Dr. Luke Svoboda: Infant Scientist

In an effort to influence future enrollment, the University of Texas conducts "experiments" on infants under the ruse of measuring cognitive responses to various stimuli. The "study" began by applying a thinking cap to Luke's noggin and injecting him with some sort of truth serum to ensure an optimal response... (well, it could have been truth serum)


After Luke was properly caulked up, he was shown random adult women faces, some more attractive than others. The electrodes in the cap were measuring his brain's response to the faces, or so that is what we were told.

Just before the cap was removed, information from various Google databases were uploaded to his brain. He is now fluent in seven languages and can move objects with his mind.

I know Kung Fu

Of course, Luke's mind is not easily influenced and he has no problem expressing this via his freshly enhanced non-verbal communication skills (otherwise known as sticking out his tongue).

Ain't no one can break me

Texas Wildflower

Look what sprouted up in my planter!

Sorry Luke, couldn't resist...

Smokin' Superbowl Sunday

We had a bit of excitement Sunday morning at our house. As we were enjoying the gorgeous weather and anticipating the Superbowl that evening, we smelled something funny... and it wasn't Luke's diaper. It was smoke. The smoke alarm started blaring and we quickly scrambled to find out from where the smoke was coming. Room by room we looked and smelled but we never saw a fire, and the smoke started to clear once we opened the windows and turned off anything we thought could possibly be the culprit. We called the fire department to help us determine what was going on, and over the phone they told us they suspected the motor of our air conditioner/heater unit was to blame. They said they'd be here right away to check it out, and mere minutes later we heard sirens getting closer. It felt pretty dramatic knowing the sirens were headed for our house. The fantastic firemen and women checked out the place, and, after doing some tests with their fancy instruments, assured us that everything was ok but to have the AC/heater evaluated by a pro.

A nice policeman pulled up soon after the firetruck and a crowd of kids on their bikes soon circled our driveway. They, along with Luke, were all given their very own City of Austin "Police Pal" badges, and Luke enjoyed feeling like one of the big boys. They all thought the firetruck was very cool.

We were very grateful that this did not end up turning into an even scarier scenario, and we must take this opportunity to remind all of our readers to check the batteries in your smoke alarms and make sure they are working properly. You just never know...

Food, glorious food!

This weekend we decided to further expand Luke's refined palate and give him his first taste of, well, anything. Until this point he has enjoyed exclusive VIP status at mom's All Boobie Cafe. Now he can add delicious rice cereal and veggies to his repertoire. Luke has shown intense interest lately in any food we eat in front of him, following the fork or spoon from the plate to our mouths seemingly without blinking. He showed similar interest in the rice cereal he received as his first meal, although you'd never know it judging by the amount that actually made it into his mouth, then stayed in his mouth, then actually was swallowed. In between bites he started sucking the food off the the highchair table with better success than eating it off the spoon. I was sure less than 1% of what was presented to him actually made it to his tummy, but judging by the 'end result' I can say he must have swallowed more than it appeared at the time. Now, you might be thinking, why must they comment on poop? Well if you are reading this then you have at least a mild interest in the daily goings on in the Svoboda household and Luke's poop is a surprisingly common topic of conversation. So, now you can feel just like you are here with us!

Rice cereal? This is what all the excitement is about? This takes like cardboard... maybe just one more bite...

And water? Is this a joke? Cardboard and water?!

Sweet potatoes! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout!

Hey kid, remember our deal, 'accidentally' toss your food on the floor and I’ll clean it up for you...

Here's a pic of Luke's other favorite pastime- playing with his toes. He likes to stare at them and hold them, and he tries to suck on them and succeeds only if his belly isn't too full. He loves his piggies.

I don't know when these little piggies get the time to go to this so-called market. They're always here when I look for them.

Five Months Old

Taa Daaaaa! Look who's five months old!

Wow, look at this dude grow. Just scroll down through the blog and you can see how far he's come. One day he's drooling and kicking all about, the next he's.... drooling, kicking all about and rolling over!

G'day Aunt Yasmine

Shortly after our last post, Aunt Yasmine came to visit all the way from the land Down Under. We had a great time showing her around town and she brought some great gifts for Luke. He loves reading his new books and playing with his kangaroo puppet. He also learned the finer points of backgammon after a marathon multiday tournament. We're looking forward to taking Luke to visit the land of the Koala one day.


Luke is starting to get the hang of many grown up things in the last few weeks:

- Sitting up for many minutes at a time (who knew a head could be so heavy).



Speaking of heavy, he has surpassed the double-birth-weight milestone. What a chubba hubba! Luke says it's just the holiday weight and he's made a resolution to hit the gym more.

- Lots of pushups (to impress the chicks with his bicep workout) and rolling over, always accompanied by cheers from Mom and Dad and self-satisfied chuckles from Luke


- Laughing (when tickled or when told the Seattle Seahawks are in the Super Bowl)

- Grabbing people's faces (especially with wet slobbered hands)




- Learning the concept of compounding interest, as seen here. (Dad is very patient)

- Laying down tracks for the album

- Making monster sounds (to scare away the real monsters or get the attention of Cactus)




Dude, nice drool, I'm impressed... let me get that for ya...

National Champions!

The UT Tower, lit in orange and the office lights on in the shape of #1

The Texas Longhorns defeated the USC Trojans 41-38 in the Rosebowl for the National Championship! Go Horns! The game was very exciting, coming down to the final seconds as Texas scored their game-winning touchdown. All of Austin erupted in cheers as the clock hit zero with people flooding the streets around the UT campus, 6th street and downtown, as well as the campus bookstores and Academy stores that stayed open into the wee hours to welcome the massive crowds hungry for their UT National Champs t-shirts.

Luke wasn't able to stay awake for the game, but he did some reading up on the Longhorns in preparation for the big event. He dressed up in head to toe UT colors and even posed for some pictures on the orange side of the beautiful half UT orange-half Texas A&M maroon blanket that Nana made him for Christmas.

Here he tries very hard to get his little fingers to make the Hook 'em sign.

In another historic event, for the first time in my life I voluntarily wore a UT t-shirt. Although I attended UT for grad school I still consider myself an Aggie at heart and stock my wardrobe as such. Since this game was an extremely extenuating circumstance, I joined the masses and wore one of Louis' t-shirts for the big day. (And surpise surprise! The shirt didn't burn my skin on contact!) I like to think the added support of Luke and me in spirited clothing helped the team to victory. Congratulations to Texas and to Austin!

Dear Blog: an apology, updates, and a promise

Dear Blog,

It has been 42 days since our last entry. We are so sorry for not updating you lately. I can list a number of reasons for our absence- sicknesses, visitors, traveling, Christmas holiday- but the fact remains that we have neglected you, and that was wrong. We have taken advantage of your patience, knowing that, as in the immortal words of Richard Marx, you'd be 'right there waiting' for our return. We apologize. We promise to try to do better. Please forgive.

XOXO,
Jen & Louis


Thanksgiving
We made our first road trip with Luke to Houston for Thanksgiving weekend. Following a fabulous dinner prepared by Nana, we braced ourselves for Luke's first ever Texas A&M/Texas football game. Before Luke was even a twinkle in our eyes we have foreseen with anticipation laced with dread this yearly rivalry and its affect on any future Svoboda babies. In particular, what would he/she wear??? Many different plans were made for this occasion, one being for the baby to wear a different outfit per half of the game, one for the baby to don the outfit in support of whichever team was the home team that year, etc. For this year we struck an agreement that had Luke wearing an Aggie onesie and socks with a Longhorn sweatpant bottom. Not exactly fashion forward, or even complementary colors for that matter, but it worked for this 'house divided' family, for this year anyway. (Pictures do exist documenting this event, but elude us at the moment). Texas did end up winning the game, barely, and is now in contention for the National Championship at the Rosebowl on January 4! Go Horns!

Dana visits from Scotland
Our good friend, Dana, visited from Scotland for a few days and brought fun gifts for Luke. One cute present was a pair of Scottish booties that Luke has been wearing throughout this holiday season. We look forward to visiting her and Reno in St. Andrews, hopefully this summer, and introducing Luke to bagpipes and The Old Course.

Plaid is back!

Yogi, Basia and Gabby visit from Boston
More good friends of ours also visited and got to meet Luke in person for the first time. We had a lot of fun hanging out with the Cohen family-Gabby has gotten so big! On one group outing with many of our friends we managed to catch all of the babies in the same photo, not a small feat I must say.

From left to right: Luke, Gabby, Martin, Zach

The Drool Squad

With their dads

Louis, Yogi, Jesse and Arthur

And with the moms

Jen, Basia, Erin and Meredith

Aunt Ariane visits from Hong Kong

We also had the pleasure of a visit from Luke's Aunt Ariane who traveled many miles to meet her new baby nephew. We all enjoyed having her stay with us, and Luke made out like a bandit with some gifts and clothes that she brought with her. We very much look forward to visiting with her and Uncle Angus, and Luke's cousins Renee and Lavinia this summer in France.

Luke and Aunt Ariane

Goodnight Ariane

Luke loves his new bear chair!

Lounging in Style

4 months old
Luke celebrated his 4 month old birthday with another visit to the doctor and the mean nurse who stabbed him again with her 'booster vaccinations'. Unfortunately, I came down with a nasty stomach virus the night before this appointment and could not peel myself off of the bathroom floor to accompany Louis and Luke, but Dad did a great job representing us both. Luke weighed in at 13 lbs. 14 oz. and measured 25 1/2 inches long, healthy and chubby and right around average according to the charts, and we'll take that just fine.



All I got for Christmas was my Daddy's cold...
We traveled to Houston again for about a week for Christmas and looked forward to a great visit with Nana and Grandpa and our friends in Houston, eager to show off Luke's increasing cuteness, smiles, and playfulness. We instead rode out the bumpy storm that was Luke's first cold. He had successfully fought off contracting the many little colds that both Louis and I have gotten in the last month or two, including the stomach flu that I had. But this most recent cold that Louis so generously brought home finally bested our little sweetie's immune system. He was a snotty, crabby, tired little baby, and after several long days and longer nights we were snotty, crabby, tired parents thankful that Nana and Grandpa were around to help. So, our plans for taking cute pictures of the Christmas baby never panned out, but here is a picture from our Christmas card photo shoot.




Other pictures of note

Playing with the wind chimes
(Lightbulb changing exercise)



That baby looks just like me!



I leave for a few hours and Louis geeks the boy out



Laundry day is a fun day!



I love my daddy



Sometimes I suck on one finger...



Sometimes two...



Birth announcement finally sent out, included with Christmas cards, but sent out nonetheless

Three Months

Here's our little cowboy at 3 months. His newest tricks in the last few weeks include:

• Blowing spit-bubbles
• Drooling like Cactus at a steak dinner
• Staring at his hands in front of his face
• Desperately trying to suck on his fingers but only regularly succeeding at sucking the side of one hand while shoving it in his mouth with the other (it's always a two handed job).
• Almost laughing
• Almost rolling over
  

We're looking forward to our first family road trip to Houston for Thanksgiving so Nana and Grandpa, Aunt Kim and Uncle Scott can witness his new tricks in person.

Hey there pretty darlin', lose a baby?

Y'all come back real soon, ya hear

Luke's Product Review

As Luke is getting a bit older he is showing interest in the toys that he previously never noticed he had. In the last few weeks he has really gotten into his bouncy chair that Aunt Kim bought him. The chair has an aquarium display filled with water, fishies and lots of bubbles, and there are two plastic fish that hang down from the display. There are two functions to choose from, one that plays different songs and lights continuously and one that is controlled by Luke's movement.

What do you mean the square root of -1 is an imaginary number?

If the fish that hang down are kicked or otherwise moved, or if the whole thing bounces, then fun sounds are played and the fishies swim and bubbles are released along with bubble sounds. I refer to this particular sound as fish farts. Anyway, Luke LOVES to play in this chair set on the kid controlled function. He flails his arms and legs, arches his back and gets the whole thing a-rockin'. It's like a video game for babies with little to no limb control. He gets a look of concentration on his face like he's solving complex calculus problems. Each time the bubbles come on he yells out one of his few noises- either an "ah-goo" or a pre-squeal. Very cute nontheless.

His other new fun toy is the Deluxe Jumperoo that Aunt Yasmine bought for him. It is a freestanding seat on four springs in which he can push off the floor and bounce like a kangaroo. On the lowest, shortest kiddo level his feet barely touch the ground, so we put a phone book under his feet. He can get much more grip that way. It took him a few minutes to figure it out the first time, but then he started standing, shaking his hips and bouncing a bit. He got so excited at what he was doing that he started yelling out like he does in his bouncy chair. Each time he is in it he bounces more and more and squeals in pride at his mastery of the jumperoo. It won't be long at all before we can remove the phone book booster step, what a big boy!






So that's what my legs are for!









In other big boy news, Luke now faces forward in his Baby Bjorn. He seems to really enjoy this position, and instead of quickly falling asleep while facing our chest on our walks he now looks around and stares at the trees and flirts with the passerbyes. Here he is pictured with Louis on our very first forward facing walk.

Wow, this is a much better view than your hairy chest, Dad.

Happy Halloween, bwaa ha haa!!

During the last week that Granny Svoboda was in town she carved us a pumpkin for Halloween and bought mom and baby little devils costumes. We outfitted the babe with his costume and the pumpkin with a candle for a dress rehearsal while Granny was still here. You can't tell from this picture, but it was pitch black outside minus the glow from the pumpkin; hence, Luke was blinded for a good thirty or so minutes after this photo op, poor kiddo.



That Saturday after dropping Granny off at the airport, we dressed up in our best 1950's duds for a themed party at the Weiss house. I demonstrated my mad hot glue gun skills (my friend Jaime would be so proud) and spruced up a vintage poodle skirt (not pictured, unfortunately), and Louis channeled Dean Martin. As you can tell from the pic, we were the bad parents who brought a baby to a party. But after a martini or two Luke just slept through the whole night, so he was no problem at all. Lightweight.



As Halloween grew nearer, the folks in our neighborhood really got into the spooky spirit and decorated their houses and yards. On one of our walks, the hair on Cactus' back stood on end and she started to growl deep and slow. Danger! DANGER!! And as I saw what she was reacting to I about fell over laughing... see picture below.
















In the same instant I was so proud of Cactus for wanting to protect me and the baby from the evil villian about to pounce on us. To get a better look at the "man", we ventured closer onto the sidewalk but Fearless Cactus did not follow, and instead pulled away to the other side of the street forcing Luke and I to fend for ourselves. As soon as we walked a few steps back away from the man, Cactus' fierce bravery returned, growls, teeth snarling and all. But then as I stepped closer to the scarecrow again, well, you get the idea... Good thing Luke's Jedi training is coming along well. After fighting the blue killer horses from outer space, this was a cakewalk. South Austin is safe.


Then Halloween came, and in an effort to regain her reputation as Fearless Cactus, it was time for her to don her killer man eating shark costume. So scary!

The trick-or-treaters we receieved, having fine palates of course, dined on their choice of an array of delectable goodies- Reese's peanut butter cups, KitKats, and Sugar Daddies. Mmm mmm good. We greeted each guest with devilish Luke in our arms, always to delight and squeals, especially to the parents accompanying their kids. What a ham.

Can't tell which is scarier- devil tongue or man eating shark's vicious teeth!!