The Pumpkin Patch

Also known as a parking lot full of pumpkins...but it did the trick. We went to Myers Pumpkin Patch with Lukas on Saturday. Really, I just wanted some pictures of the kid with some pumpkins to make up for my lack of holiday cheer last year. There really were just so few picture-y moments that I recorded last year. I think I was tired and depressed and all...but now I'm trying to make up for it this year.

Lukie had fun, which is all that matters. Though we did learn that he hates vests...

...but looks adorable in them.

It's a hatred that extends to all things coat-like right now. Just in time for winter! Yay!

But he had a blast running around the pumpkin patch, picking out weird squashes, playing on the toys they had in the toddler area, and squirming every time I tried to take a picture with him.

His new thing is grabbing anything sticking out of the ground and yelling like he is proclaiming this land for Queen and Country.

Then, we went to Tusculum College's Homecoming parade. If you're wondering what abject terror in the face of a marching band looks like, this is it...

That didn't go so well. I was smart enough to walk away with him before the firetruck came along. In his defense, he was tired and took a 2-hour nap right afterward.

In other news, Daddy is finishing up Lukie's discovery tower. Pretty soon, he'll be able to extend his mess-making to the kitchen counters. Yay, again!

Christmas. And Christmas. And Another Christmas...and More Christmas.

I'm so far behind, but I'll try over the next few days to catch up on what Lukie and we have been doing over the past few weeks. It's been a busy few weeks of Christmases, sniffles, and travel.

Christmas Day was...nice. It's been harder than usual this year to continue having big holidays where we would usually be with our families, and have to spend them in Tennessee. We have great friends who come over to celebrate with us, and we're so lucky to have them...but it's just not the same as being able to spend time with our families.

That said, we had a nice Christmas morning. And by morning, I mean MORNING. Lukie got us up at 5 a.m. on Christmas Day. Must have been excited. :)

We opened presents-- we only bought him one major present, since he won't remember a whole lot of this particular Christmas. I had noticed that he liked the light-up toys at daycare, so we got him one of those. And an awesome hat. He was asleep again by 7 a.m., drooling on Mommy in the rocking chair.

We had friends over for lasagna and pie later in the day. Lukie was a good boy, but he was suffering from both a sinus and an eye infection that he had gotten over the weekend. We were giving him antibiotics and eye drops, but they made him so mad that he now has a serious aversion to me messing with his face in ANY way.

Poor guy was trying to play, anyway, but you could tell he didn't feel good.

Didn't stop him from eating some tasty bananas and yogurt, though!

I worked the rest of the week, but then on Saturday, we drove to Illinois. I had been dreading the drive to Illinois for months, knowing that it was going to be really hard to get a keep a 6-month-old happy for that long in the car. I have to say, though, that Lukie took the whole drive so well. We left at 5 a.m. and he slept until almost 7. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel to eat and wiggle around a bit, and then I entertained Lukie in the car for another hour or so until he fell asleep again. We made it to Cincinnati by mid-morning and hung out with some of Pete's friends for a few hours, wearing him out and getting a nice visit in at the same time. Kiddo slept a good part of the way to Indianapolis, then fussed at me until Champaign, and then slept the rest of the way home. I was really proud of how well he did-- no major melt-downs the entire way to Illinois!

We had family Christmas with my folks and brother on Sunday, and then had a gigantic family party at my Aunt Julie's. It was so fun and Lukie took the whole thing in stride. He was wonder-baby. He didn't barely cry once at Julie's house. He just spent the whole time playing with his aunt, uncles, cousins, and Grammy Noel.

We hung out with some of my high school friends on Monday...boy was that a trip. I can't believe how far we've all come!

On Tuesday, we drove up to Pete's parents' house, where Lukas met his cousin Eleanor for the first time. Eleanor is just a few weeks older than Lukas. Their meeting was pretty fun!

He got some fun new toys, books, and clothes, including a pretty awesome walrus sweatshirt. I also took a picture of Lukie, Pete, and Pete's dad, Paul. I think there's some definite family resemblance there...especially in the eyebrows and forehead.

We were able to visit Pete's friend Clint, too, and Lukie got a chance to watch the fish in Clint's saltwater aquarium. He wanted to grab the clownfish so badly...watch what happens when they come into the bottom left-hand corner of the video.

We went back to my parents' place as planned on Friday, but on Saturday morning, we couldn't ignore the fact that there was a pretty awful storm bearing down on Illinois. We decided last-minute to drive to Tennessee that day. It was a pretty rough trip, since Lukie was reaching the end of his tolerance for both new environments and car time. He cried more than a quarter of the trip, but he slept from about 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., when we finally got home.

We're glad we left early, given how nasty that storm has turned out in Illinois. Lukie is teething something fierce, and has been pretty crabby lately, but we're glad to have a little time at home with him before I go back to work on Wednesday.

In the midst of all of that, Lukie turned 6 months old on January 3rd. Expect a 6-month-old birthday post pretty soon (and here's a teaser: we recreated one of Pete's childhood pictures over vacation, and the results are AWESOME).

Here are a few more awesome Christmas pictures of Lukie.

Happy Holidays, everybody!

Christmas is Coming...

That title is part of the lyrics of one of my favorite Muppets Christmas songs (well, I'm sure it was a Christmas song before the Muppets...but we live life according to Muppets standards in our house). I think we'll change goose to "baby", though:

Christmas is coming,
The baby's getting fat. 
Please to put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do.
If you haven't go a ha'penny, 
Then God Bless You!

I always sing the lyrics in Miss Piggy's voice in my head. When we replace goose with baby, though, the whole thing doesn't make sense. Lukie's not GETTING fat. He IS fat. So fat. And has been for a while.

Spreading the Muppet love. Feel free to ignore.

Anyway, I didn't update over the weekend because it's pretty much been nose-to-the-grindstone around here to try to get through to the 28th when we can go home to Illinois, but yesterday, I had the day off! We took a family day, and even though I spend most days there anyway, we came to the Kingsport Public Library to meet Santa Claus and have lunch with Grandma Rebecca!

We got there early and got VIP treatment, I guess- Lukie got Santa all to himself for a few pictures before they opened the doors to the auditorium. A few people had told me that he might freak out, but he gets passed around to other people all the time (which I do on purpose, since I want him to be unafraid of meeting new people). And, I just don't think he's gotten to that "stranger-danger" stage where he acts a little shy or needs Mommy all the time.

Anyway, he did NOT freak out...he had fun!

And apparently, he felt comfortable enough with Santa to do exactly as he does to his Daddy on a relatively regular basis--- pull on his beard. This shot is from Pete's iPhone...but it's pretty priceless. He had to check and make sure his beard was real!

We also had my friend Kyndra take a family photo for us. My hair's all busted. Typical.

He just looks so. danged. fat. in this picture. 

We went out to lunch with Grandma Rebecca after meeting Santa and watching the kids' program. Rebecca is so wonderful to Lukie-- she bought him an outfit, 3 or 4 books (including one my favorites, the "Bear" books- Bear Stays Up for Christmas), a really awesome Christmas sock monkey (which he promptly attempted to eat), and a "Baby's First Christmas" ornament that I will now have to fill with a picture. Probably one of the ones up above.

We also bought Lukie a stocking (actually, that was quite a hunt-- Pete requires all of our stockings to actually look like they could be socks...I think it's a historical accuracy thing) and a toy. I don't overbuy toys for him, but I noticed he liked the light-up ones at daycare, so we got him a light-up toy that plays music when he pushes on the buttons. Hopefully he'll like it. Mostly we just wanted to open something with him on Christmas morning.

In other news, Lukie is the worst sleeper ever...but I'm blaming it on teething. I can feel the bump on his bottom gums and he's rubbing everything and anything on there to try to cut through. For the last 3 nights, he's been up every hour/hour and a half unless he has Tylenol, and even then we've only gotten 2-hour stretches out of him. He's not really coordinated enough to hold teethers to his mouth for very long without dropping them on the ground. We haven't tried Orajel yet, but I'm just not a huge fan of medicating him in the first place. I don't know. We'll see. Mommy's so tired, but I keep telling myself it's a phase and as soon as those teeth pop out, it'll hopefully get better. Good Lord, I hope it gets better!

It's a good thing he's cute in the morning.

Also, he's getting fun...It used to terrify him when Pete would swing him around, but now we have a baby who loves to be bounced, tossed (very gently--still a little young), danced with, spun...anything involving fast motions (but not too fast...that results in serious upchucking, even if he's happy while doing the upchucking).

Please excuse Pete's discussion of Lukie's baby chunk. It's a little indecorous.

A Week of Firsts!

The title says it all...we've had a week of firsts around here! Well, more like a week and a half. No time to blog blah blah blah. But seriously, it's been busy and crazy and Lukie is growing up so quickly in the midst of all of it!

Last Wednesday or so, we decided we'd go ahead and let Lukie try a little bit of solid food. By solid, I guess I mean puree'd into oblivion, but not breastmilk. Basically, our doctor recommends that babies, especially babies as big and insatiable as Lukie is, start eating some solids at 4 months. The American Academy of Pediatricians recommends six months, but notes that four is perfectly acceptable, too.

Not so sure about what's about to happen...

I really want to make as much of Lukie's food as possible...both so that I know what's in it, and so we save money. Jarred baby food is EXPENSIVE, and it's really pretty easy to make baby food, so long as you have enough time to do it. I'm working out of a really great baby food recipe book, so I'll have fun, too!

We decided to try some of the pumpkin that I had roasted, puree'd, and frozen in individual ice cubes a few weeks ago. The traditional introduction to solids is rice cereal in formula or breastmilk, but I've done my homework and lots of doctors and experts say things like sweet potatoes and winter squash are just fine first foods, as well. SO IN WITH THE PUMPKIN!

I took Lukie's shirt off, knowing that it would get ORANGED. Instead of using a spoon or something, I decided to just use a well-scrubbed finger. Lukie was...well, not thrilled with the whole experience. He didn't seem particularly excited about the pumpkin, but when you're only used to one food and then somebody shoves a finger covered in pumpkin into your mouth, I suppose you're allowed a face or two.

I think we'll try the rice cereal in breastmilk, after all. Or maybe puree'd oatmeal. But definitely something that maybe tastes a little more familiar. That said, I'm super excited to be starting him on solids. I'm so glad we stuck with the breastfeeding (a process that, to this day, is not without its difficulty, given that I'm a working mom and I have to pump four times a day to provide him with enough), but I'm also REALLY looking forward to the time we're done. I'm ready for my body to belong to me again. I don't plan to wean Lukie before one year (if he doesn't wean himself...which I don't expect given how this kid likes to nurse), but I'll be glad when the whole process is over. Sometimes the bonding is really nice...and sometimes you're sick of being a food dispenser.

Post-solid-food bath. Had to get the pumpkin off his forehead somehow...

Thursday was Lukie's first Halloween...and he's the cutest tiger I've ever seen! He was happy for about 30 seconds of the entire 10 minutes he wore the costume...but at least we got some pictures of the happy Lukie. Someday he'll look at the pictures and be convinced that he had a really fun first Halloween. Fooled ya, Lukie!

Now to the other big FIRST of the week...Lukie went on his first big road trip! We took him to Hilton Head, South Carolina over the weekend and honestly, it went about as well as it could possibly have gone given that Lukie is only 4 months old. I was really impressed with his willingness to go with the flow, especially since when he was 6-8 weeks old, half hour car trips were awful!

The first half of the drive was gorgeous...

We have friends from Iowa State University who vacation in Hilton Head every year, and more friends from ISU who live in Statesboro, GA. We all decided that Pete and I would drive to Statesboro to meet up with our friend Larissa and her two children, stay overnight in Georgia, and then we would all drive over to Hilton Head on Saturday to meet with Joe and Jennifer. I'll be honest...I was pretty darned nervous going into the weekend. I hate it when Lukie has a meltdown in the back seat of the car. I feel like there's nothing I can do to stop it, and even when we can stop and feed him and he calms down, I HATE strapping him back into the carseat afterward. However, I also really want Lukas to learn to be a road baby. My brother and I took car trips all the time when we were kids. We went to Colorado lots of times, out to Oregon, up to Minnesota. My parents never had any qualms about driving a couple of kids around the country, and since Pete and I really want to take family trips with Lukas, we need to train ourselves and him to take car trips, too. So...I guess we'll start now!

WANT. TO. EAT. HAND.

We couldn't leave on Friday until after Pete was done teaching. He took Lukie to daycare so I could get the house cleaned up so my friend Brian could house/dog sit for us, and then we left at about noon. Lukie slept about 3 hours to begin the trip, and then had a major meltdown somewhere in South Carolina. We actually had to stop at a random rural Baptist Church to feed him and change his diaper since we couldn't find anywhere else. It wasn't our only random Baptist church stop on the trip...Lukas has now had his rear end exposed in lots of church parking lots. I spent the rest of the drive to Georgia on "clown shift," as I like to call it, making funny faces while trying to entertain Lukie. We got in at about 7:30 p.m., and then we got to play with Gabriella and Nate and hang out with our dear friend Larissa the rest of the evening.

Lukie decided not to sleep all the way to Hilton Head the next morning and so spent a good part of the time completely on edge and fussy, sucking on my finger (the kid still refuses to take a pacifier). He did great the rest of the day, though. He took a nap while we ate seafood, then hung out on the pier, and then took another nice, long nap while we were at the beach...LUKIE'S FIRST TIME AT THE BEACH!!!

All bundled up-- it was a little chilly and somebody needed a nap, anyway.

Everybody's favorite picture from the trip...

We ended up going out to a pizzeria for dinner and...well...Lukie was tired.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. A couple minor meltdowns, but a lot of sleep. Honestly, he did a really good job. We did, however, learn a few things about traveling with a little one. These things will change as he gets older, but for now, we've discovered some baby car travel rules:

1. Lukie really has a 4-hour limit. Eight hours is too much for a guy of his age and with his attention span. He did a good job sleeping, but when he was awake, it was all we could do to keep him entertained.

2. Trips will just take all day out of necessity from now on. Gone are the days when we could bust through a 10-hour drive, stopping for 10 minutes at a Jimmy John's to grab lunch. We now need to look at the map and schedule stops so that Lukie doesn't get frustrated of being crammed into a car seat.

3. Restaurants are now our friends. They provide valuable wiggle time. The trick? Pick family-friendly places that won't get annoyed with a frustrated baby, and if possible, pick a slightly off time, so that you're not there during lunch or dinner rush. That way, you won't have a crazy mess of overstimulated baby on your hands. Our most successful stop was at a Pizza Hut in the middle of nowhere. Generally, I'm against such places, but this worked well because Lukie could wiggle all he wanted on the table and in the booth, the place had lots of lights and colors to look at, and we didn't have to worry about upsetting somebody's nice date at 2:00 in the afternoon.

4. Take advantage of every minute that baby is asleep. DO. NOT. STOP. FOR. ANYTHING. I had to use the bathroom for at least a hundred miles, but I figured I'd get ample opportunity when we stopped for Lukie. In the meantime...log the miles.
5. In the future, once Lukie is mobile and can run around and play, we'll plan our trips along routes that have a state park or a friend's house so that he can stop, get out of the car, eat something, and get some serious play time in before getting back into the vehicle....hopefully to take a nice, long nap.

I really can't stress enough, though, how well he did. I remember when I used to dread getting him in the car...going to a restaurant...stopping at a red light...leaving the house at all...because I had a super fussy baby and it was too stressful to try any of those things. Lukie drove 8 hours one day, an hour and a half the next, ate in 5 restaurants, stayed in a hotel, drove another 8 hours...and we all survived relatively unscathed. I mean...there sure was a lot of happy wiggling when we got home...

...wiggling so fast he's a blur...

...but I sure feel emboldened by the adventure!

That's about it for this post. Lukie turned 4 months old on Sunday, but because we were driving, we have yet to have our traditional party. We're having it Saturday! Catch you all this weekend!