First of the Summer Trips...and My 100th Post!

It's official-- this is my 100th blog post! Lukie is almost 2, and there have been over 10,800 blog views! It's been a great way to share Lukie's life with our relatives and friends all over the world, and a way for me to share what I learn about  raising a child (which hasn't been much, thus far...not in the grand scheme of things). It's been an outlet for me and a joy for Lukie's loved ones.

Someday, this blog will go dark. Lukie will reach an age where it won't be fair of me to share every little milestone, every thing he says or does. He'll need to make mistakes and not have a picture of his first zit thrown up on Facebook. But, while he's little, I'll keep documenting our trip through early childhood, hopefully sharing some honesty along the way. 

It's funny- I blame the internet for making parenthood look like it should be easy and picture-perfect. Pinterest has reminded me time and time again that if I could just figure out a way to use contact paper (what, really, is contact paper?) to make the inside of Lukie's toybox the world's most beautiful inside of a toybox, our family life would be breezy and carefree and organized and creative and educational and blah blah blah. But the internet has also given me a platform for sharing all of parenthood's non-Pinteresty moments. It's been nice to hear from people who needed a reminder that their struggles are pretty dang normal. I've realized that mine certainly are, and that's a comfort when I feel like my skin is crawling and I've let my kid watch too much TV and shouldn't I have had those $500 professional photos done by now and HE'S STILL SLEEPING IN OUR BED WHY CAN'T I JUST DO IT ALL RIGHT??? So to those of you who've sent messages or texts letting me know that a) you're listening, b) you have the same problems and c) it's nice to hear from someone else who has them...thanks. It's been a comfort on my side, too. 

I'm just gonna leave this here and pretend it's the blog's birthday. Papa Bob, you have to share your janked-up birthday cake with the blog.

So, without further ado, I continue to document Lukie's childhood. Since I'm a walking Pinterest Fail, I of course don't have a baby book for Lukas...so it's a good thing I have the blog. Guess I need to print this out on fancy paper and put it all in a monogrammed album. And then I'll put that album inside a beautiful handmade box. And I'll put that box inside another box and bury it in a special spot and when he's 18 we'll dig up a time capsule of his childhood...or not...

Anyway, we took our first big summer trip over the long weekend. Every year, our friends from Iowa State get together for a reunion. The first reunion was in 2013 in Tennessee. Last year, we went to Danville, KY. This year, we all traveled to Statesboro, Georgia, where our friends Larissa and Raphael live. Look out Boone, IA, we're coming for you next year!

On Saturday morning (after a long and puke-filled drive on Friday...never forget the Benadryl for the carsick toddler), we went to feed the ducks at the pond near Larissa's house. Lukie loved throwing dog food for the ducks, and tried, repeatedly, to join them in the pond.

Gabriella and Nathan were very nice and shared their duck food!

Then we headed back to the Brazilians' house and played in the yard all day!

Lukie and Gabriella were immediate best friends. Everybody had fun playing in the sprinkler we brought from Tennessee.

Nathan and Gabriella decided to take a dust bath while Lukie was taking his nap. To be honest, I was impressed with the level of dirtiness. I've worked on farms my whole life and I'm still not sure I've ever seen a kid as dirty as Nathan was. Kudos, Nathan!

Meanwhile, upstairs...

Day One ended with some much needed Shaun the Sheep at bedtime.

We all went to Tybee Island on Sunday. I had high hopes that Lukie would like the beach, given his desire to jump into the pond on Saturday. No such luck. The ocean is terrifying.

However, he seemed to like walking on the beach and playing in the little tidepools a bit better. It was nice to actually be in a few of the pictures for once. I tell Pete that he looks like an absolutely fabulous single father on the blog.

We had some delicious seafood for lunch and headed back to play in the sprinkler some more that afternoon. It was so nice to catch up over good food and drinks in Georgia, and I think we all hope it's not another full year before we get together again. We will see more Iowans in a few weeks, but I think another trip later in the year may be in order.

Gabriella and Nathan have now been converted to Shaun the Sheep, as well. I have to admit, it is pretty great.

Anyway, thanks for reading for the last (almost) 2 years. I'll keep it up for a bit longer, and stay tuned- we have guests coming this weekend, so I'll be back next week!

Big Boy Haircut

Lukie got his first big boy haircut on Saturday morning!

Lukas has had a full head of hair for most of his life. He was born with this lovely dark hair...

...but at about 3 months old, it started falling out. He can thank my genetics for both of those things-- the hair and it falling out. Same thing happened to me. He looked a little silly for a while, as the top stuff stayed on and the sides got really thin. Eventually, I had to cut what we called his "rooster tail," a tuft of hairs that just never fell out on the back of his head.

See? He rocked an awesome mohawk for a while. I loved how the top was still long and dark, but the new stuff that came in was fuzzy and blonde. Eventually, I trimmed him up so it was mostly the same length.

Since he was one-ish, I've given him periodic haircuts in the bathtub, just to take the crazy length off. He's always had wild morning hair...which I adore.

We've been talking for a while, though, about giving him a real KID haircut. He's always looked like baby Lukie with crazy baby hair, but Pete and I decided that since Daddy was cutting his own hair with the buzzer this weekend, Lukie needed a haircut, too. 

Pete buzzed the sides with the clippers, putting on a longer guard as he went higher.

Lukie did far better than expected with the clippers...probably because he got to watch his favorite show, Shaun the Sheep, while Pete worked his magic.

I started evening out the transition to scissor-cutting...apparently taking a break to take a picture with him looking  a little mangled.

Eventually, though, I got it all evened out. I think next time I'll leave it a little longer on top, but I think we did a pretty good job for our first time giving him a real haircut! I'll admit, though-- I watched some YouTube videos on cutting little boys' hair. Ah, the power of the internets.

In other news, we rearranged the entire bottom floor of our house this weekend. This room WAS the living room....

And this room (below) WAS the bedroom. In preparation for the day (far in the future) that we sell our house, I told Pete we need to figure out how to add closets to the downstairs bedroom. Hundred-year-old houses frequently don't have closets (people didn't have the sheer volume of clothes that we do), and while the upstairs bedrooms had closets added in the renovation a few years ago, the downstairs bedroom did not. Realtors can only count a room as a bedroom if it has a closet, so, we need to add a closet to make the house a 3-bedroom home instead of a 2-bedroom home.

Also, our bedroom was right off the kitchen...a fact that's a little weird to some people. We decided to switch rooms, add closets, and also, at the same time, close the door between the dining room and what is now our bedroom. It's a little hard to explain, so I'm sure there'll be an update on construction once we actually get started. For now, just know that it was a long day Saturday moving lots of furniture.

Typical. And below, Lukie helping Daddy. He loves Peter's tools. He even carries a pretend hand saw around at daycare...I think he'll like building things with his daddy someday.

There you have it. New rooms! (Man, you can sure tell the difference between my iPhone and my camera...) I have always thought I would paint living room/now bedroom gray to make the crown moulding pop near the ceiling, but I have to admit, I love having a nice, sunny, white bedroom. And the blue ceiling in there looks gorgeous with the blue quilt. I may have to rethink my plans of painting and replacing the quilt!

I will, however, be painting that living room this summer. I have never agreed with the renovator's choice of colors in basically any room in the house...so far, the kitchen trim, bathroom, and dining room have been painted, getting rid of horrible avocado green, unpainted drywall, and terrible powder blue, respectively. I still have to paint the living room (I'm thinking a muted blue), the hallway (Peter just loves when I talk about painting the two-story hallway, but it's a really nasty fleshy tone and would look so much cleaner in white), and the guest bedroom (upstairs...where I spilled gentian violet all over the wall-- if you read the post about gentian violet and saw the pics of Lukas' face, you can picture how awful THAT would be. No idea what color that might end up as it could well be Lukas' room eventually). We've also got plans for maybe adding a half bathroom upstairs...all to make our 1 bath/2 bed house into a 1.5 bath/3 bed house.

And this is how my big boy looked when I left him to go to work this morning. I spiked his hair with a little bit of my hair stuff...I'm going to get him some baby hair gel. I can't stand how adorable he is. And sooooo blonde. But seriously, where did my little baby with the crazy hair go? This kid looks like a full-on kid.

Oh, and do you see that? He still has grey eyes. I don't know if they'll ever change color. They're almost a silvery grey with the tiniest bit of brown. They're beautiful, but I know they're probably not done changing. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful boy.

My Grandma Noel and Mother's Day Adventures

It's been a crazy few weeks around here. Crazy and sad and exhausting, but also crazy and fun. Just at different times, I guess.

I went to Memphis April 22nd-25th and presented at the Tennessee Library Association conference. Lukie had given me a stomach bug earlier in the week, but I was well enough to drive to Memphis with my co-worker, Julie, on Wednesday. Well, I got there and the stomach bug made a nasty return and I spent the next 36 hours holed up in my hotel room, miserable. I got better by Friday morning, though, and Julie and I presented and, I have to say, we killed it. She would agree, I think!

I got back to find that Lukie and Pete had survived without me-- I think Lukie did better than either of us were expecting! The co-dependent part of me was sad he didn't miss me more, but the compassionate part of me was glad that he hadn't made it too hard on his daddy. He slept well while I was gone, though Peter learned that he does NOT like Lukie's bedtime habit of sticking his finger in the bellybutton of the person he's cuddling. I think he was glad that my belly button and I were back so that I could take over bedtime duties.

The week after Memphis was rough. My mom called me on Wednesday morning to tell me that my grandmother had slipped into a coma and that she had hours to days left. By 4 p.m., she was gone. 

My grandmother half raised me- I grew up next door to her and had no other neighbors for a mile around. My brother and I caught the bus at her house- so we went in and had whatever she was having for breakfast. We got off the bus and went to Grandma's house. We spent half our time in the summer there once we were old enough to stay on the farm. We spent sick days, holidays, out-of-school days, all the days at her house. 

Grandma's door was always open-- quite literally. She had big French doors in her kitchen and we'd come marching through them as if we owned the place. Even when she was on vacation, we'd go watch TV at her house, basking in the air conditioning (somehow her house was always five degrees cooler than our own). She'd come home, and five minutes later, Eric and I would appear asking for a big plate of white bread toast with butter (she had a toaster that made it perfect every time and we NEVER got white bread at home). We'd watch Nickelodeon and beg her to let us stay the night. she usually did.

After she passed, I worried on it for two days but then decided I needed to be at home. Pete was, as always, supportive of whatever I felt like I needed to do. In truth, he wished he could go, as he and my grandmother had a special relationship (she always told me to "tell Pete I just love him! He's so wonderful!" when I hung up the phone with her), but it was the last week of classes at his school. I flew out of Knoxville on Saturday, stayed through Monday morning, and was back in time for Pete's students to come over for a picnic on Monday night.

I missed my boys, especially my littlest boy, but it was good to be home, and in a lot of ways, it was good to be home without the little person, hanging out with my cousins without chasing him everywhere and protecting both him and everyone's personal property. I got to spend time at my aunt's on Saturday night, and saw this lady, Miss Skylar, who has been "my girl" since she was born. We spent a lot of time negotiating when she is going to come down and be Lukie's nanny for a week. :) Her mama and I had a couple glasses of wine and lamented not living closer together.

By the way, the busy-ness has not included me hauling around my real camera...so, sorry for a post full of iPhone photos. I picked up this photo of myself at my mom's house...and I swear it's Lukas with long hair...though I have no idea what I'm doing with my face here...

It was good to be home. All 11 grandchildren made it, and we told stories at the funeral. Grandma Noel was a wonderful, enchanting lady who was smart as a whip and one of the least judgmental people I've ever met. She was genuinely intellectually interested in everyone and everything, a rare quality. I'll miss talking about books with her (she always liked my picks but told me I had "quirky" taste), and chatting with her about Lukas or my latest show, asking her about her church friends or her garden. I'll miss her support in everything.

I got home to irises blooming, which she would have loved (though they aren't in pastels, the only colors which made it into her front garden, but she loved a nice bright bloom elsewhere). The mirror that hung in her dining room, part of a set that went to my father and which he sweetly let me have, hangs in my dining room now. I like to think of her putting on her makeup (she used lipstick on her cheeks instead of blush-- said it lasted longer and always matched her lips) in it in the mornings. I'll have to scrape the hot glue off of it, I guess- though that reminds me of her, too. :)

Anyway, we got through the week, and decided to have an adventure weekend in celebration of Mother's Day. Pete had to go to Tusculum's commencement Saturday morning. Afterward, we piled into the car and drove to Asheville, NC. We stopped at a tea and spice shop and I picked up some lovely white tea with peaches and pineapples, and then we went to the North Carolina Arboretum, one of our favorite outdoor places and a great place for a toddler who likes to explore.

Poopin' in a corner at the Arboretum...:)

We grabbed a pizza on the way out of town and ate it in the car. When we got home, we made the mistake of letting Lukie play with the hose. Pete ended up SOAKED.

On Saturday, Pete took Lukie to Walmart to find a Mother's Day gift for me. He came back with a new pizza cutter (we have pizza every Friday night and I was SICK of having a crappy cutter), Mary Poppins on DVD (SWEET!) and some chocolate. I had also told Pete to get Lukie a sprinkler to play in, and he came back with this thing. It's a long tube with smaller tubes that, given enough water pressure, wiggles and sprays water all over the place. The problem with it was that the tubes often didn't stand up straight enough.

Pete fixed that problem real quick...

And Lukie had tons of fun in it! We already have a play date scheduled for next weekend with some friends from Kingsport. They're bringing their little girl and everybody will have a blast!

I have more garden updates to write, and I'll get around to them, but as a quick update, we painted our front door and the weigela are blooming. They're really lovely when they bloom. I'll have to prune them back after they bloom, though, as weigela bloom on old wood; if you cut them in the fall, you'll be cutting all the stuff that would bloom next year. I love learning stuff like that!

I removed a bunch of fungal-infected irises from the back garden. I think it looks nice. That big clump at the front, though, is super floriferous and just needs to be split a bit.

One of my hosta gardens. I got new hosta in a week and a half ago, so when they're up and unfurled, I'll post more about those.

The end. Let's hope for a little happier and more relaxing time this week. In a little under two weeks, we'll be taking another adventure trip-- we're going to Georgia for an annual get-together with a bunch of our friends from grad school. Updates coming soon!

And, in honor of Noel Anne Shoemaker, as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside (and that's saying something), here she is with my beautiful baby boy last summer...