Okay… it’s official. Cooper has went from Joe Dirt, to Pig Pen (you know, the dirty kid from Charlie Brown). Our nice unsuspecting neighbor was in his back yard today with his 6 year old and 18 month old sons and I was in our yard raking more leaves (ugh). His baby was carefully and neatly splashing in about and inch of dirty rain water that was pooled on top of their fire pit lid (a 55 gallon barrel cut in half and buried so only about three inches is sticking out of the ground). Cooper decided to wander next door to see what all the fun was about. That’s when it happened. My grubby little curtain climber walked right over to the fire pit lid and sat in the water. Their 18 month old (Jake) wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I pulled Cooper out and he stood beside the water yelling and splashing and dipping his face in the muddy water. Great mental picture… huh? Jake just stood and watched and did a tiny bit of splashing. Cooper had mud in his ears, in his nose, all over his shirt, not to mention he was COMPLETELY SOAKING WET. He looked like I had sprayed him down with a hose, and then let him rub his muddy hands all over his face. It was pretty stinking funny. I’m not sure if the neighbor thinks I’m a way cool laid back Mom, or a weirdo with a dirty kid, but he did laugh at Cooper a lot. After about 15 minutes of filthy dirty fun, I stripped Cooper off in the garage and he took his second (third if you include the muddy water) bath of the day. Before I get hate mail from my Mom… if was 70* and so humid here that I was sweating like crazy in a short sleeve shirt raking leaves (ugh). You just have to add a (ugh) anytime you type "raking leaves".
Otey, Cooper, and I had our fantasy league baseball draft at 5:15 (ESPN computer geek baseball fan thing). It should be pretty fun. We didn’t get Albert (1st base for THE CARDINALS just in case you live in a cave)… but Otey thinks we got some good picks.
We’re supposed to meet Otey’s folks in Columbia, Missouri tomorrow so we can visit and they can see Cooper. Otey’s Mom called this evening and is afraid she has the terrible bug that’s going around down there. Plans are up in the air until we get her health update in the morning.
Off to bed. Pig Pen will be up early.
by Kathy
Laura - What… no pictures of the little pig pen?? Remember our “mud fight at Stop 16” I know your dad has never forgot!!
cody - i think it’s great that you let him explore his world (keeping a very close watch on him of course)…. what’s a little dirt considering what else he could be get into — spashing in puddles counts as good clean fun!