Waiting for baby

(Almost 37 weeks here...due date, July 26th!)

So, my life these days consists of the following:

Trying to get as much sleep as possible

Making lists, either mentally or on paper, of things I neither have the ability or the energy to do but feel it absolutely necessary to get done before the baby comes

Lying awake at night wondering how to get sleep and to get the items on my lists done.

Isn't the end of pregnancy grand?

Really we have accomplished a TON in the last month, as now our basement is fully carpeted and even has furniture and toys down there, but it seems like the lists are never-ending. Oh well, in the end all a newborn needs is some clothes, diapers and milk and they are as happy as they are going to be. So I'm telling myself not to worry about my lists. I still think I may go fabric shopping tomorrow and try to make curtains and an easy quilt for Luke's bed though. Is that unrealistic? Probably.

Besides all that, summer so far has been great. We've been to the wading pool, back to the cottage and even had a week of "Pioneer Days" at my mom and dad's place. My parents took care of my two neices for a week and my mother is probably one of the most creative people I know, so she decided it would be fun (and a lot of work) to put together "Pioneer Days" for the kids, every day from 12-2. It happened twice and was amazing both days. She made little bonnets and skirts for the girls, put together a general store with cans stacked in a pyramid and baked goods to be bought, made a well out of a hanger and a bucket and margarine containers, organized a field day with races and high jump, and made up a little school complete with lunch pails and Oh Canada and age appropriate activities. (Luke got his very own slate, boy was he proud). I keep hoping my mom's creative genetics will somehow jump over to me, but I still haven't mastered the art of abounding creativity with limited resources. She is a true pioneer.

Another thing I've decided to take on (because as you can see I'm obviously not busy enough) is to start selling Norwex products. Actually, now that my first two parties are done I think it'll be quite do-able and I'm really excited about it. The products are amazing (great for the environment and health, easy to use, much cheaper in the long run) and after my first fairly successful go at selling the stuff, I have made no money but will have a lot of great cleaning products which will, of course, make my life easier and save me time and money. I truly do believe this, all sarcasm aside, which is why I wanted to get a bunch of stuff BEFORE the baby comes. So tomorrow I get my mop and toilet bowl brush and that's why, if you come over tonight, you will be quite unimpressed by the state of my bathroom and floors. Actually, my floors aren't bad as long as you don't look under the couch. I haven't been that keen in a while. I wish they had an environmentally friendly way of organizing kitchen papers because I'm sure I'd spend through the nose for it, but I have this funny feeling that that particular chore might require a human brain. I'm wishing it wasn't mine. The way I like to deal with all the paperasse (French for paper crap) that comes into my life is to put them in various piles throughout the house and hope that sometime I go back to it. I even got so keen one time as to organize the junk into a little filing system, but I suppose the only useful thing about that would be to go back and look through it once in a while. Instead, I now have a bunch of papers beside my little filing system, to be filed, as well as the more pertinent junk sitting in another pile in my kitchen. Julio will probably groan severely or wonder why I'm writing about this instead of dealing with it, but somehow this is much easier. Julio is an amazing organizer, I feel that spouses should compliment each other in giftings and I'm more than happy to let him have this one. The only problem is he's also the furniture mover, the kitchenette for the basement installer, the electrician, the plumber, the swing set putter-together-er, and, oh right, family provider. I'm feeling convicted, I think tomorrow is my day to deal with paper. Surely that isn't an evening job, right?!?

Okay, this is a babble post. Sorry about that. On to more exciting things. Here are a few pictures of our recent lives.

Pioneer Days:

Luke peeking out from the horse-drawn carriage (my mom was the horse, she's probably glad she's not in the picture). Note lunch pails (aka yogurt containers with handles). Luke walked around with his proudly for a long time.

School. Luke is very intent on his work, I'm so proud.

Alexandra and the one-room school house woodstove. She was the oldest so it was her responsibility to stoke the fire once in a while.

More cousin fun, not during Pioneer Days. Luke loves Auntie Marcia because he gets pedialyte freezies from her. I love Auntie Marcia because this was taken while I was out fabric shopping, sans Luke.

Another reason to love Auntie Marcia and her stuff. They have a kid's golf set which he requests when we go over there. Papa Ron would be proud of this pose I should think!More cottage fun. We do the same things every time we're there (walking, beaching, hanging out inside) so there isn't much variety from the last post, except for the shirtless beach shots this time. Don't worry, I didn't participate.

We saw these two baby foxes on the road by our cottage. If I had Robyn and Kevin's paparazzi abilities you'd be truly impressed.I went out for about half an hour and came back, only to find out that Luke and dad had a major photo shoot with all the forts they made. Julio is more fun in half an hour than I am in a week!
Luke was "tucking Bear in" here. Bear is suffocating at the bottom of the pile somewhere.Don't worry, Bear made it.

And now for some Luke stories. Current favorite Luke phrases:

"I show you works" (translation: I'll show you how this works)

"Be back!" (spoken like a tough guy with his index finger in the air, as in, I'll be right back).

"Big truck" or "Big tractor" or "Big van"...again, spoken in a lower, more masculine tone.

Any number of random comments, followed by, "hey mom?".

He has also decided that men need vehicle/power tool associations. For example, "daddy...van". Or "Papa Ron...big truck!". Or "Stan...lawn-mower" (he's never even seen Stan's lawnmower but he says this almost daily). Or "Uncle Nino (Dino)...big truck!". Those are the most common. Once in a while Papa Ron gets a table saw or Nannie or Gramma Anne get a car, but the afore-mentioned are the most common. His other new favorite thing is a little song I made up to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus". It goes "daddy in the van says I'll fix it, I'll fix it, I'll fix it...". I'll often hear him singing when we're in the car, "daddy, fick it, fick it". It's way too cute. Sadly he almost never sings the mommy verse. He more often requests the "bear" verse which goes, "Bear in the van says What is plumbing?" because I figure Bear doesn't have a whole lot upstairs. So I'll often hear "Bear...plumbing, bear...plumbing". Oh well, I've given up being jealous of a Bear. I have too many lists to think up.

My sweet Luke

The other day Luke and I were lying down to take a nap, and as he was lying there he suddenly asked me, "mommy, sad?". And I said, "no Luke, I'm happy". And then he smiled, and paused for a second and said, "happy...too".
And on the topic of sappy Luke stories, tonight I was having a moment, as I was singing Luke songs before putting him down to sleep, of hoping that once our new baby comes the cuddles with Luke won't have to stop too much and that I'll still get to hold him and rock him and feel that closeness with him that I've been feeling so much lately. And so I started to cry a little and Luke looked at me and said, "hug?" and of course I said yes and he gave me the biggest squeezer hug. But I wasn't done my moment so I still had a few tears and so then he looked at me again and said, "daddy, hug?". He's really connected with the fact that Julio can fix stuff. I thought it was sweet. I'm so glad he's such a sensitive little guy, for as busy and active as he is. Sometimes I can't imagine a more amazing kid, but I guess we'll meet another version of amazing in a few weeks...
(To perpetuate the sap, check out the "see a falcon, live!" link on the side. It's a mom and her falcon babies on top of the Radisson Hotel in Winnipeg and you can watch it live all the time. Luke doesn't like it when "Big One Bird" (the momma) is gone though, so we mostly only watch it when she is around giving her babies "snacks" as I refer to them (dead pigeons, etc). It's quite addictive, really! Okay, we don't have a tv, but still...!!)

Weekend fun with Keena and Jello (Luke's now on a first name basis with us)

After endless days and nights of working on the basement, the drywall is up and we took a much needed break. Julio sometimes laughs at my "we", when I say things like, "we" should do this in the basement, or how much do "we" have left to do...but you get my point. I feel like I needed a break too...So, here's our weekend in a (potentially long) nutshell.
Julio had Friday to Sunday off, so we joined a friend of mine who teaches at TCI in a family studies class where they run a nursery school and went to the zoo with teenagers and toddlers and my pregnant teacher friend. It was a gorgeous day, but I think Luke enjoyed the puddles he found probably a bit more than the animals. They were so hot and tired that Julio referred to the leopard as looking like just a big rug so why would Luke care, but at least the bison were massive enough to get noticed. The bears were a hit, however, and we stood there for a good long time watching them roam around. After days of rain and drywall, we were happy just to be out! And it was great having huge "roads" without cars for Luke to run around on. So we had fun.
Luke and Julio enjoying the bears.
Apparently just me enjoying the monkeys.Attempt #5 at getting a family photo. Sorry Julio doesn't get more face, it's the best we could do. After our zoo excursion, we finished our packing and headed out for the lake. Luke slept the whole way down which was awesome and was ready for some serious fun when we got to the cottage. The weekend was a blast. Basically our routine was the same for the two days we were there: Get up way too early (thank you Luke!), eat a massive breakfast, clean-up toys and dishes and get ready to go for a walk by 9am. That felt far too productive for a morning on what was supposed to be a lazy weekend, but I'm realizing that lazy needs to get redefined, i.e., going to bed at 9pm as opposed to wishing you could sleep in until 9am. Anyway, we went for a walk both days, Luke gathered up stones and put them in his pockets to throw in the lake, we visited a bit with my uncle and aunt who have a cabin down there too, spent a couple of hours on the beach, ate again, slept, tried to convince Luke that swimming and getting all gross wasn't fun twice in one day, played with fun toys on my aunt and uncle's deck, ate some more, Luke went to bed, Julio and I played games, we crashed. It was truly great. The weather was amazing and Luke was way too much fun. He always amazes us with his continual enthusiasm and energy and all the funny things he comes up with. So, here's a glimpse at our fun:
Our "walk". The normal 15 minute loop took us about an hour. To be honest, it was the perfect pace for me. Luke didn't want to sit in his stroller, so he meandered here and there and did the occasional sprint with Julio.

Gotta be just like dad. Fun at the beach. I look huge. Wow. (I'm 32 weeks here, for those who are interested. It's just the angle, really...)
Burying our toes...the only really "relaxing" activity Luke would let us do at the beach. We buried our toes A LOT.

The "sa-wide"! This is the stupidest slide I've ever seen, as it is too wide, the stairs too steep, the slats too narrow and the slide too fast for children under 12 basically...very annoying but Luke loved it and seeing as my balance is questionable, Julio was the designated "sa-wider" all weekend. While they slided, I worked hard on my rock art. (see next picture)

Luke's favorite thing was to throw rocks in the lake, so I bum-scooted around the beach (quite the sight I'm sure, we were, thankfully, the only ones on the beach) finding him rocks and he would run to me, get the rocks, run back to Julio and they would throw them in. A brief visit by Papa Ron and "A-Anne" (Gramma Anne officially). For all of you worried about heavy machinery and small children, the tractor was not running with Luke in the vicinity. (happy Marcia?!?)
On Uncle Don and Aunt Betty's deck...they had a bunch of tools that Luke happily stored in the trunk of this car and drove around with. At one point he actually tried to take off with the entire car and bring it to our cabin. And I can't be certain he didn't stash their hammer in a pocket somewhere...the boy LOVES hammers! Finally, back home. In the last week or so, Luke has seriously bonded with his stuffed bear. "Bear", or "Beer" as it often sounds to me (I've been secretly calling him "Labatt" but don't tell Julio...), has his own place at the table now. Directly across from Luke. We must hold Bear's hands to pray, we try to feed Bear but he hasn't quite mastered the chewing thing yet, we very nearly even gave Bear a time-out yesterday. It's been interesting. As is Bear's smell...I really must wash him soon...

sushi and cousin fun

Julio took me out to Wasabi for Mother's Day, my favorite sushi place in Winnipeg. It was so great. We hadn't been on a date in a while so we kind of went crazy and ordered way too much and ate for sure way too much and it was wonderful. I remember going to bed that night still feeling full and we had eaten hours earlier. So here are some shots of before, during, and after. For sure my favorite moment of the evening was watching Julio eat a massive hunk of squid. We ordered mostly rolls but like getting a few sushi pieces too (hunks of raw fish on rice) and they had a "chef's collection" thing where we get whatever the chef wants us to eat. So the tray of it comes and Julio and I check it out and started eyeing the squid rather suspiciously. It was white and bumpy and looked like an albino hunk of rubber and didn't appeal to either of us very much. But Julio, being the man he is, dove in. I could tell from the first moment it was in his mouth that he wasn't having that glorious let-me-savour-ever-bite experience. It was more, what do I do with this unchewable mass. I don't think I've ever seen him chew so long in his life. I kept asking "is it good?" "do you need to spit it out?" and eventually "are you okay?" to which he just continued chewing with a disgusted look on his face. I couldn't help but laugh and feel like I was watching "Fear Factor" but eventually he did swallow it. The rest of the meal was definitely amazing, hence the "I'm so full I'm going to burst" picture of me at the end. We were going to go out to a movie or go for a walk or something afterward but I was so full all I could think about was lying on the couch. Definitely not the squid moment. He's smiling.On Saturday I watched Luke's cousin Eli for the morning and it was so cool to see Luke and him interact. They're 4 weeks to the day apart and it's fascinating to see the similarities and differences in them. I'm so glad he has a cousin so close in age. I was actually kind of looking forward to having him over as Luke usually does better when he has someone to play with whose ability to sit on the floor and play for hours or run circles around the island is far superior to my ever decreasing ability. So they had a blast. I realized when he was over that having more kids isn't more work, it's different work. You're off entertainment duty and more on clean-up messes duty. And strangely enough, I think I'm okay with the clean-up mess duty! I vacuumed once and swept three times while he was here and was totally glad to do it. Because Luke and Eli were just so content and having such a great time. Maybe having another kid won't be so bad...except that they won't be any fun for Luke for, hmmm...years maybe?!?!?

Basement renovations

I'm happy to report that our basement renos have really been taking off these days. We found a guy to do our mudding and taping of our drywall and have booked him for an exact DATE even, and so the pressure is on to get the drywall up. Julio has been working really hard at it and it's coming along great, although I don't really know much about drywalling, so just seeing walls up in any form makes me more than happy. I think this whole basement reno thing has really deepened Julio and Luke's relationship. He's asking for "daddy" more than "mom" these days and will often say to Julio as he's waking up first thing in the morning, "daddy? stairs?" (as in, downstairs). And often throughout the day he mentions "daddy" and "nails" or "tools" or "hammer". I've been feeling a little left in the dust, so the last few days I've been trying to up my status with Luke and have taken him downstairs to do some hammering with him. He looks at me with such admiration when I get that nail to stick in the board that I can't help but be somewhat proud, even though the "nails" we're using are actually drywall screws in a piece of scrap 2x4 that only goes in a quarter of an inch. But he's impressed.
Today my status really got bumped up a notch as I cut out my first sheet of drywall. I got to use a drywall level and one of those chunky flat pencils and an exacto knife. I kept the pencil behind my ear for a good hour afterward, just reveling in my new talent.

Luke is downstairs right now with Julio and "Tata" (Julio's dad) and I've heard a few "touche pas" so I should probably go give Julio a break. But not before sharing a few pictures of our family work day:

twinkle, twinkle

I couldn't believe he did this for me on video, he usually gets camera shy. Had to share.

And a picture.

Toddler translation

I have a few new favorite words. They are, of course, all thanks to Luke. I have always loved the way kids mispronounce words and have adopted their version as my own on many occasions, and now, to my great delight, I have my own little person to imitate. So here are a few of the latest: pumbers = cucumbers, broccolideli = broccoli, peek kee goo = peekaboo. Those are topping the charts but I find everything he says quite witty and cute. One of my favorite Luke moments this week was one day at lunch while we were all three outside and Julio and I were eating strawberries on a blanket while Luke had a hammer and was doing something important with his tricycle. Julio asked him if he wanted a strawberry and he said, "No, I working". I think I laughed for five minutes straight, I had to ask Julio if I heard him right because I couldn't quite believe he said that. Another common Luke phrase these days is "I'll help you" which is really his way of asking for help because if he's in a jam I usually say "I'll help you" so I guess it works both ways in his mind.

And now for a little video, some outdoor fun and giggles.

I have to say, this great weather has been wonderful for all of us. I think we (Luke and I) spend more time outside than inside these days. And I'm finally getting off my butt and doing some walking which is great, I had quite a lethargic winter! Although I must say, with my ever growing belly and a busy kid, the ten minute walk to the park is often a twenty minute walk on the way home. But I can't stop, I still have three months to go and we can't live in our backyard! We are actually seriously contemplating buying/making a sandbox. I think we need to make our backyard a bit more exciting so that Luke has stuff to do back there, because once this baby comes I can't imagine that I'll have as much time to go to the park and I'm already feeling more fatigued due to my size with three months to go! So yes, that's our new excitement, a sandbox.

Another exciting event was receiving a package from Switzerland! We got a whole bunch of great wooden animals from our friends out there as well as a musical French book. I told Sandrine (my good friend from there) that I was teaching Luke French and now she has taken it upon herself to provide us with music, books, etc in French. She is lovely. Did I mention there was amazing swiss chocolate in there too? Yes, truly lovely. So, here's Luke enjoying his new book, this is mostly for their benefit to see him using his new gift in action, but I thought his moves were good enough to post: (Actually, after re-watching this I realized it wasn't quite so exciting...but the grandparents will approve I'm sure...)

And finally, a few pictures:

A day at the park

The wooden toys & new book

Self-portrait

Current events...

I haven't updated in a bit so I thought I'd put some recent pictures up. Sadly, most of our pictures are in our house because I always forget to bring our camera along anywhere fun. Once in a while, believe it or not, we do leave the house and do fun things! In fact, with the current warmer weather, we've even gone on a couple of picnics, one of our favourite things to do. Of course, this year there isn't much lounging on a blanket, reading books all afternoon and maybe taking a nap. But toddler chasing is fun too...I keep telling myself that :). Luke constantly amazes us with his stamina...we were at Assiniboine Park for about 2 hours yesterday and Luke walked about 90% of the time, which Julio figured was at least a kilometre, and when we finally got home and tried to convince him that a nap would be a good idea we had the following conversation, while all lying on our bed:
Me: Okay, Luke, let's lie down and take a nap
Luke: ni-night
me: yes, ni-night
Luke: I seeping (sleeping)
me: good
Luke: halleluyah...bear? ni-night...I seeping!
me: close your eyes Luke
Luke: eyes? daddy? eyes? (poke poke) cose eyes (1 sec eyes closed) I seeping!
me: good
Luke: ni night. DAD!!!
Julio: shhhhh
Luke: shhhh (loudly, finger to mouth)
This went on for about half an hour. He did not quit talking. Eventually he started looking at my stomach and saying "baby" and giving the baby kisses, and trying to learn the art of touching the baby gently. (Side note: The other day while looking at my belly, he got frustrated and said, I want to SEE!!! I think he's figuring out that babies aren't just stomachs and there's something more to this baby thing than just a growing stomach. Although I'm not sure, he saw a magazine in the store of a girl in a bathing suit and said "baby" so I think all bellies are babies to him. Even his and his dad's.) So, after much negotiation on his part, I said he could go play and he quickly jumped off the bed and went to play. Thankfully, by 7pm he was more than ready for the night and slept for 13 hours...
In other news, this week was a big one for Luke, a new tricycle and a haircut, not to mention a birthday party where he got his very own helium "manoon"! Very exciting.

So, here are a few pictures.

Luke getting into freshly baked cookies.

The new tricycle.
The new haircut.

A new favorite game which he discovered with his friend Rachel. This is how it works: throw stuffed animals and blankets into the crib, climb into crib, throw animals and blankets out of the crib, ask for help out of the crib, repeat. Many, many times. When he plays with Julio he just stays in the crib and screams : I'm weady!!! (ready) and Julio counts to ten and Luke says 2,3,6!!! and Julio throws all the stuff in for him. This could go on for hours I'm sure if we would indulge this game, but I, for one, don't have much stamina for it. I much prefer "pool" where I can lie on the couch with my "pool cue" (a broom) and try to hit balls that Luke arranges on the coffee table. Much more relaxing.

Frenglish

Non't pas! (Combo of no, don't and pas - as in "touche pas")
That's just one of the things that has come out of Luke's mouth, our little "Frenglish" boy. He can also frequently be heard saying "I want lait" (milk) or "I want banane", etc. Today when we went for a walk it was "hi chat" (cat) and "bye chat". It's a funny thing teaching two languages to a child! Another common "Frenglish-ism" in our house is something I'd love advice on, for anyone out there teaching two languages to a child...often I'll say to him "Dis merci" (say thank-you) and he'll reply in English "hank-you" (a slight improvement from the previous version - "huck you"). Now, do I try to correct him and get him to say it in French or just be happy he gets it? French seems harder to say, he seems to naturally gravitate to English words, but it could just be because he hears more English. "S'il te plait" (please) is another hard one to say and so when he responds to my "s'il te plait" prompting with a "pease" I'm thinking that's good enough for now! I'm actually just so pleased when any French word comes out of his mouth that I'll be happy with whatever I get. Anyway, I just thought the "non't pas" was too cute to not share...

Vacuums, Dishes & Brooms...

Here's another (vain!??) attempt to post a video. Luke is dedicated to housework lately. It could be that he's noticing that it's not always happening and so he feels he has to pick up the slack. Or else we just have a really great future ahead of us. Anyway, he LOVES vacuuming...the other day he vacuumed his room and the bathroom and probably did a better job than I can do. He's also quite into doing dishes. Mostly he likes eating soap (gross) and making a mess with water everywhere. But we have fun. I'm finding him to be at such a cool age...he's starting to feel like a little companion to me; we chat throughout the day and I ask him if he likes certain things and he always has a "yes" or "no" ready. It's great fun. And of course there's always his broom obsession...mostly he thinks of it as a pool cue, but I had to wonder if our child was somewhat different from the norm when I went into our office to find him watching "Baby Einstein" hugging his broom...That's totally normal right?!?!

The last two pictures are me at 22 weeks and Luke doing puzzles in a box...I wonder when the box novelty will wear off?!?

Here's another video I thought I'd try, seeing as I've been hearing that this first one actually worked! Luke and his favorite lunch...

pool and an ultrasound

Luke and I went to Robyn's for a bit this afternoon and his new favorite game is "pool". It always goes the same way; he takes two balls, places them at either end of a coffee table, grabs a broom (kid sized preferably although not exclusively) and cues up! I can't figure out if the goal is to get the one ball to knock the other one off or to just hit the nearer ball and try NOT to hit the other one...but in any case, when a ball falls off he nearly always says "shucks". He never says this at any other time, just when playing pool. Goofy kid.

In other news, we had ultrasound number two today! Much fun, minus the one hour/full bladder wait I had before I got to go in. (For those of you wondering why I'm mentioning my bladder, you have to drink a litre of water an hour before an ultrasound.) It's amazing how "good attitudes" are harder to maintain with a full bladder. A lady sitting beside us came an hour early for her ultrasound, and then some kind, worried looking man came up to her and asked if she realized she was so early and she didn't realize she was THAT early, but seemed very okay with waiting for an hour before having her ultrasound. No toddler in sight, by the way. He assured her that he would do his very best to squeeze her in if he could. At this point we'd been waiting nearly an hour. Then, a minute or so later he escorts her in and she smiles away. My full bladder did not allow me to completely take this all in stride and so I inquired (for the second time) as to when they thought I might get in and is there a reason why some people wait and not others? About 5 minutes later or so I went in...
So, the baby looks good from what I can tell! Brain, spine, feet, hands, beating heart...all good signs! She spent an awfully long time on the brain however...that's normal right?!?! Anyway, Julio, Luke and my mom came in after she did her lengthier assessment and Luke surprised me by saying "baby" when he looked at the screen! I could hardly recognize that it was a baby! She showed us the face and it basically just looked like a skull, a bit scary really. I don't remember Luke looking quite so alien like at his ultrasound, but the ultrasound tech seemed smiley enough and unworried looking so we just oohed and awed at the funny face in front of us. When she got to the feet, the baby put one foot right up against the screen like a footprint...very cute! Even the ultrasound tech seemed enamored by that. And then she showed us the legs and the baby had his/her ankles crossed and it was also very cute. Our baby weighs 9 oz right now, which is about the weight of half a block of butter for those of you (like me) who can't visualize ounces. All in all, it was a very exciting day and I'm glad for the second sneak peek!

The musical preferences of our little one

We have a situation which I am unsure how to remedy in our house. My child is addicted to a certain rap video. Rap is probably an outdated 90s term and I should probably be saying "hip hop" or "r & b" or something, but I don't know what those things mean so bear with me. My sister sent me an email link to a touching, thought provoking video called "happy birthday" by some group called Flipsyde. (That's like "flip side" for those of you that don't know. I thought it was flipsy de for a while...I'm slow, I know...) Here's the link if you're curious.
http://video.google.com:80/videoplay?docid=3858369431186397914&pr=goog-sl
Anyway, first wrong move was to watch this video with Luke in the room. He loved it. There's kids playing ball in it which of course is a hit because he's crazy about balls, and he stands in our office and dances away, fists in the air, elbows up, bending his knees and grooving. Very cute, the first 5 times. Maybe even the first 10 times. But when he comes up to us approximately 15 times a day, starting to dance, saying "happy birthday" (happy but-day, as he says it) and then pouts if we don't put the video on, there's a potential for things to get ugly. And I have to say, I'm often strong and don't give in and think that maybe having my child watch rap videos over and over again isn't the most normal thing. But sometimes I am weak and think what's the harm and there he goes, dancing away singing "happy but-day", happy as a clam. Usually as it starts he says, yeah, yeah. Like, good move mom, you finally get it. Well, today I was ready to mix things up a bit so we checked out a few of the other videos on the site and there was a video of a girl and a guy lip sync-ing to "Barbie Girl". I don't really know the song and didn't realize it got a little raunchy at times, so we watched a bit and then when I started getting too grossed out I turned it off. Bad move. The boy LIKES barbie girl. He would probably like to be in a barbie world, as long as it involves much dancing. Anyway, I found some other music on our computer, some French pop music, but that was a no go. We finally settled on Lenny Kravitz and he was happy again. Is this normal? Should a 19 month old child have such musical preferences at this age?!? I tried veggie tales but that was met with less enthusiasm. If there's anyone out there that knows of toddler "rap" or "r & b" or "hip hop" I am very willing to take suggestions. Especially if they come on video.

Mr. Luke, High School Teacher

So today was a funny day. I had no plans and wasn't totally sure what the day would hold but never quite expected the day to turn out as it did. I got a call at around 11am from the school I used to work at, TCI, asking if I could sub in the afternoon. I said no, I didn't have childcare so it wouldn't work out. They called me back a few minutes later saying they were desperate and that I could bring Luke, and besides, it was a couple of family studies classes so he would fit right in. So, slightly unbelieving what I was really doing, I packed Luke up and we headed out for an afternoon of subbing.
I walked into the staff room with Luke and I think everyone in there just thought I was visiting, but there were a few interested expressions when I told them that we were there to sub! We headed off to get room keys, I saw a couple of former students who they were excited to see Luke, and then as we walked down the hall we got a bunch of comments about "oh, look at the baby!" (I still find that odd...he walks and talks...yet is he still considered a baby?!?!) and "what's his name?!?" etc etc. I wish the actual class time was chocked full of interesting tidbits but it all was amazingly normal and not too weird in the end. Some of the kids played catch with Luke, but both classes were in the computer lab working on a project so they mostly just worked away and Luke and I wandered around. I suppose the one weird moment was sneaking away to change his diaper on the teacher's desk (sorry Gina, if you read this!!). At the end of the day, all the kids had left and I was leaving a few comments for the teacher and Luke was just wandering around the room. He went right to the middle of the room, climbed up onto a chair and put his elbows on the desk, just waiting there for the longest time. It's funny, every time I substitute teach I look at these high school boys and wonder just what my little Luke will be like all grown up, which one of these boys will he ressemble. Maybe today was my sneak peak.


I'm going to also include a few pictures as I've been meaning to do so for a while.

Luke with his friend, Belen.

We like to call this picture "Friends in Boxes".

My pregnant belly at 18 weeks...the first picture of me yet in this pregnancy...we're not as keen as we were round 1...

Luke eating tomato soup. And I thought I was being smart by taking off his shirt. His pants, the buckle, even his diaper were soaked in lovely red soup afterwards. Why did I think this was a good lunch choice?!?

Our little Mr. Fix-It. Julio comes home from work and before he even gets a hug, Luke is usually digging into his toolbag to find some treasure. This picture comes complete with audio of Luke pretending the screwdriver is a drill. Very convincing don't you think?!? What? You can't hear it?!? Turn up your speakers...that's right...louder, louder...why don't you just test your system by playing a song...just kidding, there's no audio.

Vocabulary

In the last few weeks Luke has really taken off with his words, so I'm going to try to compile a bit of a list so I don't forget. This may be more for my benefit than yours, but at least it's a peek into Luke's current stage.
Words that have been around a while:
dad
hi
hi dad
bye
uh-oh
upela...how do I spell this?!? It's a French word meaning "whoopsy daisy", he pronounces it "up-it-a"
ow, owie
papa (what he calls his grampa)

stuck

Newer words (in the last few weeks):
mom, mommy
hallelujah (more like ah-yay-yu-yah)
cock-a-doodle-do(de-do-de-do!)
chat (cat in French)
baa baa
book (clear as a bell!)
sure (so cute...I love how he says this!)
attempts at "Nannie" and "gramma"...not too clear, gramma has come out "baba" quite frequently
milk
encore...more like "co...co" when he wants me to do more of something, like read a story, feed him grapefruit, etc.
duck
amen
thank you...not much of a th sound there, but somewhat recognizable!
Luke...more like "uke" or sometimes "guck"
up
off

Liam (sounded kind of like "lemon" one time!)

Tricia (quite clear actually!)

fish (I didn't even know he knew this word! The other day I joined my mom and aunt and uncle for breakfast at Aalto's and there's a little fountain with fish in it a little ways away, in the hotel part. My dad usually takes him for a walk there if we join them for breakfast but he was away, so I went with him. The whole way to the fountain he kept saying "fish fish" clear as a bell!)

push

brush (no real "r" sound)

yes

hat

hug

cheerio

more

uh huh, along with good inflection and head nodding...so funny! Last night my mother-in-law was over and we were talking over supper, and then one or the other would say "uh huh uh huh" while we were talking, and Luke would completely copy us, nodding and saying "uh huh uh huh"...we could hardly talk at times we were laughing so much! And then of course he knew he was funny so he kept doing it. I loved it.

I may add more as I think of them! I have to say, this journey into language is amazing, I'm loving it. He's so delighted when he repeats something and we're smiling away. His receptive language is quite good too, he's good at throwing things in the garbage for us, or giving things to people when we say "donne a Dad/Mom" (give to Dad/Mom). This morning he surprised us, as Julio was looking for his cell phone, he was asking me if I knew where it was, and then Luke walked into the office and came out with it just as Julio was calling himself to find it! Of course I think he's practically a genius. Yesterday he surprised me too, I was trying to get him to lie down and take a nap, so I sang "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to him, thinking it would calm him down. I've only sung it to him once before that I can remember, and didn't remember any actions so I would just flutter my fingers in the air, and he immediately sat up and started doing that once I started singing! I couldn't believe he remembered that! And then the "up above the world so high" part became a favorite, mostly I think because he knows the word "up", so he started singing "up up up..." and I just loved it. The top of my list for sure is "hallelujah" and "cock-a-doodle-do" though...usually accompanied by the world's cutest smile.
So, that's Luke at 18 months!

Ultrasound

Today we had an ultrasound to determine what week I am in my pregnancy, and I must say, leading up to this day has brought with it many emotions. After having gone through a miscarriage, being pregnant again is a scary thing. I didn't realize it would be at first, I just thought, hurray, we're pregnant, but then as the weeks progressed I started to fear that things may not go well again.
Well, I am very happy to report that today we saw our baby. Heart beating, legs kicking, arms waving...it was wonderful. At first the ultrasound technician was just doing her thing and I was trying to get any information out of her that I could...first of all she said, there's just one in there in case you're wondering! (Relief! I am feeling much larger already than I did with Luke and this did cross my mind!) Then she told me the heart rate was 167...more relief! A heartbeat! And then she told me I was a little over 11 weeks...about what we thought. All good signs. And then finally she brought in Julio and Luke and we got to take a look...and when I saw that little one kicking and the heart beating I just couldn't help but cry. And as we drove home there were more tears, tears of relief, tears of joy...I know the journey isn't over by any means and anything can happen still, but today I rejoice that the little one inside me is moving and existing and I am so excited.