Some pictures...

These are some classic Christian photographs. The 1st is an image sent to me while I was at work by Tina. Christian insisted on wearing the goggles to the extent that he looked like an extra from the movie The Ringer. The 2nd photo is of Christian at Silver Springs with his Daddy as well as all of 4th grade from my school. He fed the giraffe once then refused to do anymore.

These are our serious looks. I am behaving myself so leave me alone looks. Christian, Daddy, and I went out to dinner with the Fam to Olive Garden. He did try his best to behave himself. It does help when Daddy is on one side and I am on the other. The next pic is from a birthday bar-b-que at my mom's house. He decided hats were in that day and he needed to wear it like that.

This is typical Christian. He has a certain swagger to him, might be genetic. lol. He doesn't walk he runs or in this case, strides to his own rhythm. Christian was in attendance to Bub's game this Spring. He played for the City of Daytona Beach and was on the Braves team. We ordered Braves t-shirts for us to wear but Christian had a catalog of baseball attire. Here, he was saying, "catch...oops..."

This is a visit to Breakers Park. His Daddy worked there on Sundays and we visited him. Christian loved the shooting water obviously.

Too much time has passed...

In my own defense I must say being a single mom, aquatics manager, swim instructor, 4th grade teacher, daughter, aunt, and budding whiner does take a lot of one's time. At to that, Facebook addictions and well, my BLOG has suffered. I am here to rectify that situation as it is imperative to me to document my trials and tribulations for all (2 people) to read.

It has been nearly a year since I last posted anything so I will recap (quickly) how the year has been... At the end of last summer I finally settled a lawsuit that I was involved in. A few years ago I lost my baby-pig, and by this I mean toe while crossing 45th street in Manhattan. To make a long, tedious story brief I will say the pain was agonizing, the recovery is still ongoing, but I did fare well in the lawsuit thanks to my incredible attorney, Gene Chertok. Prior to school starting I purchased a new Buick Enclave, black with leather interior. I love-love-love my car. I also gave my mother money to remodel her kitchen. It is gorgeous and she is very happy with the upgrade. My son's father and I rekindled our relationship after 8 months of him learning the hard way that the old saying "the grass isn't always greener on the other side" is a valuable lesson and not just a bumper sticker quote. The months that followed were blessed with bumps, turns and twists. Meanwhile, in my professional life I began attending workshops regularly. I became a certified Thinking Maps, Write From The Beginning trainer. I also attended a conference in Fort Lauderdale where we studied the ins and outs of Professional Learning Communities with the "founding fathers" of the concept. We immediately began to infuse that philosophy into our grade-level back at school and while it was a long road by the end of the year I did see it's benefits. Throughout all of this I, too learned a hard lesson about loaning money to friends. I may have seen multiple tv shows on the topic, stemming from Oprah to Judge Judy where the consensus was DO NOT DO IT! I was a sucker for tears and a good story. This mistake led to a rocky year on my grade level with hurt feelings, emotional co-workers, choosing sides, stories, gossip, and little girl antics. So, it might be enough to just say that like most years this one was wearing both personally and professionally.

One thing I can always count on is surprises from my darling son, Christian. After his 1st birthday he grew at rapid speed and his abilities flourished. He has become quite the dare-devil, climbing, jumping, running, sliding, and trying just about anything. He often will repeat a stunt he has seen on tv or by a peer but other times he dreams them up all on his own. Just yesterday, I hear this crash from upstairs and hurry up there to see what might have happened. My son has gathered pillow-like objects from around his room, built a pallet on the floor, climbed the railing on his toddler bed and used it as a springboard for his flying lesson. My heart leapt into my throat when I saw him fly off the bed and onto the pile of pillows. Not sure where this idea was born but he looked like he had done it before.

Shortly after hitting the pillows, he reaches for a book and drags it over to me. I believe this was a distraction technique as shortly after he ran back over to the bed for another round. He is not even 2 yet but already shows great baseball prowess. He attended all of my nephews baseball games this past season (they were undefeated), 2 Daytona Cubs games, as well as a BCU baseball game. He watched a player from Bethune-Cookman University's team slide into home and the catcher dive into the plate trying to tag him out. This incident spawned a fascination with "sliding". He will yell "2" as in 1-2-3, run around in a circle and slide into whatever ground there is. He will look up at you and wait for you to perofrm your best umpire's rendition of "SAFE" arm movements included of course.

He has also learned a lot of new words this year. "Oh GAWD, and Shit" being the least of my favorites. He has many names for people as well. I am "MommEeee", Mario is "Da-da, or Dadd-Eee", my dad is "Pop-pa", my mom is "Mom-ma or Pop-pa or occassionally Gwa-ma", my sister Shannon is "mom-ma or Nannon", Rachel was "Cock-ka" but then taught his to just say "Aun-tee". Alex is some sort of hissing noise (he taught him that), Andrew is "Bubba" of course and Kennedy is "Dee-Dee". My friends, Ayana is "Non-non", Jason is "Cool" and Shika is "SheeeeeeT". He calls Tina (his teacher), "Mom-ma or TeeTee", Alana is "Lana", Jasmine is "Jazz", Taylor is "Tay-Tay" and Meghan is "Meg" then he makes a wide-opened mouth facial expression at her as if he's going to chomp on her. Of course he yells the regulars, "no, oh-no, uh-oh, ahh-man, cup, eat, snack, pool, and Yes." He also knows many words with picture cues as well. He has a whole book that we flip through that he pretends to read. As a teacher, that is my favorite of all of his stunts.

Big Moments......

Christian is turning ONE. I can not believe that a whole year has past since Christian Michael Cooper entered into this world. I just packed up all of my maternity clothes and newborn attire. I sat on the floor in the bottom of my closet sobbing. It's surreal to see him wobbling around the house trying to run. He crawls all the way up the stairs, bangs on the glass partition, and then crawls back down. He says so many words that he clearly understands. "Dada, momma, baby, no no no, hi, yeah, gigi (grandma), hat, Ta-da (with arm movements), dog, the list goes on. He is in this crazy phase of tantrums that I am NOT liking so much. The only way to calm him down is for me to wrap him in his 1 specific blanket and rock him like an infant.
This Friday is his actual birthday and his dad and I are going to get family photos taken. Then we are going to take Christian to Sea World for the day. I will post pics soon. I hope the day goes well and I will have a heaping pile of memories to share with my baby as he gets older. His b-day party is Sunday. I rented the (new) pool for a SURFER DUDE extravaganza. We invited 50 or more people to share this day with us. I have planned out Christian's schedule that day and practiced it today to make sure he can make it thru without a melt down. His normal nap is during the party so I have had to adjust the schedule out to prevent any problems. (Let's pray that it works as well on Sunday as it did today). I am getting Christian a FORT for the living room and a play tunnel for Mrs. Tina's house. Pics will follow.....
I guess what I am really trying to say is that I am so excited to watch my lil man grow. I am so proud of him, our connection, and the time we have shared.

A 1 year old's birthday party

You'd think it would be relatively simple to plan a birthday party for a 1 year old but obviously I was way wrong or I would not be posting this. When I originally got the idea to rent the pool for the party I hadn't imagined how BLOWN out of proportion I'd allow this EVENT to get. So, between the pool facility, DJ, 2 cakes, food (simple), decorations, invitations, and partyware I have spent a pretty penny. My son's father was suppose to share in this lovely occassion by taking on 1 or more tasks but the old addage "If you want something done right then do it yourself" slapped me in the forehead. He was suppose to create a party invite that we could just print out and hand to people like a "club flyer" but it was not......ummm.....well.......I didn't like it. Here is the one I made.....

I can only hope it is well worth it. I know CHristian will not remember it but it is just important to me to throw him a nice party. I think when you know that you might not get to see them all and experience all of your child's finer moments you become obsessed with making the ones guaranteed to you, wonderful.

Picnik.com

This is an editing program called picnik. Not that I have spare time in my life but it had been fun to play with these photos.

I love learning new things. Chaya I stole a few pics to play with. I tried emailing it back to you but it kept rejecting it. Here it is........

Summer Days

Newest Lil Lifeguard

Christian visited me at work on Wednesday and then spent the whole day with me on THursday. He absolutely loves the water and this is a pic of him on my Lifeguard rescue tube.

MOE-Hawk

Well, this is known as free time gone wrong. This is a partially straightened infant mo-hawk. See, I have this strange inkling to play with my son's hair (lil hint that I need to have a daughter) while I am doing my hair. If he would just sit still and let me straighten it properly we would not have this BAD HAIR day problem. Unfortunately, he might be the first 11 month old to have ever been burnt by a flat iron. Bad Mommy! It is completely healed now but my urge to iron the poor boy's head of hair has not. Pray for me!