A letter to Lucas at 10 months.

Hello little one!

Ten months has been a fun age for all of us. We've had so much fun watching you grow. We’re starting to notice more and more traits that we associate with toddlers. Like the way you now prefer to wander and explore between bites of food. How you love to point at each new thing you see, waitingfor us to notice and then identify it for you. How you like to play with your toys now in a totally different way. You’re using them now, not just as chewtoys and objects with which to hit things, but in the way in which they wereintended to be used. You’re favorite at the moment is a small foam ball thatyou roll and then chase all over the apartment. You like to hit it with thehandheld cheese grater. The grater is flat so it looks like you’re playing cricket. The other day you spied the cheese grater in the dishwasher and crawledup into the dishwasher to get it.

Lucas in the dishwasher, trying to get to the cheese grater.

We've moved to Baltimore and have been settling into citylife over the past month. You've handled the transition really well. There hasbeen a lot of clinginess to me, but that's really to be expected sinceeverything is so new here. You've been having a great time exploring our newapartment. It's huge - over 1100 square feet -so you've been getting yourexercise crawling all over it. You've banished that belly crawl once and forall. You've got serious space to cover now and you've decided that it requiresserious crawling. Hands and knees only!

You're trying to talk to us all the time now, and you talkto yourself a lot too. We can understand some of the babbles. When you want toeat  you do a really distinctive coughing sound in the back of yourthroat.  When we're out of your sight youdo this high pitched sound that reminds me of a sonar. Perhaps you're hopingit'll ping off of us so you will always know our exact whereabouts?  When you wake up from your nap and you wantme to come get you, I swear you say "Coo-eee" in a sing-songy voice.You know, like an upper-crust, 60 year old British woman? When I go in to getyou, I always expect to see you sporting a gray chin-length bob, wearing an ill-fittingmen’s hunting jacket and waving your gardening gloves at me. Perhaps somedayI'll be changing your diaper and you'll confide to me that Mrs. Watkins downthe street is letting her rose bushes get into the most dreadful state. ThenI'll know that it wasn't just my imagination.

You aren’t in a car that much anymore. We either walk, ortake the train or bus now. You love not being confined to your car seat whilein a moving vehicle. The only challenge has been to stop you from licking everysurface on said buses and trains. Well that, and getting you to not press thebright yellow strips running down the sides that say “Press To Signal Stop”.More than once you’ve pressed them and I’ve had to yell to the front that it wasa mistake. I’m seriously thinking of writing the city and asking them to paintall of those strips a very boring Soviet-style gray. It would no longer beattractive to babies and since it would be hard for everyone to find, the busdrivers would no doubt have far less stops to make.

Lucas on the train. Isn't he pretty?

Living close to daddy’s work has been wonderful. It meansthat daddy can come home for lunch. This means that twice a day as you hear daddywalk in the door you start waving your arms excitedly and then crawl toward thedoor while saying “dada, dada” over and over. It's adorable. It’s a  long hallway you have tocrawl down to get to the door, so you’ve also learned to say ” I’m just goingto take a little breather”, “Water, please” and “I’d be there faster dad, butmy sciatica is killing me.” 

We love every minute that we spend with you sweet boy, and we love that you make everyday so much more fun as we see it through your eyes.

We love you little bear,

Mommy and Daddy

A Letter to Lucas At 9 Months

My 9 month old.

Dear Luke,

I love you sweet boy! This letter is a little overdue since you are now 9 1/2 months old. We've had a lot going on lately, we found out we're moving to Baltimore and we've been going back and forth a lot looking for an apartment. We went to the convention last weekend in Newburgh, NY and the you've been sick with lots of mucous and a cough. Oh and I have jury duty all month long. Phew! All of that has made our life very busy.

No one has been busier than you, though. You have done so much in the past month. When you crawl now it's always on your hands and knees - we rarely see that army commando crawl now. In reality, though we don't really see you crawling all that much these days. Once you started pulling yourself up on the couch and cruising around it you lost interest in crawling.

This is the sight we constantly see.

Here's a video of how Luke feels about it.

You are developing the the sweetest personality. I still don't see any signs of possessiveness in you. We play a game where you when I make a popping sound with my mouth and open it, you take the pacifier out of your mouth and put it in mine. It gets me every time. Speaking of games you have so many that you love. Of course peekaboo is still your favorite, but you also love to have a ball rolled to you, you love to be read to, you love to imitate every gesture we make and you love to discover new things. To show your enthusiasm for all of this fun you will clap enthusiastically whenever we say "Yay!"

You really, really don't like being out of sight of me these days. If I leave the room you let out a wail like you'll never see me again.

You've gotten so very cuddly. You love to be carried while you snuggle your head on our shoulders. You easily fall asleep in our arms now. We love all of the cuddling, in fact I think we like it more than you do. At night now, when you sleep, you slide one chubby little arm around our necks and pull us closer to you.

I'll end with a video of your favorite new game. You shake your head at us and think it's the funniest thing ever. We do too.

We love you little bear, all the way to the moon, twice around the earth and back home again.
Mommy and Daddy

Chris Graduated!!

After 3 years of juggling work, spiritual responsibilities, a pregnant wife and then a new baby, and an incredibly rigorous schedule at nursing school, Chris is officially DONE. Graduation is over and he is now a registered nurse. I'm so proud of how he persevered even when it was very difficult to keep going. We also so appreciate the support we received from both sets of our parents. There is no way we could have done it without you guys!

Would you like to see how Luke enjoyed the ceremony? 

I suggest you turn down the volume on your computer before watching. 

Lucas with Grandma and Poppy

We're going back in time a bit with these pictures, but I thought you would still want to see them. These were taken when Luke was 6 months old. I think they like each other, don't you?

A letter to Luke at 8 months.

Dear Lucas,

You're 8 months old! And what a fun age eight months is turning out to be! You are increasingly more of a person now with a personality and a sense of humor and very specific preferences. We love how you are so playful! You find every single thing you come in contact with fascinating. Tonight as I held you at the meeting you reminded me of a Tasmanian Devil - twisting and turning to get at objects that were out of reach or to grin at people behind us. Seeing your excitement about everyday things makes daddy and I see it all with new eyes.

You have 2 teeth now. Right on the bottom in the center. You handled these new mouth invaders really well. About 2 weeks before they popped up you were a little fussy and you got a slight fever and then in the week after they were out you were a little fussy. I think you just had to adjust to sharp objects in a formerly soft place.

You wave goodbye now whenever anyone walks out the door! It's amazing! As soon as someone waves at you your little arm comes up and you flap it back at them. It blows me away that you're old enough to do that.

Your starting to pull yourself up using chairs or any other stationary object. Of course in the tub you've been cruising for a while. Since the water makes you buoyant you walk all around the outside of the tub holding onto the sides, but it's just been in the last week that you've really been attempting it on dry land.

You've starting to remind me of a baby koala whenever we're in a situation that you're unsure about. You will cling to me so hard if I try to put you down and if I do manage to get you down you'll cry as if I've broken your heart. That means that you and I are spending a lot of time attached to each other. I'm getting very adept at doing everything one-handed.

You are a very large baby. The last time we weighed and measured you was a month and a half ago and you were almost 21 pounds and 28 inches long. Since then you've grown out of all of your 9 month clothes and you've moved onto a 12 month size. Remember how I said you've gotten clingy lately? Wanting to be held all the time? Thanks to you sweet boy I now have shoulders that would make a linebacker jealous. You think Iron Man is tough? HAH. He's got nothing on your mama with SHOULDERS OF STEEL.

You remind us more and more of a little boy and not just a baby. We're seeing glimpses of the toddler you will soon be. You love to roughhouse and to play Chase the Baby. (Although you don't really understand the concept of a game of chase yet. Most of the time when I come after you you grin with delight and head straight into my arms. Then you cover me with kisses. You ARE very good at chasing me, but if I crawl away you cry because all you want is to get to me so I'll hold you tight. I wish our games of chase would be like this forever, but I know that soon you'll be big enough to run in the opposite direction.) You love to follow the vacuum cleaner all around our little house and when it gets close enough to touch you try to lick it as if that will help you to figure out how it gets it's Amazing Powers. You love the kitchen because that's where all the fun doors and drawers that slam are. You pull them open and shut, open and shut just because you can.

We love watching you eat. You have started to get preferences with food. Most nights I give you veggies cooked in chicken broth and some butter until they're very soft. You love them. Actually the veggies are so yummy that daddy and I love them too and sometime we steal some off your tray, but you think it's funny so that's okay. You love fresh juices even if I mix greens like kale or beet tops into them. You also will eat liver!  I'm glad because I have to choke it down, but you seem to relish it.

You're sleeping beautifully now. Eight hours a night without waking, then you eat and go back down for four more. To get you to do this I very slowly weaned you from your feedings at night by feeding you for a minute and a half less in each feeding every night. Since it was gradual you didn't seem to realize it was happening until one night instead of eating when you woke up I just patted you each time you woke. Then each night after that I would sooth you less and less so that you would learn to sooth yourself. It took about 2 weeks total, but it was so worth it. Now that I 'm getting more sleep I'm starting to feel like a functioning human again.

Sitting up so straight in your stroller.

You love the outdoors. If you ever get bored or upset all we have to do is step outside and you are instantly happy. When we take walks you sit up as straight as you can in your stroller so you can see as much as you can. You like to lay in the grass, and you like to roll in the grass, and you like to eat the grass. We think you're part cow. Or maybe that you need the fiber so you can cough up a hairball. Perhaps if you didn't lick the vacuum cleaner so much you wouldn't have hairballs that you needed to cough up. Just a thought.


We love to listen to you talk to yourself. You'll babble away to yourself and be completely entertained by it. Oh, and the other day I think you told me a joke! You babbled a long sentence and then you started laughing and laughing. When you stopped to take a breath you looked at me as if to say, "Wasn't that funny mommy?" That look made me laugh which delighted you and made you chuckle more. We were both sitting on the floor just giggling about each others reactions.

We love this age so much that we wish we could pause for a little while right here, but we know that then we would miss out on the next super cool thing you'll do. So I guess you can keep growing little bear.
We love you, all the way to the moon, twice around the earth and back home again,
Mommy and Daddy

Learning to Crawl - The Lift

As you can see from the title Luke is learning to crawl . He practices rocking back and forth on his hands and knees every day now, but usually only when we put him down on the floor in that position. This video was the first time that he had ever lifted up by himself. We didn't know what had inspired him until I picked him up. The floor. was. freezing. Oops. 

You'll notice that we're totally silent at the beginning of the video. We didn't want to distract him at all while he did his thing. 

Oh and the molding is gone in front of Luke because we had termites in that spot last month and even though we got rid of them we have yet to replace the molding. Luke is obsessed with this area because we never let him play there. Termite carcasses we might have missed + toxic termite killing spray + wood splinters all seem to be irresistible. So yes, in this video you are seeing a baby on a freezing cold floor trying to get to a toxic area. Enjoy!

Fit to be tied

Luke wore a tie to the special talk. It was the first time he's worn one, mostly because we figured that he would consider it an edible element to his outfit as opposed to a decorative one. Surprisingly though he didn't even seem to notice it was on. He was the only one who wasn't interested. He got lots of comments from the friends after the meeting. The general consensus was that it made him look very dapper. The consensus between Chris and I was that we need to start putting a little more effort into dressing him since it seems everyone is paying way more attention to his clothes than we thought they were! From here on out he's going to dress like a Ben Affleck when he was dating JLo. Super smooth.

A letter to Luke at 7 months

Dear Lucas,

As I try to write this you are squirming out of my arms to get at the laptop. The buttons on the computer fascinate you and the mouse is your personal nemesis. You are always almost catching him and then daddy or I move him right before you pounce. At the moment we're helping him outwit you, but judging from the speed at which you grabbed my glasses this morning I don't think we'll be able to keep the two of you apart much longer.

From the moment you wake up in the morning you are constantly looking for new things to learn about. You reach for everything, and when you get it it goes straight into your mouth! You're better than a vacuum cleaner because as you crawl every piece of lint/string/dust particle gets eaten. I try to catch it, but the only way to keep your mouth particle free would be to have a clean floor all the time and that's just not going to happen for the next year or so. So if as a 20 year old you find yourself craving a lint ball, you'll know that you developed a taste for them young.

You are starting to learn how to crawl on your hands and knees. You aren't as motivated to learn right now because you're already fully mobile doing your army crawl. I don't know how you manage it, but in the blink of an eye you will go from playing with your toys on the living room rug to getting to me in the kitchen and wrapping your fat little arms around my leg and trying to chew on my toes. Here's a video of you coming at me because I bribed you with  Tupperware. I love that that is all it takes to get you scooting towards me:

You're eating a lot now. You like EVERYTHING we put in front of you. Rice, bananas, kale, tomatoes with cilantro, beans, etc. We feed you a cut up version of whatever we're eating. I'm not giving you meat yet because you don't have teeth, but from the way you've been acting lately I think teeth will be coming soon. While you eat you like to be entertained, so I keep you busy at breakfast with the text, at lunch it's usually you watching me cook or clean, and at dinner you prefer for daddy and I to take breaks from talking to jump around and make funny faces. Not that we mind doing it. I love that from me merely jumping in the air and sticking at my tongue at you, you reach levels of glee that would usually be reserved for a guy being handed the keys to a new car upon graduation from middle school.

There is a long list of things that make you happy, mommy being at the top of that list. Everytime you see me now you grin. Every. Single. Time. I love that.

It's not just me you love. Daddy is your constant entertainer and the person you ask for most. (Granted, you only know the names of two people in this world and one of us is with you all the time, but still, you do love to say dada) Yesterday we went to visit daddy at school and as he put you in the car seat and walked away you started saying "dada?dada? Dada?" and you kept it up until daddy was out of sight. When I told him about it later he grinned really big and whisked you from my arms into a big hug and kiss. It's nice for daddy's to know how much they're loved.

You are addicted to your grandparents and your Titi's too. They love to shower you with kisses and you love to give kisses right back. Right now your kisses are big open mouthed, slobbery ones that leave trails of spit on everyone's face. We keep a lot of dry cloths nearby and let you go to town.

You love toys, but you find the contents of the junk drawer just as entertaining. A lint roller and a cardboard case for a deck of cards will keep you just as happy as a rattle and a stuffed animal. Since you follow me everywhere I just take stuff out of drawers and off shelves as we pass them. It keeps you happy and lets me get things done around the house. The spice drawer is your favorite because you get to lick traces of the spice off of the tops of the bottles. I almost handed you the cayenne pepper the other day until I realized what it was. I now store all spicy spices in the back of the drawer!

There are very few things you don't like. Loud noises being the thing you dislike most. When daddy finds something really funny his laugh could blow the roof off the house and every time he does it you burst into tears. Even the sound of the blender scares you. Loud sound's are really the only thing that will consistently get you upset.

You've been having a bit of a rough spell with sleeping lately. Waking up several times a night, sometimes to nurse, sometimes just to cuddle or hold our hands. I don't always like being woken up, but the feeling of a sweet, clinging baby holding on to you in the dark isn't something I would trade for anything.

You really are the sweetest baby that anyone could wish for.

We love you baby boy, all the way to the moon, twice around the earth and back home again.
Mommy and Daddy

Luke's first time at the beach this year.

It was a little windy out today, but we were all feeling restless so we decided to take a walk on the beach. Luke wasn't sure what he thought of it at first. He liked crawling in the sand, but that could have been cause it was easy to get around or maybe just because he thought sand was good food. Check out the video:  

Luke was unsure about the sand and decided NOW would be a good time for daddy to cuddle him.

After cuddling with daddy, a few mommy cuddles are never a bad idea.

Maybe this isn't so bad after all!

You know how being at the beach always makes you hungry? It evidently does that to babies too.

Luke playing in Vienna

We were driving over the Vienna bridge when Luke started to get fussy in his car seat. The water looked so pretty that we decided to pull off and take a break by the river.
Do you think Luke enjoyed himself?

Ahh, baby feet.

Doesn't Luke look like a Depression era baby living in the dust bowl in this pic? Maybe I just think that because he looks like my dad here. It's funny how sometimes he looks like a Johnson, but most of the time he's all Matthews.