THAT BITES...TEETH AND TANTRUMS

Luke FINALLY has his first tooth... and number two is close behind. Both his bottom teeth have been visible for a couple weeks, but they were taking sweet time cutting through. The first one finally cut through a few days ago. I discovered it had cut through when Luke decided to bite my ankle, and it actually hurt. LOL.

Here is our silly little boy making a funny face, showing off his new tooth.

It's been a busy week for our little munchkin. In addition to cutting his first tooth, Luke has started standing unaided. He doesn't yet get up on his own, but he has started letting go of the furniture and of our hands. Today, he stood long enough for me to grab my camera and get a photo.

At our play date with Lukes buddy Brent, Luke had fun venturing in the backyard at Brents house, and playing on his play set. I was a little surprised that Luke was trying to climb up the slide... isn't that what older kids who can actually walk do? I think his sense of adventure is advancing faster than his little body. LOL. Crawl, stand, walk THEN climb.... we're missing a step here. lol.


On the weekend, we enjoyed a picnic at a local park with a few of our friends and their children. Luke is such a cutie, and I just love how photogenic he always is. He is such a little poser.

Look  at these little dancing toes...

He also had a great time playing with the big kids. Here is his friend Isabelle taking him down the slide. 


On a less positive note... at 10 and a half months old, Luke has officially thrown his first set of tantrums. A milestone I am not thrilled about. Yesterday in Walmart, Luke got upset and pulled a full on screaming, kicking, arching his back, and trying to slide his arms out of my hands moves. When I tried to get him to walk with me because he refused to go in the cart, he pulled the 'jelly legs' move so that I couldn't get him to stand. I was not amused with the screaming, struggling little monster I was dealing with. It was tempting to leave him there and pretend I didn't know who he belonged to. What happened to the terrible two's??? Shouldn't I still have at least another year before I need to deal with tantrums? Though I suppose we can't only have happy, good phases of growing... our little man has always let us know that he is strong willed and wants to be independent. As his Gogga says, it's "the world according to Luke"...and so it is, so we take the good with the bad, and love him unconditionally anyway...though that doesn't mean I have to like him everyday. LOL.

A QUARTER OF A CENTURY

Ok, so yesterday was my birthday... I have officially started the old age milestones... I am now a quarter of a century old... WOW, putting it that way sounds really ancient...

It was a fun day. Jake took the day off cos I hurt my back and was struggling to pick up Luke (perhaps a sign of my sudden aging??? lol), so we made the best of his day off work, and went birthday shopping (shopping doesn't require heavy lifting. lol). I got a gift card from my family, and Jake let me choose out a few things from him... it was lots of fun. I got a few things for the house... a couple picture frames for some pictures I bought a while back that I put in our living room, I also bought some floating shelves for our living room, which we still need to mount, then I got a picture for our bathroom, and a fun little 'chef guy' menu board decoration for in the kitchen. I also got a cute pair of shoes, and a summer dress for church. So it was a great shopping spree. Mid shopping we went to a Japanese restaurant/take out place and had some lunch. When we headed to the car, I spotted another little surprise. Jake had snuck into Harris Teeter and bought me some flowers, and some Lindt mini easter egg truffles, and some chocolate coated oreos... yummy... they were all waiting on the front seat of the car. So sweet.
When we got home, there was a package on the door step...another birthday present. YAY... I really love opening gifts. It was from Kim and Spence... I got a really awesome mini scrapbook kit, with the pages and supplies all included. I have no shortage of photo's to put in there. Now just to find some Luke free time to scrap book the album without having to barricade all the bits and pieces so that chubby little fingers don't snatch them. 
After some rushing around to get the house tidied up, and Jake trying to get his delicious cinnamon rolls baked, a few of our friends arrived for a FHE evening, with some hanging out, chatting, and stuffing our faces on buffalo wings (courtesy of Wayne and the OUTBACK steak house), and some white chocolate raspberry cheese cake, and of course Jakes prize winning cinnamon rolls (though he reckons they only graded at a C+)
Who could believe that 6 adults and 4 young children could possibly create that amount of noise volume. LOL. Luke was LOVING the chaos, and the 3 other boys running around playing together. He didn't whine once, and was totally content to just chase after the other boys, and play in the chaos. Clearly this boy needs a sibling... anyone giving away a 2-4 year old? (I am sooo not ready for another newborn in the house)
And that everyone, was my quarter of a century birthday celebration.

A MOMMY'S MIND

Climb into the shower..."ooh, nice and warm", get my hair wet, wash my face with my nice Loreal cleanser, brain switches on, "Luke has diarrhea, should prob go get some pedialyte at the store... hope Jake and I can still go out tonight...it's been 8 months since our last date night... what should I wear? I really wanna look cute... never really get to dress up much these days... Need to hurry in the shower...the bread machine is about to beep...baking cycle is over... I hope I didn't flop the bread... who loses count when you only need 4 cups of flour??? ...still need to fold the laundry in the dryer...hope the poop stains come out of Lukes onesie....that reminds me, I still need to clean the softener mixture we used to remove the wall paper borders out of the stain remover spray bottle... do I need more stain remover?... should prob grab some while I am at the store.... I think we need milk too... what did I do with that shopping list from last week?... ", grab the shampoo, squeeze some into my hand, and proceed to wash my face...a second time....with shampoo... "Hope Luke only has diarrhea and isn't getting sick... maybe then I can still leave him with the sitter... should prob clean the bathroom and vacuum the living room, in case Tish does come babysit for us...I wonder if I should grab something for her and Hunter to have for dinner...they are going to be here quite early... I need to write another shopping list...more shopping... it never ends...no wonder Jake is always stressed out...life is expensive... I hope he is feeling better today...he is probably tired...maybe a night out will be good for both of us...I should iron his shirt...he will probably wanna wear that with his dark jeans...are they clean? Do I need to do more laundry today? We are almost out of laundry detergent...need to add that to the list...softener too... maybe I should go to Walmart... no, but I wanted to get more yoghurt from Target...Walmart never has our kind in stock... I wonder when the seeds for our vegetable garden are going to arrive? We need to get our boxes built this weekend... why is this face wash getting so frothy?... wait, this smells different... Oh my gosh Carla, it's shampoo..." Rinse the shampoo off my face, get some more and start washing my hair... "focus Carla, you need to get this right..."

And so this is a sampling of my minds inner workings from this morning... and most other mornings... what ever happened to showers, being a time for relaxation and time out??? LOL... I love being a mommy, but somehow it's even exhausting when Luke is asleep and I am trying to have a few minutes to myself.

STORY TIME

A couple of the local libraries near us, have story time on various days of the week. Today we went to the story time at Nashville library. Luke doesn't really pay too much attention to the stories yet, but I hope that taking him as often as possible, will encourage him to develop a love for books when he is a bit older. He does love being in a new environment though, and he likes being around the other children. 

LUKE, NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THE STORY

Today, we had a story about animals, and then we had a fun little activity where we all had to go around the library and find the hidden leprechauns (it was St Patricks day yesterday).

LUKE FOUND A LEPRECHAUN

AND DECIDED TO EAT HIM...

All the kids got book prizes for finding the leprechauns... Luke 'loved' his book

"HOW TO CATCH A HEFFALUMP"

Then we had craft time, which Luke is really too young for, but he sat for a few minutes, looking like a really big boy at the craft table, and ate the fruit loops that the bigger kids were using to make their rainbows. Turns out, my smart boy, doesn't like the sugary, unhealthy cereal that so many parents feed their growing kids these days... Good choice buddy.

Of course we couldn't leave the library, without some play time at the big fun toy they have.

After story time, Luke was knackered... he promptly fell asleep in the car on the way home.

"I LOVE DADDY"

Sometimes I forget that even though Luke is only 10 months old, he is actually really smart, and he is a real little person, with thoughts, and feelings, and he gets happy and sad.
Yesterday, was the perfect example of this. Monday night was the last time that Luke had seen Jake.... Jake left for work before Luke woke up on Tuesday, and then he had to go straight from work to some 'meetings' for church, so he got home again after Luke had already gone to bed. Then, on Wednesday morning, Luke woke up, just as Jake was getting together his keys and about to run out the door... I quickly ran and grabbed Luke from his crib, and darted into the kitchen so that Jake could say goodbye to him before he left...it had been a while since they had seen each other. Usually, Luke doesn't at all react to Jake leaving... I always presumed it was because he didn't really understand what was happening, and he didn't care, because I am still here, but yesterday morning, as I went into the kitchen with Luke, to say goodbye, Luke got SUPER excited. He squealed, and stiffened up his body in my arms, the way he does when he is really excited... he was just sooo happy to see his daddy...Then, Jake kissed him goodbye, and ran out the door... this is when to my surprise, Luke got REALLY sad, and started to cry. My heart broke...
Our sweet little boy, had noticed the long time it had been since he had last seen his daddy, and couldn't have been more excited to finally see him again...and then daddy left again and this made him sad.
It really amazes me how smart such little children can be, and how accurate their emotions are. He loves his daddy, and he misses him when he is gone... though, I suppose that is to be expected when you have a daddy as great as he does.

CRAYOLA MOMS PLAYTIME

Every Monday, Luke and I go to the Crayola moms play time and the DEPC Center (Down East Partnership fr Children)... The Crayola moms group has the play room booked for 2 hours every Monday...and it's a great play room, so Luke really enjoys it.

In the play room, there is a wooden fort, that has 6 steps going up to the top. Usually, just the bigger kids (the walking ones) go up there, but yesterday, Luke decided he wanted to see what all the fuss up there was about. Seeing as we don't have stairs in our house, I didn't think that he would figure them out too quickly... I was mistaken. LOL... I clearly underestimate my sons determination... he tackled the first step a little slow, but once he had that one down, he was up the remaining 5 in a flash...
 

PLAYING WITH HIS BUDDY IN THE FORT

Luke is still figuring out the 'friends' thing.. for the most part he just crawls around and finds toys he wants to play with, or if he has an interest in someone in the playroom, he uses them as leverage to pull himself to a standing position (good thing he is one of the younger kids, so still has the advantage of being smaller when he is trampling on the other kids. lol)
But, he enjoys the change of scenery and the kiddy friendly environment, where I am not constantly telling him, 'NO'... in the playroom, he can go where he wants and take, touch and play with whatever he wants.
I think that as we continue to go to the Crayola Moms activities, he will learn to share, and be buddies with other kids, and develop some good social skills. He is already a little social butterfly. He really loves people.