Happy Birthday Charles!

Little Charles had his 2nd birthday party this weekend. Lucas had a great time hanging out with all of his friends. In the first picture he is eating goldfish (of course) with his buddy Lucas and with Charles's grandma (Ba). He didn't care much for Cotton the Clown, and would only admire Elmo from a distance...

... but he WAS a fan of the cake!!!

Goldfish and Cake

My kid that doesn't like to eat was invited to a birthday party and, while all of the other kids were playing on the playground, sat and ate goldfish and waited for the cake to be served! In this picture you can see that the pavillion is empty except for Lucas and my friend Kim. Lucas is sitting at the table on the right eating crackers and keeping his eye on the cake. When the mom of the birthday boy picked up the cake can carried it to the playground to cut it, Lucas ran after and then stood right beside her as we sang happy birthday. When he got his slice he ran up to me and said, "cake!" with the biggest smile on his face. He finally played once he had eaten all of the junk at the party, but it wasn't on the playground... it was with the random rocks beside the playground. What a stinker.

Big Rocks

Lucas's new love is "big rocks". Jeff took him to the creek to throw rocks into the water one day a few weeks ago. He said something to Lucas about finding him a big rock and it stuck. Now if we mention going to the park Lucas says, "beeg rock, beeg rock". I think he could play near the creek and throw rocks in all.day.long. He doesn't want anything to do with the playgrounds anymore... which stinks because that's where his birthday party is going to be! Some other super cute things he says at the creek are "WHOA!" when the rock makes a big splash, or "huge!" when we tell him that we can't give him a boulder to throw in because it's to big.

Tyson enjoying the walk

First Professional Haircut

Before this weekend we had taken a couple of snips at Lucas's hair, but never anything drastic. This weekend we decided that it was finally time to get a little clean up. One side was thicker than the other and some days I felt like it looked like he had a comb over. We just wanted a base haircut and we may try to maintain it by cutting it out of his eyes.

Lucas did okay at the salon. It was a place for kids, so there were balloons, slides, race cars and firetrucks that the kids could sit in while they got their cut, videos, etc. Lucas refused to sit in the firetruck chair, so he sat in my lap instead. Since it was his first time he got two employees allocated to him. The girl that was cutting his hair had a balloon that she would show him in between cuts and the guy was showing him toys, like the Elmo doll that Lucas took from him and threw right down on the floor. The girl did a great job - I don't know how she did it. Every time Lucas realized that she was touching him he would throw his head back. The whole thing lasted about 4 min. Here is the cutie...

A couple of pics from the salon...

Dada

Jeff and Lucas have such a cute little relationship. Lately Lucas is all about what Jeff is doing. Last night during dinner Lucas would only try his mashed potatoes and strawberries after Jeff took a bite and said, "yum, dada likes strawberries. dada eats potatoes like a big boy".

In the picture below Jeff was aggravating Lucas... trying to take his carrot, I think. If Lucas is in a grumpy mood Jeff will mess around with him until he makes him laugh. Lucas is such a stinker that he holds out in grumpy mode for as long as he can, then usually ends up giggling.

Silly Boy

Lucas has been so fun and silly lately. I realized yesterday that we don't really have to entertain him like we used to. He runs around the house making up his own games. They often involve us, and poor Tyson, but he initiates them. For example, last night we were sitting near the couch and Lucas invented a game where he would run all the way to the back door (his starting point) and then sprint into the family room and dive onto one of us. One of the times that he ran into the kitchen Jeff hid behind a wall and jumped out and scared him. Lucas thought it was hilarious and was disappointed the next time he sprinted into the room and wasn't scared. He marched right over to Jeff, put his hands under his legs, and said, "up! up!" and then pointed to the spot where he wanted Jeff to scare him.

He and Tyson have a love-hate relationship (mostly love). Their new game is that Lucas will get a cracker or a dog cookie and run all over the house with Tyson chasing him. He'll eventually share with Tyson, but poor Tyson has to earn it. I guess Lucas thought that when I said to share with Tyson he thought I meant all the time. During dinner I've caught Lucas giving Tyson carrots, peas and bread. Tyson's new best friend... until Lucas plays his other annoying game of laying on Tyson when he's asleep in his bed and pushing him out of chairs as he shouts, "down!"

Here is silly boy the other night posing for pictures... he was hamming it up. Oh, and by the way, we got his hair cut on Sunday and I haven't gotten around to posting those pictures. After seeing these pictures, however, we're kind of bummed because his hair was so wild and cute. Oh well, we just got a tiny trim and it will grow back.

Cloth Diapers, take 3

We've gone back and forth with using cloth diapers, but now we've finally found something that works for us. When Lucas was an infant we tried a diaper service, but they didn't do well with where we lived and kept forgetting to pick up the dirty diapers (yuck!). I cancelled the service and bought some Mother-Ease diapers and washed them myself. It really wasn't that bad. Then Lucas started getting a bad rash around the legs and waistband. I tried everything, but finally decided that it wasn't working and went back to disposables. Several months later I was reminded of the diaper service because our little neighbor, Finn, uses them. I figured that they probably had more customers in this area and were less likely to forget about us, so we gave it another try. It took a few weeks to get in the groove, but now I really, really like them. Lucas's skin is so clear and clean. We still keep disposables around for certain outings or if I'm washing his covers, but I've found that the store brand is better to his skin than the Pampers or Huggies. I think the perfumes must not agree with his skin...

Webcam

We've been talking to Dennis and Sandy on the webcam for over a year - usually on Sunday evenings. Lucas now understands that he can interact with them. Here he is showing Grandpa his dada's head lamp.

Lucas Expressions

I was making Lucas laugh the other day and, luckily, the camera was close by. I made them b/w just for fun...

Jeff's Side of the Family

Lucas is becoming quite the little artist. He enjoys sitting for longer periods (30-45 min) at the kitchen table playing with his crayons and markers, and as you can see from the picture, he can be very creative with his sculptures. Seriously, he was so proud of this little project... you can kind of see it in his little grin.

I've never been able to draw anything, but Jeff's got a lot of talent on his side. We'll see where this goes, but we're going to endulge it and get Lucas a nice art table for his birthday. It will have drawers, so we can organize his supplies and work on trying to keep them that way (easier said than done with a 2 year old).

Oh my gosh...

... Lucas is such a dirty little boy!

It's not like I dress him that nice for the park, but I think he is going to have to start wearing clothes that are so old I'd never take him out in public in them.

Mothers Morning Out

After much discussion, we signed Lucas up for Mothers Morning Out this week. He will begin at the end of June and will go four days a week. It's basically just a church daycare. The hours will be from 9:30-1:30 Mon - Thurs. His friend Lucas goes there and his parents really like it. When I visited I noted that it was filled with love and fun. It's not the newest and most up-to-date, but it seemed like the people there were very caring.

We debated between this and a Montessori school that his friend Katrin goes to. We LOVED that school, but the cons were that it's all day and it's about 20 min away. I'm not ready for Lucas to be gone all day yet, and since we don't have to leave the house to go to work it doesn't seem like a great fit at this point. Maybe when he's 3 or 4. I love the Montessori philosophy.

Jeff and I are planning to sign up for the nursery at our gym in April and start taking Lucas there for 30 min at a time. Hopefully this will make the transition to "school" a little easier for him.

Why are we doing this when he's only 2? Our doctor said that he doesn't need the social interaction that a school provides until he's 3. Well Kate has to leave us in summer/fall and I really don't want to interview for another nanny. Our nannies have been great so far, but not Lucas needs a little more activity. He and Kate have a great time around here, but once or twice a week they go to the park or museum and I don't love the idea of not knowing exactly where he is when they are in the car. And then there are some days when he wants to watch too much t.v... although that seems to be passing. I actually think that I could do the nanny thing for another summer, but not another winter. It's tough when they can't go outside.

Anyway, we are excited about it and hopefully Lucas will love it. If not, we'll try something else.

8 Cute things that Lucas is saying...

1. Dis (this). All day long he comes up to us with something in his hand saying, "dis, dis".

2. Two. Whenever we hand him something like a cracker or a pretzel he says, "two, two", until we give him another one.

3. Help. This is a great one.

4. Help Peas (please).

5. Mama Duck. Lucas has been saying this for a couple of weeks and I had no clue what he was talking about. He always says it as we drive past this construction zone near our house. Well, today we went to the park and Charles was there with one of his MONSTER TRUCKS. Charles kept referring to his truck as a monster truck, but I didn't think anything about it. Later while we were cooking dinner I was telling Jeff as story about one of the trucks and Lucas started saying, "mama duck! mama duck!". Ohhhhhhh!!!!!

6. Dada's cup. We think that Lucas knows now that Jeff is a guy, like him. He adores Jeff in a different way than he does me. Lately when he wants water he asks to drink from "dada's cup", which is one of Jeff's fraternity cups. Today he saw Jeff's bike water bottle and just HAD to have water in it so he could drink like dada.

7. Boobie. We failed to teach Lucas a politically correct term for nursing. Oh well. We hear this all day long and it usually has a ? at the end of it.. "boobie? boobie?"

8. Tee Tee Ta Ta. This is what Lucas calls Tyson. When he wakes up in the morning and sees Tyson he usually says, "tee tee ta ta. ruff!"

Attitude

Fun with Charles

On Saturday Lucas and I spent a few hours with our friends Charles and Wendy. We were planning on going to a place with lots of bouncy areas, but it was closed, so we went to a children's museum in Cary instead. Wendy and I decided to move Lucas's carseat into her car so that we could actually have a few minutes to chat in the car - great idea! The rest of the day was spent chasing them around the museum, holding them forever while they watched a toy train go around the tracks, and trying to get through lunch (I pushed Lucas too far, so he wasn't having it).

Old buds checking out the scenery.

"Hey Lucas, I think that fish looks like Nemo!"

Playing one of their favorite games that they invented several months ago... They chase each other, Lucas plops down on the ground like a silly monkey, Charles laughs, Lucas laughs at himself, and then they do it again.

Shutters

After nearly 8 months of being in our new house, we finally got around to ordering window treatments. We debated between shutters and some sort of Roman shade, but went with the shutters and are thrilled! They look like they were built with the house and add so much coziness. The first thing Lucas did when he woke up this morning was roll out of bed and then go open every shutter within his reach. He also enjoys dropping his bouncing balls in between the grooves and then saying "help, help" until we come rescue them.

Park with Lucas Edward

The other day we went to our new favorite park to play with Lucas Edward. We love the park because it has a stream and because it's dog friendly, so Tyson can run free and make new friends. Here are the two cuties playing very seriously with the rocks...

Pics with Mama and Dada

Sandy and Susan are always telling us to get in more pictures with Lucas, but it's hard. Here are two failed attempts...

(Jeff had his eyes half way closed)