Adults are Sooooo Confusing!

I find it very cute when Luke is trying to figure out what I'm talking about. There are some basic things he definitely understands:

• upstairs = time for me to climb like a monkey on the stairs
• ba ba = that fantastic and utterly wonderful thing with milk in it that makes me sleepy
• outside = the really super cool place where I get to slide and pick up rocks
• kitty = the thing whose tail I love to pull
• bath = time to get Mommy and Daddy wet

And, he understands where his shoes are (generally stored up on a shelf). We kept them out of reach so that he didn't put them in his mouth, as he's prone to do with just about everything else. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why we put them up on the shelf in the family room instead of the gated-off mud room. Oh well...maybe it's so that he can point at them and give me something to blog about, right?

So, I greatly confused him the other day when I told him we had to go and get a tissue to wipe his runny nose. He runs into the other room and pointed up at his shoes. When I tried to clarify, he just starts stomping his feet and pointing more desperately. In the end, we wiped his nose AND put on his shoes.

A Tale of Three Oranges

It's an interesting problem...three oranges and only two hands to hold them with. I may have mentioned earlier that Luke is quite attracted to oranges. Especially, the cute clementine ones that are easily clutched. We were visiting Hima, Venu, and Millan a week ago Saturday, and I'm quite sure he managed to completely empty their fruit basket of clementines multiple times. But, I digress...the other night, he cleverly managed to get a hold of the three remaining oranges in the fruit bowl while on my lap. He had one in each hand, dropped one of them, and reached for the third before climbing down from my lap. I swear...10 minutes of continuous dropping and picking up, all in a doomed effort to clutch all 3 at once. But, hey, it entertained him!

Where did the last week go?!? I'm sure I could make up excuses about the basketball tournament like everyone in office pools or just the unplanned craziness that has become our everyday life around here! There are many, many things to be explored! He has managed to figure out that he is supposed to "ride" his tractor, but it sort of becomes this standing/walking/pushing thing with is totally cute.

We did return to winter briefly yesterday, but thankfully, it didn't last too long. It had warmed up on a few days enough that we could explore the backyard. The front yard is a bit too intense for Mommy, as Luke makes a beeline for the street every time. But, the back yard is much more practical since the fences keep toddlers in! And, besides, it has a slide which is much more fun than dodging traffice, right?

Trials in Spoonfeeding

Luke loves his spoon and decided the other night that he would try feeding himself yogurt. He has the right idea...we just need a little more work on the delivery.

Luke Goes Swimming

We took Luke for a family trip to Bartlett's Splash Central (a.k.a. the indoor pool). Along with a great many, many things, this is certainly one of those things that has improved greatly since we were kids. I mean, a 0-3 foot water playground with jets and slides?!?! Oh, to be a kid again. Lucky for me, I get to have a 2nd childhood alongside Luke. He had a blast! I think we are ready for our trip to Florida in late April!

Ring Around the Rosey...for One!

Luke's First Haircut

And, boy did he need it! The before picture just doesn't quite do it justice:


During:
All done!

Fishes + Exercise = ??

Perhaps one of the sweetest pictures we have. We drove downtown to visit Shedd Aquarium on Saturday. Even though the large Oceanarium is closed for renovations, there is still a ton to see. Luke's first amazement was the Caribbean Reef, which is basically this large tank in the middle of the building with all sorts of large aquatic life swimming around and mesmerizing everyone, young and old. Daddy let Luke out of the stroller to take a closer look, which offered a whole new world warranting exploration. He soon lost interest in the fishes when he discovered lights in the floor (you know how they sort of bury flood lights for effect, right?). It was hard to peel him away, but we soon found something even better - a tank of sting ray buried under the floor so that you could walk on top...very, very cool. Didn't matter that there was an enormous tank of sharks behind him. No sir. Just give him lights under the floor and you have a happy toddler for HOURS. After walking all over the place for the better part of 2 hours, he finally sat down in the middle of the floor, completely worn out. And, within 2 minutes of being on the way home, he promptly fell asleep.

Life has been more challenging to find time to do things like blogging. Luke is a very active little guy with tons of energy. Each day, he's trying something new. This week, it's bringing you books to read to him (oh to steal your heart!). Yesterday, he figured out how to open the baby gate if it isn't tightly latched.

He is now waffling between 1 and 2 naps a day and the length of time has been a bit variable. My first priority during this desperately valuable nap time is to workout. I have gotten extremely serious about trying to lose 30 pounds - the last of the baby weight and some more for good measure. I'm trying to get at least 5 workouts done a week, and then I tend to get busy with trying to clean my dirty house and alas, no time for blogging before he wakes. So far, so good though, as I'm already down 8 pounds. And, it's great because I read while I'm working out and I've read two extremely sappy romance novels - Pride and Prejudice and The Lucky One, both of which I highly recommend.

Since it's my blog, I must brag about my little guy just a bit. He is the absolute best eater, and not just yummy stuff like graham crackers and all of the things Mommy can't have on her diet, but vegetables as well. I think his favorite thing in the world might be oranges as I find him at the table pointing at the bowl of fruit quite often, and only the gift of a bite of orange will appease him. And, there he was the other night shoveling asparagus, peas, corn, and broccoli into his mouth. If anything, I'm thankful that we're off to a very good start!

As Luck Would Have It

Somewhere around Friday the 13th, our computer started acting sick. It got steadily worse and finally, when we decided to try the Windows Restore, that wouldn't even work. You know you have a problem when you start clicking buttons and nothing happens. Oh yeah, and the "blue screen of death" starts showing up. I thought that BSOD had gone the way of Windows NT, but alas, I was wrong. So, we spent the better part of last weekend reinstalling Windows. Not fun. At the same time, our internet started acting up. It took over 3 minutes to load Google on Mike's laptop. To make a long story short, it turns out that's how it's "supposed" to be, if you're paying for the economy tier of internet access with a certain cable company. That was all I needed to finally make the switch to a different company. So, that's in process but will take a while. As you can imagine, this all really affects one's ability (and mood) for blogging.

Since it has been an eternity since I posted any pictures, I bring you a collection of Luke's recent activities, from riding in his various vehicles (note that we haven't figured out that we can make ourselves move so Mommy and Daddy do the pushing) to "helping" Mom in the kitchen to helping with Mommy's crossword. What fun!