Sunday, July 30, 2006

Cruising right along

Here is a quick rundown of Luke's days these past couple of weeks:


On Cruise Control

Luke spends much of his days cruising around anything he can hold on to. He laps the coffee table countless times a day. He has yet to brave the open range sans handrail, but give him a couch to hold onto and he can run like the wind!



Hardhat required

He also insists on knocking down any pile of blocks that dare to stand tall. A sure way to get him to come over to your side of the room is to stack some blocks there. Get outta his way quick! He'll be on demolition detail.

Puppy Love

Luke and Cactus get along splendidly so far. Luke gets very excited when Cactus comes near, and Cactus does a good job feigning interest in the short human. She sits there very calmly while Luke attempts to pet her (mostly smacking her on the nose) and she is always nearby for mealtime to help me clean up the floor. Luke does this really fun trick where he throws his food on the floor, especially if he doesn't like the particular item. (I just love that trick, almost as much as I love the one where he smears food in his hair.) Cactus is always there for all my floor cleaning needs. Good girl.

While we are on the subject of eating, I'll tell you about another one of Luke's great tricks. This isn't new, but has become more prevelant. He picks up a chunk of food and chews it for a while, then spits it out. Then he picks up another chunk of the same food, chews for a bit, then spits it out. A big grin on his face follows, and why not, it's a good trick. Repeat ad nauseum. I try very hard not to encourage him by smiling or laughing, but sometimes I just can't help it. It is pretty humurous to watch. We have a few theories as to why he does it. One is that he is teething and the cold or tough food feels good on his gums while it is still cold or has texture. Then he spits the warm and smushy bite out to exchange it for another cold piece of food. My guess, however, is that the most probable reason he does it is that he thinks he needs to slim down his chubbles a bit, so he emplores one of the Hollywood diets of chewing food but not swallowing it, and instead spitting into a napkin. Well Luke doesn't use a napkin, but he is plentiful in the chubbles, so maybe this is why. Regardless, again, Cactus enjoys the fallout.


Atlas imitation

Luke loves to play catch with his bouncy ball. He is surprisingly good at throwing the ball, and very good at catching it as well. (By "catching it" I mean as it is rolled into or nearby his lap.) He also loves chasing the ball around the house, like a neverending game of fetch, minus the ball return. He must have learned that particular little "only fetch, no ball return" trick from Cactus. For any college recruiters reading this, let us know when you'd like to set up a time to watch Luke run drills.

I'm so confused...

Sometimes we play seemingly sneaky tricks on Luke, like putting his toys on top of the glass table while he tries to get them from under the table. It's my secret revenge for all the food throwing and smearing.


Earlier this week, Louis left for work giving Luke an assignment to successfully drop a colored peg into a hole in the hood of his toy car. He has a walker that looks like a pretty cool car and talks to you when you play with it. When he came home that afternoon he saw him slamming the pegs through the hood of the car a couple of times in a row. Friggin amazing. He dared us to try and get it on video so we did.





I must say we were amazed. The next day Louis gave him an assignment to construct an 20-sided regular polygon using only a ruler and compass. We haven't heard back from him on that one yet. That oughta keep him busy for a few days.

Monday, July 17, 2006

11 Months Old

Zoom in and check out the two Chicklets in my mouth!


This week marked Luke's 11 month birthday! He has been very busy this month doing all sorts of exciting things. He has grown lots of hair on his head, and we now discuss when he'll need his first haircut. (I think we should grow it out so I can braid it into cornrows.) Also, he has sprouted three more teeth for a total of 5, and I am pretty sure one or two more are just waiting to pop out. He won't always let us in his mouth to feel around, but sometimes we can count the tooth impressions from the bite marks he leaves on our legs or shoulders. Unfortunately for us, that wasn't a joke. Here he is chomping down on a teething biscuit, dripping in its gooey goodness.

Mmm yummy! But not as yummy as mom's finger...


In medical news, his hives have all faded away, although it took almost a week for them to do so. Here is a picture of the hives at their scary, fiery crescendo:

Dermatology textbook page 236 (this picture makes me itch)

Yeah, they look bad. But he never seemed to act as if they bothered him, thank goodness. This picture may be a bit misleading since it was taken after two ill timed activities. First, Luke and I had just finished up a long walk, with him strapped in the Baby Bjorn, in the hot as all heck heat. Then, I gave him a bath. I thought I was being oh so smart by not using soap, thinking I wouldn't chance it adding to his skin irritation. But afterward Louis got home and mentioned how the heat from the walk and the bath probably made the hives worse. Oh yeah. The heat. Oops. Sorry Luke. I suck at this sometimes...

One good thing that came from the bumps was that when we were out in public everyone kept their distance. Usually all sorts of people like to touch him and poke him and try to get a smile out of him. But the bumps sure took care of that. They were like our own private bodyguard. I got a few slyly dirty looks from people, as if they wanted to say for me to keep my funky kid at home and away from their kid. I don't blame them, I don't want their kid's cooties either. Everyone should just keep their own cooties to themselves. I could have volunteered the fact that he wasn't contagious, that they were just hives, but I didn't. And it was great...

Until the bumps started to fade. They unfortunately began to turn a light purplish tan color and looked like fading bruises all over his body. And then we started to get dirty looks from strangers for entirely different reasons... We wanted to tell them that Luke just performed really poorly in a recent paintball game, but we didn't think they'd buy that excuse.

Here is a picture Louis likes so much because the two hives near Luke's eye resemble a gangster's teardrop tattoos. Luke likes them because it ups his street cred.


Yo, what you lookin' at?



In this last month Luke's crawling has improved a lot. For months he got around by army crawling on his belly, and we always felt bad for him because 1.) we have wood floors and it looked like it hurt, and 2.) he looked like he was paralyzed. (It sounds terrible, but it looked just as terrible.) And 3.) it wasn't very efficient. He could get to about 50% of the places he wanted to go and would often get stuck and frustrated that he couldn't go further. Now his crawl looks like a more traditional 4 limbed crawl, but, again, with gansta style. He sometimes pulls one leg under him and drags it along, like a strut. It doesn't slow him down at all though. He can be lightning fast. And now he can get to almost anywhere, and 100% of the places we don't want him to go. Like into Cactus' food bowl and doggie door. And the bathroom trash (ewww). And the toilet, especially useful to pull up on (double ewwww). And the ever irresistible kitchen cabinets. Oh, and let's not forget the stairs!

Luke also spends lots of time chasing balls and our mini radio controlled car around the house. See this pic below. He gets very determined when he chases the car, hence the serious look of concentration and the pursed mouth. This picture also shows how he tucks his leg under him when he's locomoting around the house. All in all it's been an exciting month in the life of little Luke, and the fun is sure to continue. Hopefully the hives don't.

Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of a... oooh hey, is that a Cheerio?!


Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Superfunk

Pink polka dotted funky Lukester

Today we woke up and noticed Luke had a mosquito bite on his face. And one on his arm. And another one on his arm... and on his leg... and a bunch on the other leg... Hmmm. I don't think that could be mosquito bites. Fleas? No... we'd all have some bites, and these bumps are much bigger than any flea bite I've ever had.

Is this a rash?

Well, let's just wait and see if it gets any worse.

Tick tock, a couple of hours pass by.

5o or so bumps later, we're calling the pediatrician's office. They say we'd better bring him in, let the doctor take a look at it. Oh, and by the way, can you use the side entrance please?

Um, there's a side entrance?

Yes, it's around the left side of the building, around the brick wall, up the stairs.

Uh, ok, sure...

My first thought is, "Oh, a side entrance, that's cool. Like for celebrities."

Then a half second later I realize they want me to take my baby through the side entrance. Of a pediatrician's office. As in they want me to avoid the regular waiting area, itself a veritable petri dish of childhood communicable diseases. Oh no, this can't be good... your kid has to have a special kind of funk to make you go through the side entrance. Yikes.

So we go, and by this time there must be 100 or more bumps all over his body. I'm praying it's not chicken pox... and I rack my brain for any stored away rash knowledge, to no avail... and what exactly is ringworm again? 'Cause I don't think it is really worms...

The doctor takes a look and says it is just hives. Just hives. I couldn't think of any new foods he'd had, or new detergent I'd used... (Although I neglected to tell her about the spider I think he may have chased down and eaten the other day. I hang my head in shame as I write this.) The doctor said it is probably a reaction to the antibiotics he just finished for the ear infection he had last week, not an uncommon occurrence, I learn.

Well, that's good right? No chicken pox. No ringworm. No contagious funk? Everything is fine, she says. Give him some antihistamines for a few days and it'll be ok.

He doesn't seem itchy at all, and the only people the bumps seem to have bothered are me and Louis. So the day turned out ok. Just an average, harmless, scare the hell out of your parents and turn our few remaining brown hairs to gray kind of day.

Happy Tuesday.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Happy Independence Day

From the three amigos - Martin, Luke and Zach.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

10 Months Old



Luke turned 10 months old on Father's Day, and that made for a double fun day. (Well, if you consider painting the living room fun.) Luke commisioned a personalized coozie especially for his dad. What a thoughtful boy, he knows just what his father would love- something to keep his beer cold.

#1 Dad and son. Pickle eating contest... Round 12

We spent the day painting the living room and Luke was a big helper. He pulled himself up and back down his Luke-sized ladder while Louis worked on the bigger boy ladder.

Ladder Day Paint

Later that day we took Luke swimming in a big kids pool for the very first time. We bought a floatie for him and lubed him up good with gobs of sunscreen. He enjoyed the water, although he held on pretty tight at first as we floated around while holding him. Then we put him in his new floatie and he seemed to enjoy that as well for a while. But it went all down hill from there after the first time he lost sight of either of us if we went under water. He didn't enjoy that at all. I'm pretty sure my Jaws shark imitation didn't help matters either.

Lukey Rotten (sporting sunscreen spike)

Johnny Rotten


"It's Merman Dad, MerMAN!"

This last picture was taken last week when Luke first discovered that the kitchen cabinet doors open, and all sorts of treasures are waiting inside. The first time he opened the cabinet his eyes got really wide and sparkled as all sorts of naughty thoughts entered his mind. What else is there to do at that point than to pull everything out and bang it around? The metal mixing bowls are his favorites, of course, as they make the loudest racket.

Pots and Ham