But lately, Cooper’s at that age where he’s difficult to take to restaurants. So when dad recently suggested that we take him to a bar/restaurant where his friend was playing music, I was obviously skeptical. However, I agreed, thinking that Cooper would last for maybe a half an hour and then melt down, necessitating a swift getaway.

As it turns out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Cooper loves live music. I’ve always known that he loves clapping his hands and bouncing around to music, but I had no idea that he loved live music as much as he did. We stayed there for a good two hours or so, and he spent the entire time either sitting on my lap, enthralled, or dancing around.

We had the greatest time, and I know that even though Cooper won’t remember this night, he’ll still keep it with him. It really takes times like this to make you remember that you’re the one responsible for exposing your kid to all of the fun stuff– it’s one of the best parts about being a parent.

I truly believe that free food makes you eat more, and Cooper proved that last year at just 10 months old when he snatched a piece of bread from me.

And a year later, at just 22 months old, he clearly felt the same way: except this time it was about the free muffins that they offered on the breakfast buffet. You would think that we taught him how to eat by constantly smacking food out of his hand, because that kid was guarding this muffin with his life.

I was watching Top Chef a few days ago, and one of the contestants was talking about “prison rules.” Tom Colicchio looked at her like she was an idiot (she is), and said something along the lines of, “well, I’ve never been to prison, so I don’t really know what that means.” Cooper hasn’t been to prison either, but I’m pretty sure he could sit down with Tom and explain it to him.

It’s weird. I had a baby, and he was adorable. He rolled around and was generally awesome. Recently, however, I’ve had trouble finding him. Instead, there’s this dude who runs around my house all day and tries to climb in drawers. He subsists on nothing but fruit and soy milk, and if you take your eyes off of him, next thing you know, he’s climbed the stairs, climbed onto the headboard of your room, and has the cordless phone to his ear, saying, “he-lloooo,” in kind of an annoyed fashion– as if he has a lot of important business to attend to, and the person at the other end of the phone is wasting his precious time by not telling him what he needs to know.

You guys, I think this dude may have eaten my baby.

My baby, who learned to walk and took unsure steps around the house, has been replaced by a dude who doesn’t know how to walk at all– he just runs full-tilt to get to wherever it is he needs to go. He races around on giant hams for feet that slap on the ground like a fat guy doing a belly flop.

My baby wouldn’t stay still for two seconds, but this dude will cuddle with me on the couch and give me big hugs that go on forever. My baby would stare at me blankly if I asked for a kiss, but this dude will lean in and go, “mmmmmmm- muah!” and kind of launch his face in my general direction.

We had to baby-proof the old house, because my baby had a death wish. This dude likes to figure out how things work and helped his daddy put together a grill yesterday.

He calmly tried to figure out how everything worked, while daddy put things on backwards and lost parts. The dude also made sure that everything was working properly, and that Luke checked his work.

Each new word he says and each new skill he learns is replacing the baby I fell in love with with a boy who never ceases to fascinate and amaze me. It’s an interesting tradeoff. He won’t sit still in restaurants anymore, but he’s always waiting at the door for me when I come home, and squeals, “mommy!” like he hasn’t seen me in ages. My dude is pretty great.

So the “city” in this installment is strict Muslim state, Abu Dhabi. Sex and the City in Abu Dhabi. You guys, I don’t even need 10 seconds for this.

Americans: We really don’t give a fuck, do we?