good animals did you find it yeah you're so good aren't you you make me happy hey good morning everyone good morning how did we say hi yeah Black Panther did you see a black panther at the zoo I did not see a black panther what else did we see at the zoo good morning everyone coops and I are talking about the zoo do I see a raven we're here where's your owie we have to fix that don't we no we will we pick good morning good morning good morning we do that if we hurt if we hurt yeah correct should we should we maybe find a bandit yeah our band-aid's hard to wear I asked Cooper to tell us what animals he saw at the zoo he picked Raven and Crow okay first hi my name is what is your name Cooper you say hi my um [Music] are you amazing yeah okay hi my name is Cooper how old are you Cooper 27 46. can you tell me on that we have Cooper's speech device so we are going to use this to help talk today yep so let me go to the next one yeah is that how many days till Grandma comes home yeah how old are you 11. don't do this how old are 17. how old are you 20.
then get a job how old are you 12. are you 12. you are 12. okay um here are the things that we're going to talk to you about today oh did I write it again I'm sorry okay what does this say uh oh we're gonna talk about the zoo yeah then we're going to talk about the ow L Amtrak trains yeah then we're gonna talk about what does that say you are so smart what does that say uh okay wait did you just say ice for ice cream say it again um no say it again like you did Ice ah that's coming out right now I got Sawyer then we're gonna talk about what to say the paper star yeah and then we're gonna talk about say it on there you don't have to say that one tell us about this this is a hard one we're going to talk about what grandmother grandmother yes okay so first we're going to talk about the zoo how do we say zoo okay I want you to tell me for real five animals we sought to do can you do that for me yeah so we went to the zoo yesterday with I would say 10 000 of our closest friends because everyone in Minnesota went to the zoo yesterday it was the first 40 degree day pretty much okay we're in Wild can I show them real quick so we are in wild animals tell me five animals I'll count I can see some that we saw already what did we see brontosaurus a brontosaurus a bullfrog dinosaur a dinosaur bison we did see a bison you got one how about leave up here did we see I can see something that we saw hold on we saw ready are you ready we saw a wolf we saw a zebra did Harper get hurt outside um so Harper our little guy came in with Dad and he must have got a little owie does that make you sad yeah I think he's just fine honey I think he just had a little kid something let's finish nope sit back down so we need one more animal that we saw at the zoo so we saw a wolf a zebra zebra um we saw a buffalo buffalo and we saw penguin did we see Penguins did you love the Penguins yes you do okay what else did we do at the zoo did we whoa whoa walk yes did we eat snacks yeah yeah did we want to like penguins yeah did we roar like tigers yeah we did we did we did okay are we all done too yeah do you want to cross it off it was very crowded and he did a phenomenal job and I will tell you I'm gonna go live on my supporter page later and talk about I feel like he might be ready for like other places and I just was kind of giddy about it and scared and excited okay what's next what does this say oh oh okay you find it on here will you please find it on there uh I will can you find this one on there use your speech device and tell me what does this say find it on here go go yeah where do you want to go no you're you're gonna spell it he's making a button for it a t oh you're doing it all by yourself you don't even need me to do it Amtrak seriously make a button for Amtrak okay look at this he put his um he just programmed a button right here Amtrak all right um enough you you make me feel happy yeah you were very very smart oh my goodness okay so what do we want to say about the Amtrak let's say three things about the Amtrak do you want me to help yeah okay do you want to ride on the Amtrak yeah okay sit up please nicely nicely do you want how many days do you want I mean do you want to go I'll start over do you want to go for a little ride or a big ride okay do you wanna go overnight yeah how many sleeps do you want to go for on the Amtrak hold it up I can't see you want to go on the Amtrak for three sleeps where should we go should we go to Chicago and go to the aquarium who should we bring with us so you can pick do you want to go with just Mom or do you want to bring brothers and sisters and Dad just Mom I feel that I feel that so we can't pick we can't hurt ourselves okay are we all done Amtrak cross it off no I want you to do this again because I'm pretty sure he said ice earlier and I um I oh my gosh okay what does this say so let's do just this part we don't need to see the cream let's just say okay write it for you so there's three sounds right three sounds say it again [Music] you are so smart ice cream okay did we go for ice cream last night we did our ice cream store in Minnesota called Selma's opened up yesterday and it is the best ice cream place ever mom's getting a food truck this is tacos do you like tacos we're getting a food truck for our event that we're having oh oh so oh you're gonna eat tacos oh I'm gonna make you eat five tacos ten tacos okay we went out for ice cream [Music] did you get so he was very hesitant about the ice cream did you get vanilla or chocolate you got vanilla and did your cone have sprinkles on it yes or no yeah so he picked out a Sprinkle cone with vanilla ice cream one scoop but he didn't eat it did you Mars you didn't like the ice cream oh I'm gonna put that on here okay that's our last thing should we talk about that yeah say it out loud what is that word what is that word dude boat okay paper star where did we go how do we say paper so Cooper had such a phenomenal day yesterday oh this is you sir we went to the zoo which was very people-y and very crowded oh do you want me to write paper star I hear Winnie is she crying yeah do you want to write paper p a you don't even spell it you he's making a button for The Paper Store oh erase that one space store s t o oh r well we got one too many holes in there r e I bet there's not a button for paper star honey okay so we went um he had such a phenomenal day yesterday that we decided to do something fun didn't we The Paper Store so we went to Michael's and how much paper did you pick out not well yeah 10 million pieces but was it four reams of paper you say four and they were all different colors I have never been so blown away oh the pool we can't swim because there's snow can you say snow Yeah so we went to The Paper Store he walked in can I tell all about you ready look at me because I'm gonna tell him all about you and brag about you he walked in yeah he picked out four reams of paper okay he walked to the register yeah we did self-checkout he scanned all of his paper he put it in the bag and you waited while we paid are you amazing yeah big deal really really really really big deal I'm very proud of you yeah okay two more things where do you want to go more than any place in the whole entire world where do you want to go use your speech device to tell me you can pick anywhere to go anywhere where do you want to go where do you want to go you tell me on here where do you want to go dreams probably trains go home where do you want to go on here this is his speech device grandfather go so can you say it again push over here grandmother grandson you want to go to grandmother grandpa's house so where is Grandma right now okay where is she hey point where is she where is she oh is she in Texas and she's gonna be an airplane and she's gonna fly home so listen grandma is coming home in six days and how many days are you gonna go to Grandma's house for three days I'm gonna miss you I'm gonna cry like this when you're gone You're gonna laugh I'm gonna be like this you're gonna go to Grandma and Grandpa's house and what's Mom gonna do one two three four five six Grandma will be home in six days and I'm gonna be like this [Music] again I'm never gonna see him gone forever oh I hope you enjoy your new home this Grandma know you're gonna live with her he wants to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house they have been in Texas for how long since Christmas yeah they've been in Texas four five six she will be here in six days are you so excited yeah yes you are oh not five days you cannot cheat you are always such a cheater six days okay what's the last thing you want to talk about find it on there can you find this can you find this one or do you want us do you want to say it or find it just wait Harper please just wait Harper nope just wait Harper can you say your word please do you want to say it or do you want to put it on the device sabotaging us right now get in trouble boats do you like going on the boat yes or no okay so why do we have to wait to go on the boat what's outside yeah what's out there oh no and is it hot here or cold and then we're gonna go once the snow is all done we're gonna go in the boat do you love it and what else are we gonna do what's that thing over there what is that right there oh oh the pool and what do we do in the pool stay with your mouth um I love you do you want to be all done yeah can I have a hug okay listen to me you did so good you are a chatty Kathy like really buddy too much chatting too much talking I love you let's get a little Band-Aid for that can you say thank you to everyone tell them thank you if we hurt ourselves speaking Yeah we have to be careful we have to get a Band-Aid how do we say thank you bye-bye okay you want to watch your pad oh you want it so full sentence what's my name yes I want to eat what do you want to eat peanut butter toast go make your own toaster do you know how to do it you want me to help you so so you say mom help um help help eat okay I will help you uh I'll be right there I will come I will come right now I'll be right there I'll be right there thank you everyone for watching coops he's doing amazing so for anyone that doesn't know our story or is new maybe just entering the autism World Cooper has a diagnosis of he was diagnosed at three and a half with severe non-verbal autism with a language impairment and later other many other plethora of diagnosis that's pretty common around age eight we decided that we are just going to focus a hundred percent on him and medium where he's at he uses a speech device to communicate he uses some words he does have pretty severe apraxia which means that it's hard for his mouth to move and make the sounds so his brain is saying Zoo he's saying Zoo but it's coming out because that's the sound that he can make which is really frustrating I can only imagine how frustrating that is people ask when he said his first word it was eight oh thank you for buying my book Adele thank you thank you thank you so his first word was here is our book for anyone if this story inspires you pop on Amazon and grab this right now this is the story of us and you can read about how we got right here it's happy sad inspiring hopeful joyful touching all the things it's called Forever boy so um he said his first word around age eight really with autism his level of autism it was getting the desire to speak and the desire to communicate that was hard took a long time even today he's not conversational he's not telling us you know my four-year-old probably says 50 000 words in an hour um Cooper's a pretty quiet guy but we work really hard on bringing him into this world so yesterday we went to the zoo we went to the ice cream shop and then we went to The Paper Store all brand new all brand new things that we you know we had some really hard ears really really really hard years he had some really really hard years we dealt with all the things that you hear about aggression self-injuring I don't talk publicly a lot about those things just out of respect and safety if you'd like to have those conversations come join my supporter group when we're done with this go to my page and click on the blue become a supporter button we talk about that stuff a lot over there my topic today is going to be when I go live over there tonight is going to be about siblings we had a really big thing happen last night with our 10 year old really really really big um big feelings uh Sawyer had a moment where he realized Hooper's never going to have kids and it was really a lot of Tears a lot of Tears it just shattered my heart into five million pieces because I I can't fix it for him I can't so um big discussion about that later so if you want to come join that discussion come join the supporter page thank you all for being here very thankful for each and one of every one of you our goal is to spread awareness move awareness to acceptance have these conversations share Cooper not hide him there's nothing to be ashamed of there's nothing to be sad about he's he's thriving in his own way he's on his own timeline and we have to remember that he is who he is and it's we're celebrating him so thank you all for being here talk to you later bye-bye
2023-04-02