A Letter to My Son on His First Birthday

Dear Luke,

One year ago today, I held you in my arms for the first time. It wasn't the birth I had hoped for -- I ended up having an emergency C-section -- but once you were in my arms, all of the earlier part of the day faded away. I had dreamed about what you would be like during my pregnancy, having conversations with you both as your baby self as well as imagining conversations that we would have in the future. And now here you were.

I know people say that babies don't smile when they are first born and that something that looks like a smile is probably gas. But your daddy took a picture of me and you when we were preparing to leave the hospital that makes it seem like you are smiling up at me. Although I have many more pictures of you and many that I love, this is the picture that I adore the most. The way you looked at me showed me that you loved me and trusted me and I wanted to make sure that I did whatever I could to earn that trust.

How tiny you are!

A lot of that first month is a bit of a daze. Life became a blend of nursing you and holding you while you slept. The swing was a big help for when I need to put you down so I could take care of myself (shower, eat) or the house (do laundry, clean dishes). But I loved holding you and watching you sleep. I loved looking at you sleeping on Daddy (often he was asleep, too). We had waited a long time before we decided to have you, and you were worth the wait.

As the months passed, I started to see parts of your personality come through. You did seem to smile quite a lot and seemed to be a rather cheerful little guy. You were also curious about everything and once you were able to really start looking around at the world, you didn't stop. In many ways, this was a wonderful time because I loved watching you see the world, but it was also difficult because you would want to get to something that you saw but you weren't yet able to move, so you often got frustrated.

But once you figured out how to crawl, there was no stopping you. At first, you did an army crawl, pulling yourself along with your arms, but you started crawling on your hands and knees after a while. Either way, you got to be really fast and could cross the room in the blink of an eye. The cats had no chance. One of your favorite pastimes seems to be to chase one of the kitties and tackle him/her when you do catch up. You get a huge grin on your face as you do this. Many times you laugh, which is one of the sweetest sounds in the world.

Although you definitely have your moments when you are upset and you don't hesitate to let us know, for the most part you have been such a happy and cheerful little boy. Now that you are pulling up and walking with the aid of the couch or pushing a toy or really anything across the room, you get new delight in exploring the spaces you can reach now. Daddy and I have had to become very creative at making sure things are out of your reach, but you keep surprising us by reaching something new.

I  know that you're going to take off walking on your own really soon and I think you'll be doing a lot of running. Today, you stood on your own for a few seconds before losing your balance, so I know that day of your first steps will be coming soon. And although I will always cherish the moments with you as a baby, I am loving watching you grow up and meet each new milestone. Exploring the world with you has been an exciting adventure so far and I know that it's just going to keep being exciting as you get bigger and start being able to do more and even start talking one of these days. Oh, the conversations we'll have. Will they be the same as the ones I imagined when I was pregnant with you? I have no idea, but I know that there will never be a dull moment and I know that your desire to explore your world will always keep me and Daddy on our toes.

I love you, my baby boy who is not such a baby anymore.

Mommy

Pictures from your first year:

August 23, 2011

September 23, 2011

October 23, 2011

November 23, 2011

December 23, 2011

January 23, 2012

February 23, 2012

March 23, 2012 (Kitty!!)

April 23, 2012

May 23, 2012

June 23, 2012

July 23, 2012

August 23, 2012

Finger Painting (Kind of) and Grandma's Visit

So I found a website with some great activities to do with Luke and decided to try making some edible finger paints. The paint turned out to be quite thick, so much so that I thought about just calling it play dough. But I went ahead with the finger painting idea.

Here's the set up: a table cloth on the floor with a piece of paper on the top. Luke was very interested in wrinkling the table cloth.

I plopped some of the "paint" down on the paper. The paper itself was more interesting to Luke.

I put some of the "paint" in his hand and smeared it on the paper. He was more interested in trying to figure out what was sticking to his hand.

"Hmm...what is that?"

"I'm really not so sure about this."

Apparently he sat in the purple blob.

Mommy decided to paint Luke. He was unimpressed.

"Mommy, what is this stuff all over me??"

"I'm really not liking this at all!"

So, yeah. That didn't go over quite as well as I had hoped it would. Into the bathtub and out came a clean and much happier baby.

In other news, my mom has been visiting this week and we've had a good time. Here are some pictures from her visit.

In the Ice Cream Parlor play area at the Children's Museum

With Daddy in the race car (Children's Museum)

With Daddy on the Hot Wheels motorcycle

Playing with giant Legos

Riding on a horse ride

With Grandma in the play area at the Children's Museum

Daddy, Mommy and Luke

Daddy, Luke, and Grandma

Mom and Grandma getting ready for the pictures. I love the look on Luke's face. (Notice Guenevere photo bombing in the background.)

10 Months Old Yesterday

Yesterday Luke turned 10 months old. I don't know why, but that just feels and sounds so much older than 9 months. Perhaps it is because it is the first time in the double digits. I'm not sure. I just know that this month, heck, this week, he's done a lot of growing up.

Up is the word here. He is pulling up on everything he possibly can lately. If it's just a couple of inches off the floor, he pulls up to a kneeling position. If it's any higher, he tries to stand. Just in a few days, he went from being very slow and cautious to pulling up really fast. He's also done some minimal cruising (along the couch). His balance still needs some work, but he's definitely making progress toward walking at a very fast pace. I'm not sure how long we have before he takes his first steps. It's exciting but scary at the same time.

And with crawling, he has gotten so speedy. He can move across the room in the blink of an eye. We finally put up the gates we had bought: in the kitchen doorway and in the doorway to the hall. I do find it annoying to have to open the gates all the time to go through, especially the one for the kitchen, but it is good to know that if my attention wanders for a minute, Luke won't be in the kitchen or down the hall before I know it. 

The cats, however, seem a bit mystified by the gates. We bought the low ones on purpose so they would be able to jump over them; however, they aren't doing it. They just stand on one side of the gate and meow. Merlin did jump over once to get out of the kitchen. And we have a small scratching post that we've put on the hallway side of that gate that Guenevere has finally figured out to use to jump onto and then over the gate. I'm hoping the cats will completely figure it out soon. Sam whines enough as it is; he doesn't need another reason to whine!

So my days lately have been spent letting the cats through the gate into and out of the hallway constantly having to get up and get Luke after he's crawled over to something that he shouldn't touch (my computer power cord, the cat scratching post, books on the bookshelf, DVDs, etc.), and making sure there is a pillow behind him when he is standing so if he falls back, he won't smack his head on the hardwood floors.

The other thing that seems to have shifted in the past week is Luke's sleeping routine. I noticed that he was not wanting to go down for his morning nap as early as usual (usual was around 8:30 or 9 and the past week it's been closer to 10). Then for most mornings he took a longer nap. That resulted in a very late afternoon nap (usually not as long). But then that started making bedtime difficult. He had been going to bed around 6:30 or 7. Last night he didn't go to sleep until 10. Eek! He was just wide awake and full of energy and didn't seem the least bit interested in sleep.

So today he took a late morning nap for an hour and a half. We decided to try skipping the afternoon nap. He got a little cranky around 5:00, but feeding him dinner seemed to help with that. Otherwise, he was just a ball of energy all afternoon. We got him ready for bed around 5:45 and after nursing and a little rocking, he fell asleep fast. I hope that he has a good long stretch of sleep (he's had a couple of 4-5 hour stretches this past week and last week he had a 7 hour stretch which is his longest ever).

Tomorrow I plan to try pushing the morning nap back a bit more (although that will depend on how he's acting) to see if one nap will work for him--but trying for an afternoon nap over a morning nap. This may mean that we're going to have to miss some upcoming playgroups (boo!) but it does seem like he's leaning toward being a one nap sleeper. We'll see what happens.

Here are pictures from yesterday:

And one from today:

First Visit to the Children's Museum

Some of the moms from my moms' group decided to take our kids to the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. I had been once before with my niece and nephew and remembered that it had been a lot of fun. I'm sure Luke will enjoy it even more when he's a bit older, but he seemed to have a good time anyway.

The drive down to Indy was uneventful. I was a little nervous as it was my first longer trip alone with Luke (usually if we go to Indy, I sit in the backseat with Luke in case he gets cranky while driving or also just to make sure he's okay). But all went well. He slept (I think--he was at least really quiet) for about half an hour.

Once we got to the museum, we met up with two other moms (another one joined us a bit later) and headed to the dinosaur area. We looked around at the dinosaur bones for a while. The dino dig area was under construction (drat!), but the dino baby area was fun. There were little costumes for the kids to put on and nest with dinosaur eggs in them to play with (or pose for pictures with). There was only one size small costume that we found, so the three kids had to take turns wearing it.

Photo courtesy of Tanya

With Claire and Abraham

Photo courtesy of Rachelle

After that we went to the train area. We got aboard a train car that had an area where the images in the windows moved to make it seem like the train was actually moving. We watched the trains go by for a little while and played at the train table (well, played for Luke means me trying to keep him from putting the train in his mouth).

Edited to add in: I forgot about the archaeology area! The main part we looked at was about the clay army and there was an area for the kids to "dig" on the wall to uncover "artifacts."

Photo courtesy of Rachelle

Off to the glass sculpture area, which had a place for kids to play with the sculpture--or really one made of plastic. They seemed to enjoy that. Then we went to watch the water clock change the hour. And that hour was noon so it was lunch time.

Photo courtesy of Tanya

After lunch we went up to the playscape area, which is for kids under 5 years old. We looked around at the various areas and ended up in the babyscape part which was just for under 2 year olds with areas to crawl around on that were padded. There were some stairs that led to a little covered bridge. Luke couldn't climb the stairs fully by himself, but once I helped him up the first step, he managed to get up the second one on his own.

Then there was the water play section. The water table was just a little too tall for Luke although there was one section that was a bit shorter. After he splashed around the water a bit, we went over to this big wall with magnets on it, some puzzle pieces and the typical letters and numbers. He sat there for a little bit and then we decided to go to the Lego area.

There were some really awesome things that were built and displayed there. It's really amazing what can be created out of those little blocks. One was a car that kids could actually sit in. Luke really liked that, especially spinning the steering wheel, and he wasn't too happy when I took him out so the other kids could have a turn in the car.

One final stop before heading out was the Hot Wheels exhibit. There were actual Hot Wheels as well as some life size cars. If Luke had been a little older, I think he would have had a blast playing with all the Hot Wheels tracks that were available.

We breezed through the gift shop. I picked up a toy car made out of recycled milk jugs (I just thought it was really cool and Luke likes playing with cars). Somewhere between the start of the skywalk to the parking garage and getting to our car, Luke fell asleep. I hated to wake him to put him in the car, so I tried to do it slowly and gently, but of course he woke up. And started crying. Hard. I guess I waited just a little too long before getting him in the car--he was definitely ready for a nap. And yet he wouldn't go to sleep. I think he finally may have gone to sleep about 20 minutes away from home.

He wouldn't go to sleep once we got home, so I'm hoping that means he'll be really tired and ready for bed (probably soon) and will sleep well tonight. At least I can hope. We'll see what actually happens.