooper
*Coop Doggy Dog
*Coop de Ville
*Pooper Cooper
*Cooperdee-Do
*Cooper K.
*Coop
*Farty Boy (Some nicknames are descriptions)



Feel free to contribute any silly nicknames of your own. Perhaps we'll use them. Perhaps later, when he's a teen, our son will use that name for his garage band. (Or a more realistic scenario would be that our son becomes irked at the sound of the nickname and harbors slight resentment to you for ever coming up with it.)

Either way, we're making memories!

Welcome to COOPER'S TOWN!

The National Baseball Hall of Fame is in Cooperstown, NY.



To celebrate Cooper K's upcoming "I've-Been-Around-For-a-Month" milestone, my husband Jakob wanted to create a sign for Coop's nursery. I got a canvas and some wood letters and whipped up this city sign for "Cooper's Town." The circles around the border are actually little baseballs.



Someday, Jakob will take Cooper to the real Cooperstown. Picture it...a father and son talking baseball and taking pauses (long, pregnant, pensive pauses) as they reflect on the woes of Red Sox past, present & future.



I know Jakob is torn. He doesn't want Cooper to become a potty mouth, but the temptation to teach him to say, "Yankees SUCK!" is hard to resist.

So Fresh & So Clean

Dear Cooper,

Things just keep getting better.

Your umbilical cord leftovers finally fell off. Fear not. I won't be making an odd piece of resin jewelry with the dried up remnants like I previously joked. That's way too weird, even for me. Your stump vanished to reveal a perfect belly button. Thus, we were finally able to have...(drum roll, please)...BATH TIME!



At first you weren't too sure about the experience. Your Grannemarie and I filled your baby bath and let you hang out in your birthday suit. Then when the water washed over you, you were in heaven. I think I saw you recalling your aquatic home in the womb from less than a month ago.



This duck towel/puppet became a good friend of yours. You made some cooing noises and kicked your legs with grand excitement. No boring wash clothes will do for you! Your bath accessories must look like fun, funky animals. You have extravagant tastes.



Then, when you were all cleansed and rinsed, I scooped you up in your blue dog bathrobe (like I said, extravagant tastes). You looked at me and your grandmother with such love. You were feelin' refreshed. You were feelin' groovy. You were feelin' relaxed. So relaxed, in fact, that you promptly shat the largest poo all over me and all over the kitchen floor. (Lesson for Mommy: wrap the bum FIRST or pay the price.) Now that's contentment! It startled your grandmother and me so much that we both laughed loudly, which I guess must have frightened you because you began to cry. At that particular place and time, you didn't like being laughed at. Our laughter ruined your post poop bliss. We apologize. I cleaned you off (again) and put you in a diaper (now that's smarts!) and in your pajamas. As I scrubbed my blue blouse in the kitchen sink with 'Toddler Time' stain remover, all I could do was think of your precious face right before it happened.



Of course, next bath time is Daddy's turn.

I love you to bits,

Ma

He Likes It

I think Cooper likes it here. Here are things that Cooper enjoys:

1. His baby swing. It repeats 'Hush Little Baby,' 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,' and 'Frere Jacques' over and over and over and over again. Sometimes I hear it in my mind even when it's not playing. Oh the joys of sleep deprivation!

2. The sound of Daddy's voice. Cooper likes the tone of male voices. He's instantly calm when Jakob speaks to him. Cooper is officially the only person who has the patience to shut up and let Jakob speak his mind.

3. His 'Binky'. Like an idiot, I thought I'd prevent Cooper from using a pacifier. I didn't want to introduce any 'nipple confusion' since I was breastfeeding and I didn't want him to get any ortho-related issues. WHATEVER! I gave him the plug. He loved the plug. The plug works. End of story.

4. His hands. Which is why we must cover them in socks.



I know it looks redonkulous, but Cooper is a menace to himself! If his hands are not covered, he claws at his face, pokes his eyes (which led to a goopy infection requiring special eyedrops. YICK!) and sucks violently on his knuckles. We bought cute little mittens for him to wear, but he yanks them right off in a mad rage. The socks, due to their length and elastic top, offer the perfect glove, even if they do look silly.

His Indian name is 'Socks on Hands.'

For more new photos of Cooper, click here to visit Flickr.

Um, could you be any cuter? Huh?

Do you hate couples who take endless pictures of their newborn doing nothing but lying around being adorable? Well if so, you should really visit another blog.



Sure I'm biased. After all, he did pop out of me. But ain't he a handsome little man? Lock up yer daughters! This one's a heartbreaker!



For more new pix of Coop, click here to visit Flickr.

13 Days Later...

You've been in my life for 13 days and I can barely remember what things were like before you got here. You've transformed everything. It's amazing.



You only cry when you really need to be changed or fed. Otherwise, you'd rather not rock the boat. You're very much like your father in that respect. You love chewing on your knuckles and fingers. You like when I sing, "Rainbow Connection," when you're about to fall asleep and "Day O" when you've just woken up. When we read the book, "Count the Animals," you tend to fart when we get to the raccoons.



You loved meeting your Aunt Karen & Uncle Andrew. I think they dug you, too. Actually, most people who meet you fall instantly in love.



But no one is more smitten with you than your father. When you are with your dad, you are content. When the two of you look at each other, there seems to be a special understanding. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever witnessed.

I never thought I'd love something that's so stinky. You are my beautiful, beautiful boy.

For more photos of Cooper, click here to visit Flickr.

Happy Father's Day

My father is the one who gave me the name for this blog. When I was an infant, I would flop and flail about like a wet noodle. He made a comic strip based on events from my childhood and called it 'Nikki Noodles.' It ran in the local paper when I was a kid. My dad has always made me feel like a superstar.

I remember being a little girl at an amusement park with my father. We went on a ride that spun around really fast. My legs were dangling from the ride's cart as we flew in circles. I was wearing flip-flops and I was scared they'd fly right off my feet. The carney controlling the ride asked everybody, "DO YOU WANNA GO FASTER?" Everyone yelled, "YEAH!" Except me. I was terrified. I screeched, "NO! SLOW DOWN! IT'S TOO FAST!!! I'M GOING TO LOSE MY SHOES!!!" My dad reached down and grabbed the flip-flops off my feet just in the nick of time. He then held me close and said, "It's ok. It's fun! Just scream and laugh!" Despite all the stress, yuck and crazy carnival rides in my life, my dad can always make me feel better. When my dad smiles, all my worries melt away.

He's my favorite artist. His work is pure. He's never pretentious. He makes art that he enjoys. He's done everything from paintings to cartoons to paper mache.




His latest passion is welded junk art. He takes trash and turns it into objects of humor and beauty. It's spectacular.
(To view more pictures of Joe Charbonneau's art, click here to visit Flickr. )



And now, he's a grandfather!

I can't wait for Cooper to meet his Grampa Joe. I know the two of them will get along famously. My dad will sing to Cooper, teach him how to draw and take him to the beach. Maybe he'll even take him to his first amusement park where he'll ride his first scary ride and learn to scream and laugh.



I love you, Dad. Happy Father's Day.

(For more new photos of Cooper K., click here to visit Flickr.)

A play-by-play rundown from the Dad...

After forty weeks of belly growin', my wife and I were belly achin' about when our little child would grace us with its presence. Even though he was due on June 9th, the high blood pressure/inducing scare of early May had left us on high alert for a month, so it started to feel like the baby was late and getting impossibly bigger by the second. So, on this past Friday (the due date), we went to our doctor's appointment knowing that if the option to induce was provided, we would leap into it that very day. A low level of amniotic fluid made that option more of a necessity.

We took the short drive down to St. Joseph's hospital to begin inducing labor. Over the next 24 hours, my wife embarked on "the hardest thing she's ever done." Thankfully, we had a dream team of nurses. First, there was The Greeter, Mary. She settled Nicole in with her cheerful and humorous demeanor, making us feel right at home.


Next came the Night Nurse, Danielle from Alabama. Nicole's labor started at 10 pm, with her contractions coming fast and furious, a minute long and a minute apart. Her water broke at 2:22 am, setting off a frenzy of contractions that Nicole fought valiantly for the next few hours. Danielle was there for all of this, and thank goodness because she eventually was able to use her powers of southern persuasion to make Nicole realize that there was no shame in her taking the epidural, because she really needed to conserve her strength for the pushing to come. At about 6 am, she took the epidural.

For some perspective, before the epidural, Nicole was 3 1/2 cm dilated after struggling all night for 2 of those centimeters, and in immense pain. After the epidural, she zonked out and was asleep for the next 2 1/2 hours. When she awoke, she found herself close to 9 cm dilated and ready to start pushing whenever the baby was ready. (Needless to say, Nicole's now thinking about becoming a national spokesperson for epidurals.)


And that brought us to the Closer, Susan. She was like that Maura Tierney character on ER, when she was Head Nurse. You know, the kind of nurse that all of the other nurses look up to, the kind that could easily be a doctor if she wanted to. Susan was all business, but at the same time so encouraging. The Closer made Nicole believe that she was the superwoman that she really is. 15 hours of labor culminated in less than an hour of pushing. In fact, Nicole had brought the baby to the precipice of birth, only to wait fifteen more minutes for the doctor to arrive, so the baby could be delivered.

Finally, at 12:43 pm on Saturday, June 10th, Nicole gave birth to our son, Cooper Kingsley White. Weighing in at 7 lbs 9 oz and measuring 20 3/4 inches long, Cooper was the culmination of the most anticipated 40 week stretch of our lives, and he did not disappoint.

Now on to the most anticipated 18 year stretch of our lives... and beyond.

For more photos, click here.

Soon. T'will be soon.

My mother-in-law sent me this photo with a note to 'hang in there.'

I'm so ready to birth this baby.

I'm thinking the grand event will happen this weekend. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow to check my bloodpressure and amniotic fluid and discuss inducing.



I'll be having my youngin' at this hispital: Providence St. Joseph's Medical Center. Their website offers a virtual tour of the labor & delivery pavillion, as well as an 'Online Baby Nursery' where you can check out the new arrivals. Our baby will be posted to the site 1-2 days after it springs forth into the world.

Thank you to everyone who has been checking in on me and looking after me. I have a sneaky suspicion that this may be my last post for a bit as I transition from el preggo grande to el mamma grandious.

Sunday In The Park With Jakob

Being so very pregnant during a heat wave can make one...what's the word I'm lookin' for? Cranky...grumpy...BITCHY! That's it! Bitchy! I'd been griping for most of the weekend. I needed an activity to make me laugh.



To cheer me up, Jakob took me to the park to blow bubbles. Here he is enjoying a smooth, mid-afternoon bubble pipe.



I like plain, circular bubble wands the best. They get the most bubble bang for your buck. Now they sell battery operated bubble blowers at the super market. Are people so lazy that they can't blow bubbles anymore? Really? You're telling me that they'd rather push a button and get a bunch of instant bubbles? Not me. I like old fashioned bubbles. Breath is what makes them live!



I dig this photo. Doesn't it look like I'm wearing the bubble as a monocle?



After the bubbles, we played a couple games of Skipbo and then we had Mac & Chee for lunch.

If you get married and have a family, I recommend doing it with your best friend.

For more bubble photos, click here to visit Flickr.

It's been hotter than a mutha lovah in the San Fernando Valley. Originally I had thought, "Oh, goody! I'll be done with this pregnancy before the real summer heat gets here." No such luck, kiddo.

Today's trip to the doctor's office was disappointing. They say my blood pressure is creeping up again and that my cervix is showing NO signs of progress compared to last week. COME ON, CERVIX! We've always been friends before. Why be stubborn when I need you most? (Insert haunting echo of the classic Firehouse ballad…"I need you nowwwwwww…More than words can say, I need you nowwwwww.")

Since it's a mere 7 days before my due date, I have a follow-up appointment on Tuesday (6/6/06…freaky!) when they'll check me again and perhaps talk about setting up a date to induce.

Induce. I kinda hate that word. For me, all I hear is a taunting subtext that says, "Your body is a slow poke."

I've been looking into some natural ways to get the ball rolling (out of my uterus and into the world) and here are a few options I've read about:

1. EAT THE SALAD
Supposedly, a salad containing romaine lettuce, watercress, red cabbage, walnuts, gorgonzola cheese & balsamic vinegar is supposed to bring about contractions. I tried this already. Nothing happened and I was still hungry.

2. SPICY FOOD
Some folks swear that if you pig out on Mexican, Cajun or Indian food than you'll go into labor within 24 hours. The drawback here is that you may end up with intense heartburn and gas as you head to the hospital. Will the nurses still provide me with loving care if I'm a fart machine?

3. DRINK COD LIVER OIL
Ewwwwwwww. Really? Let's save this as a last resort.

4. FOOT RUB
Massage therapists suggest rubbing the feet and ankles to inspire labor. I guess there are pressure points in the feet that are linked to your pelvic region. Jakob has been giving me ample foot rubs, but this is a good reason for me to henceforth request them nightly.

5. DO IT!
This is THE most popular method to bring about the birth of a baby. Sex releases a hormone called oxytocin, which causes the uterus to contract. Additionally, semen contains a substance known as prostaglandins, which will help soften the cervix. I guess I'd better go shave my legs.

If anyone out there has other suggestions, please send them my way.