The Trip to Brookfield Zoo

Several weeks ago, we ventured out to the Brookfield Zoo - a rather awesome family outing place, for sure! This was Luke's first live encounter with wild animals, or at least the large ones you can only encounter at a zoo. We didn't start out the morning too well, as with all these really cool animals to look at, the storm drains were much to fascinating at first. We quickly got over that, when we got to see them letting out the giraffes.
He was mesmerized.

They have a really neat Dinosaurs Live exhibit going on right now. There is this huge brontosaurus in the middle of the zoo, and it moves and spits water. Very cool.
We tried out the petting zoo. Luke wanted none of it at first, refusing to let Daddy put him down. He slowly warmed up and even decided that the longer haired goat was worth a pet, especially after the younger little girl showed him up.
Luke got to ride the carousel, which turned out to be a huge hit.


The unfortunate thing he learned was that the ride does eventually stop. Had so much fun....just....couldn't...keep...his...eyes...open. Zonked out before we even made it out of the parking lot.

18 Months Old!

Lukeman is 18 months old today! He's somewhere in the vicinity of 25 pounds, I think, but it's hard to get him to sit still long enough for the scale to register. He'll be heading to Dr. Carol later this week for the official tallies, but for now, I can report that he's fitting nicely into 18-24 month clothes. He must have had a small growth spurt because only a few weeks ago, I bought some new 18-month sleepers, and I had to go back last week to get the 24-month size. Oh well!

Luke is very busy...so much to do and so much to see. We are still working on discernible language, but we get some "uh-ohs" and "da-das" and a whole lot of babble. He does play with his phone and very discernibly holds it to his ear and says "eh-o." Very cute. And, we do get lots of "more" signs still for anything.

In honor of his 18th month birthday, we decided he needs a Luke-sized table and chairs. At day care, they have them trained so well to go and sit in their little chairs that whenever Luke thinks there is something about the right height to sit on, he tries to plop down. So, now we have a proper almost Luke-sized chair, courtesy of Ikea. After all, with a birthday in January, it's a long haul to get all the way to Christmas or birthday for something a little new.

Some of Luke's favorite activities include playing with blocks, riding around on Daddy's bike, running around outside, scooting the clothes basket around, yanking on the cats, eating, drinking, and swimming.

Oh yes, and playing in his "office." See what I mean about the need for a chair?

Luke Bucci-walker and Darth Pinochle

There is so entirely much to blog about, so I'm sitting down to give it my due attention while Mike gets his fill of his guy tv. But, before I get to all the goings on, I must relate one of the funniest moments of our weekend, taken right from a George Lucas film. Luke found this novelty pen that I picked up at a Peoplesoft conference oh so many moons ago, and when you press a button, it blinks this blue neon LCD light. He carried it around for hours...very timely given that it was "Force of July" on Spike and Return of the Jedi was on. (His hand is covering up the light below).


At one point, he pointed the pen right at Pinochle and made his fighting grunt, usually associated with making clenched fists. Mike vocalized the caption of Luke and Darth Pinochle, and we got a pretty good chuckle out it!

Last weekend, Mike and I got to go on our first getaway sans Luke. Grandma and Pawpaw came to visit and completely spoiled Luke for 4 days while there were here. But, Mike and I headed downtown for the weekend and enjoyed sightseeing, including a stop at the Taste of Chicago.

Friday night, we had dinner at the most amazing restaurant, called Moto. Apparently, the chef was on Iron Chef America and I will tell you, he has to be one of the most creative and artistic chefs ever! You start off with a melba toast cracker and dipping butter that has your menu printed on edible paper and glued to the front of it. They only do tasting menus -10 or 20 courses (we did the 10) - so the portions are smaller, but we definitely did not leave hungry. One of our favorite courses was The Cuban, which was all of the flavors of a Cuban sandwich, rolled up to look like a Cuban cigar, complete with edible paper wrapper, burning "embers" of red sauce, ashes from crushed black and white sesame seeds, served in an ashtray. Very cool.

Saturday night, we hit the Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry.
Even though they were closing things off when we got there, we still managed to sneak in to the Lego display of tall structures.

The rest of our holiday weekend has been spent doing some family things. Friday, we went to the zoo, which I'll save for another blog entry since it involves a great deal of pictures. Yesterday was a bit of a washout, but today was warm and sunny enough to enjoy some outside time. We even went for a family bike ride through the Forest Preserve on our new bikes. Luke loves it so much that when we get home, he does his sign for more. This afternoon, we tried our first Icee pop (not a big fan of it frozen, but warm it up to melt it a bit, and you'll have a taker).
And, he's getting a lot better about using the spoon himself. Trust me, this is a lot less mess than the first time we tried!So, working for me is going well so far. The hardest part has been adjusting to a long commute, which really extends my time away. The job itself has been good...a great team of people and a fun project. Luke has been an absolute star with adjusting to day care. Rather than some tears, most days he'll just wave goodbye to Mike as he drops him off. And, whether it is day care or natural causes, he has started babbling like never before. He has a few word approximations now and routinely says "Da-da." I'm keeping an open mind about what the fall will bring and trying to not rush into any decisions in the midst of my job experiment.

32

What a wonderful weekend! Father's Day and my 32nd birthday. Last year, for Father's Day, Mike was driving to Chicago with my parents - 14 hours with 2 cats and a whole lot of wine. This year, we finally could celebrate together. And, long awaited warmer weather to get out the new toddler pool. Of course, we have pictures of our little water bug, who is the most fearless kid in his swimming class. And, now that he understand the toddler pool, he couldn't quite figure out why his water table was any different. Our little climber here...eek!

Daddy took Luke to the barber shop on Sat morning for some Daddy and Luke time. Amazing how much they look alike after Tony puts a little gel in their hair. It's a whole experience - doughnuts, suckers, and hair gel. You know, guy stuff.
And here we are celebrating Father's Day and Mommy's birthday at a nice breakfast. This has to be our new favorite spot for yummy pancakes and such. Luke follows in his mother's footsteps and has developed quite a passion for raspberries. Needless to say, the raspberry french toast was a HUGE hit.
And, yes, it was a good birthday. We are actually going to celebrate a bit more - our 6 year anniversary, my birthday, and Father's Day - this coming weekend. Grandma and Grandpa are coming and letting us go downtown for our first little getaway. We have dinner reservations Friday night at Moto and then we're going to visit Taste of Chicago and the Harry Potter exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry. We are so totally excited that we can hardly stand it! I have a strange feeling we'll come home to two very tired, but very happy grandparents!!! So now, only a week of work between us and a little vacation...woo hoo!

Our Holiday In Ohio (get it?)

We ventured to a little known part of southeastern Ohio to meet our dear friends, The Porters. This was our big adventure before all of the craziness of starting a new job, day care, Daddy duties, etc. What a wonderful time we had! This is Mark, who became a very quick friend of Luke's. They played so sweetly together! Mark is only 5 months younger than Luke and crawling like crazy! He'll pull himself up on furniture, but we didn't have much luke getting Luke to teach Mark how to walk or Mark to teach Luke how to babble more.


Luke really pitched in to help with the chores over the weekend...reloading the cooler with water...

and feeding the sippy cups...
Oh yes, and the pool was a huge hit. This kid is some kind of waterbug. We spent each afternoon there after naps and had a ball...in the indoor pool.





And, bottom line is that we all survived our first week. Luke has been a super trooper, getting many kudos from the day care about how good of a first week it was....except for the day that Bear and Blankie didn't make it into the van. Daddy ran home to fetch them at lunch, and the day care suggested I try and find a 2nd set to keep at school. Of course, my kid would have fallen in love with a bear that happens to be a limited edition bear that was released by Ty for Borders bookstore in 2008. Thank God for eBay! More to come about the job and springboard in to Chicagoland traffic.

Hi, Ho, Hi, Ho...

It's back to work I go. I've been offered a contracting role, and aside from the rather long commute, it really is too good of an opportunity to pass on. Essentially, I'll get to try it out for a 2-3 month assignment and see how the working mom thing works for all of us. If I like it, there is longer term potential, and if I don't like it, no hard feelings if I decide not to continue. So, after some craziness trying to get us all ready, I'll head to work next Monday. Lukeman will be starting "school" at a very nice day care.

Speaking of the Lukeman, we've been enjoying some really nice weather and playing outside. He's gotten to play with his new water activity table and make a glorious wet mess! Each day we go out, he's also convinced there should still be a puddle in the driveway and even goes to each of our neighbors to see if they have a puddle in the same spot. Needless to say, I've gotten good at creating the puddle for him with a cup of water.

Puddle All Gone

Luke has mastered essentially two signs, one for more which also equals "yes" and "please" and the other for open which also equals "all gone." It kind of comes as a shrug...very cute.

He also has a new love in puddles. After the late week rains here, everywhere we went, he was pointing and grunting longingly for each puddle we passed. Lucky for him, the puddle at the end of the driveway was still there when he got to play outside on Saturday. He ran right to it, and stomped in it for a good 10 minutes (leading to some very cute video which I'll edit and try and post soon). Happy as a lark!

Imagine his disappointment when by Sunday, the puddle was gone, and despite going to several of the other driveways to find out if it had appeared there instead, he kept making the "all gone" sign. I think that I may have to get creative with the hose and reinstate the puddle from time to time for him this summer, at least after I've gotten his shoes off!