The Family Chatroom

(Concept basically stolen from "The Dugout: Baseball's Chatroom")

(Note: Scroll ... WAYYYYYYY down. I'm not sure why Blogger's choking on the code.)

	JakeByTheLake: Wanna play animals?
	Cooper-Man: Animals? Oh! I do! I do!
	JakeByTheLake: Wanna play animals, Mommy?
	Cooper-Man: I do! I do!
	Tammy-Nator: I've got to finish the laundry and start dinner ... sorry.
	JakeByTheLake: Wanna play animals, Daddy?
	Cooper-Man: I do! I do!
	Patter-Familias: Gee. Animals? For the thousandth time today? Gosh, what a treat. How about, I dunno, baseball in the back yard?
	JakeByTheLake: Wanna play animals?
	Cooper-Man: I wanna play! I wanna play! (begins crawling toward Jake)
	JakeByTheLake: Cooper, no crawling! Daddy, you play animals!
	Patter-Familias: As soon as I'm done, um, fixing this broken phone. (Smash! Tinkle, tinkle.) Sorry.
	JakeByTheLake: Mommy, You play animals.
	Cooper-Man: (Struggling.) Almost … There!
	JakeByTheLake: No, Cooper! Mommy?
	Tammy-Nator: Ask your Daddy.
	Cooper-Man: I wanna play!
	JakeByTheLake: No, Cooper!
	Cooper-Man: Victory! (Grabs toy animal.)
	JakeByTheLake: No! (Snatches toy away.)
	(Tumbles to the ground.) Waaaaaaaah!
	JakeByTheLake: Uh-oh.
	Patter-Familias: Jake, that's not fair! He's just a little guy and he looks up to you and you can't go and knock him over like that!
	JakeByTheLake: Sorry Daddy.
	Patter-Familias: I'm not the one you should be saying sorry to.
	JakeByTheLake: Sorry Cooper.
	Cooper-Man: (Sniff.)
	Tammy-Nator: That's right. Just be careful. Now ... have you learned anything from this?
	JakeByTheLake: (Long pause.) Wanna play animals?
	Cooper-Man: Animals? Oh! I do! I do!

Naptime Saga (a true story)

As most of you who know us know already ... naptime is quite often a struggle for Jake. More to the point, it's a struggle for anybody trying to put Jake to bed for a nap.

A week or so ago, Tam put Jake to bed for an afternoon snooze. She heard much banging and moving around, as is not unusual for these circumstances.

Then, eerie quiet.

Even his monitor went totally silent -- as in, the monitor base wasn't broadcasting anymore.

Deciding he'd somehow unplugged it, she decided to sneak in and plug it back in while he was sleeping.

Here's what she found:

Upon being discovered, he woke up ... a bit stiffly (go figure) and a tad grumpy. The hat, by the way, was not on his head when he'd gone to bed.



In some ways, the video says it much, much better than I can:

And oh, yeah ...

By the way ...

Cooper's Reasons ...

Cooper's Reasons Why Being A Baby Brother Sucks, Pt. 1 (an occasional series).

This episode: The Zoo Trip.

Here's why being a baby brother sucks. Cuz' while Big Brother Jake gets to ...


Climb the lion statues ...


Feel REAL alligator skin ...



Pet the goats ...


Eat a nice lunch ...


And play in the water ...

WE BABIES get to ...


... sit in the sand and wonder what the hell is going on. Yeah, thanks. This really rocks.

(I can't wait to drive. -- Cooper.)

He gets around ...

Cooper now sits up and even crawls, to a point. Actually, it's a very bizarre sort of crawling that's difficult to explain. He gets up on his hands -- which is fairly basic "baby," really -- but he also gets up on tiptoes, instead of his knees.

It's sort of like watching Spider-Man, only on the floor instead of on the wall. Very weird. We'll try to post video later on, so you can at least believe us.

Back to Dolphinland

A couple weeks ago, we returned to the Texas Aquarium in Corpus Christi. It was Jake's second visit to the place, Cooper's first.

As before, the Dolphins were the biggest hit. (Jake even scored a mask! Thanks Grandma Burnett!)

Ooooh, baby ...

Cooper gets dolled up for Valentine's Day.

New photos ...

Hey all, sorry about the tardiness in posting. I'll try to make up for it with a few new ones.

First, the basic shots that we had taken last week: