Caring for Cooper King

11/13/2025

Here are some SMILEY pics from the last couple months!

Coop got new glasses! Got new billy shoes! Snuck into mommy’s spot in bed! Took over pop-pop’s recliner! Started to actually rest his head down on cushions and pillows while watching tv! Visited the CHKD team and saw the OnieTonie wall near the ED.

Thanks for always showing Coopy the love!

10/14/2025

Back in September, Cooper got to attend the 2025 NEX OCEANA AIR SHOW 🌤️🛫🛩️🛬🇺🇸

Even though he wouldn’t keep his glasses on, he sure kept those ear muffs on! 🎧 Now he wont keep the stuffed U.S. Navy Blue Angels toy out of his mouth! ✈️

He got to visit our friends at the Virginia Beach Police Department! 👮🏻‍♂️👮🏼‍♂️🚁 MPO Meador and his fellow helicopter pilot even got a VBPD badge sticker onto Coop’s new wheelchair tray 👨🏻‍🦽‍➡️🧑🏻‍🦼‍➡️

Yall know we had to stop by the OnieTonie Foundation site to show our never-ending support of their mission! They were pivotal in making us feel like we had community that cared and a reason to smile! 🦀🐟🐋🐳🦈🐬

Leigh Syndrome makes doing a lot of things harder than typical households but we’ll take being able to get out of the house, into an open-air environment where it is not too hot, cold or humid any day! The elements of nature do a number on the mitochondria cells in our bodies so exposing Cooper sometimes isnt worth the risk! 💚🟩🧬🔋🪫

08/23/2025

Look! It’s Cooper!

OnieTonie Foundation provided Cooper his own mural wall in our old condo! Cooper loved interacting with all the smiling characters on the design. Unfortunately, we only had it up for several months before the condo flooded but we’re still forever grateful to the OTF family!

Glad to see big things are happening for an organization who puts nothing but smiles on faces and warmth in the heart!

04/26/2025

Little update🥰 forever blessed for this life🤞🏻🥲

04/04/2025

This organization provided our family much more than art.

Read, share, and enter to win!

If you win and require out of state shipping, tell the foundation you found their post from our page and the King’s will pay the shipping cost! It’s the least we can do for helping us help others!

😃 Win a Hand-Painted OnieTonie Mailbox!
The OnieTonie mailboxes that have been loved and sought after are now exclusively available through the OnieTonie Foundation, with 100% of proceeds supporting our outreach efforts.
To kick things off, we’re raffling off two original XL hand-painted designs:
• “Fish & Flowers”
• “Waves All Day”
Each $25 entry (not tax-deductible) gets you one chance to win.
The raffle closes Sunday, April 13 at 11:59 PM, and winners will be randomly selected on Monday, April 14.
All proceeds from this raffle will help fund our next round of Smiley Packs—spreading joy, one delivery at a time.
Winners can pick up their mailbox in Virginia Beach or choose shipping (shipping charges will apply).
To enter or learn more, visit the link in our bio.

02/01/2025

Cooper is FOUR🥳 As his mom, I feel like I could get into the nitty-gritty and make this a sappy post but luckily I got that out with his Auntie Gabby’s happy birthday FaceTime🥲 I love Cooper being 4, he’s recently mastered crawling and occasionally shows us how to climb onto the couch!!🙌🏻 His personality shows when he doesn’t care about what your saying and ignores or pushes you away😭😂 Don’t let me forget his facial expressions and eyebrow raises if you interrupt his show or try to get him to do something you want🥴🥹 We are so blessed to see another birthday and I can’t thank God enough.

-Z💖

01/18/2025

Hello to all of Cooper’s Keepers! I know it’s been quite some time since our last update but life has been hectic. Our condo we rented flooded and the King’s had to relocate! We now live with Cooper’s grandparents!

Since we’ve been in a new house, new environment, and surrounded by more love; we’ve seen major progression and we’re still so thankful for every day we get with our strong, determined, resilient, and handsome mito warrior fighting Leigh Syndrome.

We promise to start posting more, to ensure everyone who loves our baby boy continues to see what is happening in his life. A brief synopsis of this collection of photos and video.

We went to a local farm with a pumpkin patch and farm animals. We went to a Norfolk Tides game at Harbor Park Stadium. We went to the Brinson’s wedding to celebrate Aunty A and Uncle Scott’s marriage. We went to the CHOP to visit our LS specialist. We started a new medicine to help with spastic movements caused by Chorea, which has significantly helped. We went to a Christmas craft market with Mam-ma, after running into coworkers who love Coop. We went to visit Uncle Zach and Pap-pa at the cemetery. We took Christmas photos with GiGi and PopPop at home with Ashlee Shoup Photography. We had a play date with Cooper’s bestie Bella before their family got stationed out of state. We had a visit with Auntie Gabby. We went to Christmas Eve service at Wave Church with all the aunts and cousins. We celebrated mama’s birthday at a local mexican spot. We saw Coop’s first teacher at Trinity Church. Coop got a play date with other besties Arlo and Rose. Coop got to open presents with the whole family. Coop got a new bluey bean bag, which he loves to sit in and be fed. He also got gifted the foundation OnieTonie Designs Smiley pack which included this plushie (we’ve dubbed it King Coopa that he loves to chew on while watching tv.

Since living with Gigi and Pop-pop and having his own play room, Coop has learned to weight bear through his legs so well. If I told you he was not really mobile, I’d be lying. Cooper STARTED TO CRAWL! We can’t keep him still, but it’s amazing. He crawls around the whole house, yes sometimes still losing balance and bumping/bruising himself, but HES MOVING around like we dreamed of! Something doctors told us might not happen and some parents don’t ever get to see.

Yes, this post was long, consisted of a lot of words, pictures, and video but here’s an update and I promise there’s more to come soon. With all the love we have, thank you for showing us love and community.

-The Kings

05/19/2024

Super Cooper’s room is coming together!

If you didn’t know, we took Cooper out of a crib early due to his limbs going through the slats and him still trying to move with them sticking out along with the fact that he kept faceplanting into the sides and busting lips and bruising.

We had him in a Joovy pack and play because he wasn’t standing and the walls were like regular pack-and-plays so they were soft and it was great. Then he learned to get on his knees, then his feet and eventually he started to hang over the side and even got out of it and landed on the floor a couple times.

After months of trying, medicaid FINALLY covered a medical bed for Cooper! Tricare denied it and said it wasn’t necessary so they didn’t help whatsoever. This is from Beds by George, it’s the Haven. Would you believe me if I told you the bed was over $40,000? Well it is. It’s a full size mattress with an adjustable head that inclines. Other than that feature, it’s practically a big, fully enclosed, and safe haven for Cooper!

This is what his room looks like today and as you can tell from the first night when we read him a book, he loves it. All of the family fits in it comfortably and if we ever just feel like we need extra Coop time, we can sleep in there with him!

Thanks to everyone who loves and shows support.

04/19/2024

Today, Cooper is wearing red for Moves Like Jagger.

Jagger is a kid who fought Leigh Syndrome, the same terminal mitochondrial disease as Cooper. Jagger’s parents so vulnerably updated the world that they were holding him tight in his last moments, dressed in red, as it was his favorite color, likely due to it being the only color he could see.

This disease and situation is something a child, nor a parent should never have to experience but for some reason, we’re apart of the club that has to. Someone, somewhere knows we can handle it and we’ll get to see the bigger picture someday.

Pray for Jagger, his parents, little brother, friends and family that are left behind to celebrate his life and the impact that he had on not only them, but the community and world

04/19/2024

Everyone please pray hard for this family in their next steps in life and if you’re not already, wear something red for Jagger, comment or share with a photo/video showing your support!

At the family’s request, share and make sure this strong fighter lives on forever! Help people see the harsh reality these tough kids go through along with the caretaking families.

As we are cuddling with Jagger in his final moments we wanted to come up with something to show him how much he is loved and cared about all over the country/around the world.

So we are going to need everyone’s help on this one.
Would love for this to go somewhat viral, please share online everywhere you can and participate if you can.

Jagger’s favorite color has always been red, likely because it was the only color he could really see but we would love for everyone to wear or hold something red tomorrow Friday April 19th , take a pic of video and post it online.
Feel free to post it as a comment on this post or/and tag Moves like Jagger on your post/picture/video.
And if you don’t want to wait until tomorrow and do it today, it’s of course fine too.

We would love to see our Facebook go red and see some unity (in this divided world) in honor of Jagger even if just for a day.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts, prayers and for wearing red

04/15/2024

From this picture, it looks like they finally added a more ‘permanent’ solution to this broken adaptive swing and made a public announcement that it was broken.

🚨 CLOSURE NOTICE 🚨

The wheelchair swing at Mt. Trashmore will be closed for the next few weeks while it undergoes repairs.

We'll let everyone know when its available again!