...worth a thousand words

Not much on my mind today so I've just got a couple of pictures for your enjoyment. The Pooh pic is one of several I took while trying to get Lucas to look at the camera. As you can see, it wasn't the most successful of quests. The rest of that series can be found in the photo album.

That's what I get

This was a rare Lucas picture-free day. However, I made up for it by playing and/or holding him from the time I got home until he went to bed. I've been wanting a father-son bonding day for a while now, and it felt good to get it.

One of my fraternity brothers from university had a kid several years ago, and in an email to a few of us, he said some sappy stuff about having a kid and what a great, life-changing experience it was. At the time, another friend and I kinda joked about it behind his back, talking about what a wuss he was and just having some fun at his expense. I guess the tables have turned though since I'm that guy now. I thought I was sarcastic and cynical and jaded and whatever other pessimistic words you might come up with--and sometimes I am, especially at work--but as soon as I come in the door after work, I can't wait to go over and see that little man's face. Whether he's smiling or asleep or even crying his eyes out, I just get this overwhelming feeling of contentment. I can't even imagine going to bed now without standing over his crib for a few minutes, just watching him softly breathe in and out. It's one of those things that lets you know all is right in the world, if only for a few moments.

Okay, enough about that. Although I didn't get any pictures of Lucas today, I took 3 yesterday, 2 of which follow. The first one is just mom and son hanging out on the couch downstairs. He's looking like a little tubby fella, huh? That reminds me, at his appointment with the doctor today, he weighed in at a healthy 11 lbs, 2 oz. That's up about 2 lbs from his last visit a mere 2 weeks ago. The little guy definitely likes his milk.


This next picture amuses me since it looks like the poor kid is getting abused. Well, abuse isn't amusing but knowing that there isn't any makes it amusing. Hmm, that sounds bad, and I'm sure child services is on their way. Anyway, we had dinner with a couple we know last night (btw, great dinner again, Nicole and Chris!), and after dinner, Lucas just went bananas with the yelling. We tried all kinds of things, and at one point Nicole put him on his stomach and was rubbing his back. I thought Lucas's position was amusing (see above) and snapped the picture. Enjoy!

Weekend Update

On Friday, Marilu attended her first strollercising session. As you might imply from the name, it's a way for new moms to meet up and get some fitness in, all while accompanied by their rugrats. Based on the pictures she took, they walk with the strollers for a while, and then wrap up with some light exercise (hence, strollercise, I suppose). I'll admit I've never heard the term before, but I can't imagine this activity is unique to Ottawa. One of the highlights of her story for me was when she said that 10-15 moms were breastfeeding under a tree at one point. That must have been a sight. Anyway, here's a picture from the exercise portion of strollercise:


Saturday was a fairly quiet day, although I did get to the gym for the first time in recent memory, so way to go, me. I did take quite a few pictures of Lucas, all of which are now in his photo album. Some of the highlights follow.

Although we've got Lucas sleeping in his own crib, I thought these pictures of him and our king-sized bed all to himself were amusing. Just a quick note: you may want to click on the first picture in order to enlarge the picture and see Lucas clearer.



Here he is, posing in an outfit that he wore for the first time on Saturday:


Oh, I almost forgot. Lucas hit 6 weeks yesterday! Amazing, ain't it? The crazy thing about that is that if we were still living in the States, Marilu would be heading back to work this week (in most places, and if she wasn't a teacher on summer vacation). For those of you south of the border who are unaware, maternity leave in Canada is a full year. I'm pretty patriotic when it comes to the U.S., but this is one time where I think Canada definitely has us beat. Anyway, here's a cake Tanya brought when she came over for dinner last night.


Finally, I'll wrap up with a couple of pictures of Lucas with his Auntie Tanya (technically Marilu's cousin but with the lack of real aunts right now, we're sticking with that!):



Now we're off to walk the little poop machine since he's being a tad fussy and that usually mellows him out. Have a great Sunday!

Book list updates

Just wanted to point out that I made a couple of updates to Lucas's future book list. First off, I've added a "suggested" section that lists books that people have, obviously, suggested to me.

The second thing I've done is separate the books I currently own and put them at the beginning of the list, along with a notation saying I own them. My mom suggested this so that she would have an idea of what books to buy for Lucas down the line. So, friends and family, if you are ever planning to buy Lucas something for a birthday, Christmas, or whenever, feel free to consult this list before you head out shopping. :)

FYI, you can get to the book list using either the link on the right side of the page or click here.

Days like this...

Today was one of the best "Lucas firsts" yet. Marilu picked me up from work, we drove home, and when we arrived, I brought Lucas and his car seat into the house. After I took him out of the carseat, I held him up, and he responded by giving me a HUGE, open-mouthed smile. There's no way this was a smile caused by gas or a scrunched face that just looked like a smile. This was a full-fledged, "Hey daddy, I'm happy to see you!" smile.

You can ignore any rumors from Marilu that I got a bit misty-eyed. I'm sure it was just a bug that flew into my eye or something. Yeah, that's the ticket...

"Ya gotta be kidding me!"

My aching head

Just a couple of quick pics since I'm recovering from a bad migraine that bothered me from late afternoon until an hour or so ago. I'm at that point where my head still aches and throbs a bit, but the worst seems to be over.

On Saturday, we took Lucas out for a long walk at a park by the Ottawa River. While getting him ready for that trip, I snapped a couple of shots that turned out to be some of my new favorites of him. The first one follows, where not only is he in his sunglasses, but he cracks a rare smile.


I lucked out with the next one, catching him looking right at the camera without scrunching up his face or doing anything else to goof up the photo, something he's become quite proficient at doing. :)


On Sunday, we went to the Keg Manor (a fancy restaurant here in Ottawa) for a friend's birthday. Since we were bringing Lucas, he had to dress up and look the part of a little gentleman. Check out the threads!


Finally, I had to include this picture of Marilu and Lucas from the Keg Manor since Sunday was the first time Marilu had put in her contacts since 2006. Woohoo! What a hottie!

Busy boy

Friday was a pretty active day for Lucas. For starters, he visited my workplace for the first time and met several of my co-workers. All the women thought he was as cute as can be so he must be developing quite a little ego by now. Then again, he was more interested in the fluorescent lights than anyone that was holding him, as evidenced in this shot:


Afterwards, Marilu got together with several of the girls from her book club, along with their offspring. So I guess that could be considered Lucas's first playdate. By the end of this year, there will be 8 babies between the 7 of the book club's members, and they will all be within about 2 1/2 years of each other. I hope they get used to each other now since I think there will be a lot more playdates in their future. Of the 7 that have already been born (#8 arrives in September), only one is a girl. What do you want to bet she's gonna completely run that group when they are all a little older? Anyway, here's a picture of the lone girl, Francesca, holding Lucas.


Before wrapping this up, there were a couple more firsts for Lucas this week. One, I already mentioned in a previous post, but I wanted to reiterate that he is now sleeping in his crib. This is his third bed in just over a month, but he should be in that for the foreseeable future. In addition, Lucas spit up on me for the first time this past Thursday. Considering, he's spit up on just about everyone else who has held him (including a particularly amusing throw-up right down Aunty Tany's shirt), I'm surprised I made it that long without incident. Now let's just hope it stays a month in between spit ups for me.

Surf's up, dude!

Lucas's Room

Lots of stuff to mention, but for now, a few pictures of Lucas's room.

The crib, with the little mutant in it. Tonight's his third night there. He's doing relatively well so far.


The changing table and the wall filled with lions, elephants, and giraffes. As you'll see, we went with a jungle/safari theme. I guess it's probably good that Lucas ended up a boy since, from a purely stereotypical standpoint, that leans more toward a little boy. Oh, that's also the chair Marilu spends a ridiculous amount of time in.


Maybe it's just me, but even the idea of a mini coat rack is plain cute.


Finally, we have his door with the monkey. Marilu already nicknamed me Monkey a long time ago, but now Lucas is Monkey too. So you've got Big Monkey and Little Monkey, apparently.

M.I.A.

Aaaaaaaaaand we're back. So much for the update on pictures on Monday night. When we got home from the movie (which I recommend, especially for fathers-to-be who like immature humor), we couldn't get Lucas to give us a good pose. Scratch that. Marilu did get a good pose, which you'll see below. However, it was taken earlier in the day, and I didn't realize it was on the camera. As a result, I decided to wait the next day to get a better picture myself.

On top of that, I was unavailable to post anything last night since we ran into computer issues. I was trying to get our laptop to work on the TV so we could watch all the TV shows I've downloaded lately (oh, I'm sure it's legal...in China), and I used the analog monitor cord from Marilu's PC and monitor. I couldn't get the laptop thing to work, and then when I hooked her cord back up, nothing. Her monitor refused to recognize the analog cable. After a couple of hours of swearing at the monitors and swearing to become the next Unabomber, I figured out that her monitor would work with the DVI digital cable from my computer. However, the analog one didn't work with mine either. Even though it did last time I used it. I even tried a different analog cord with both computers, but nada, nothing. I'm guessing I'm just stupid and missing something completely obvious, but I can't figure out how both of our computers/monitors stopped accepting analog signals. Any tech heads out there have any ideas?

Ok, now that I've gone completely off-track, the summary of what we've read so far is that I didn't post pictures on Monday night since I didn't have a good one, and I didn't post last night due to computer issues. There, easy enough. On to the pictures...

Here's the picture Marilu took of Lucas that shows what a fine looking one monther he is. For comparison purposes, it's followed by one of the first clothed photos taken of him from his very first day. Inexplicably, he is still pooping and crying. Crazy, huh?



For what it's worth, I don't see a lot of size difference (even though 2 lbs is a lot for a baby), but he's definitely more animated.

Finally, here's Lucas in two shots, one with Dad and one with Mom. I think the one with Marilu is fantastic, for what it's worth. Lucas actually cooperated with a picture for once. Amusingly enough, that's picture #666 on our new camera.



Tomorrow, I'll finally be posting shots of Lucas's room that I promised a week or two ago. I took them earlier tonight, and if you can't handle the anticipation, they are already uploaded to the online photo album.

One Month!

Wow, has it been that long already? Today's is Luke's month-a-versary! I'll be taking some pictures of him after dinner and then posting them later side-by-side with photos from his first day. In between then and now, Marilu and I are taking advantage of her mom's last day here to go catch a movie. We're going to see the movie Knocked Up, about a slacker guy who gets a Type A personality woman pregnant during a one-night stand, and then they have to figure out where to go from there. I expect that hijinks ensue shortly thereafter. It's by the same guys who came up with 40-Year-Old Virgin, so I expect at least some laughs.

Be back later!

I'm no Mr. Rogers

There's a clothing site that I love on the Web called T-Shirt Hell. It's filled with wildly inappropriate and politically incorrect t-shirts. One of the subsections on the site is Baby Hell, where they sell shirts aimed at babies and toddlers. These are two of the ones I've been tempted to buy for Lucas for a while, if for no other reason than to get people to take a second look and say, "Does that baby's shirt say what I think it says?"

I should point out that America's Christian Right would probably not approve of either of these. :)



I'm going to be such a wonderful role model, aren't I? On the off-chance you have a sense of humor similar to mine and laughed at either of the above shirts, there's plenty more at T-Shirt Hell so check 'em out.

Almost a month old

Wow, the little bugger is 4 weeks old today. It's weird since it feels like a long time and a short time, both at the same time. He's definitely come a long way as he's a lot more active and seems to be aware of quite a bit in his environment. That said, he's still quite happy to just sit there like a lump on a log.

The other thing that is changing as he gets older is that he cries for different reasons now. A couple of weeks ago, he'd cry for one of 2-3 things: he was hungry or he filled his diaper. Now he's starting to cry for either more subtle things (attention?) or for no reason at all. As a result, I can't always figure out exactly how to quiet him down. He usually doesn't cry for too long regardless so even when he does have some issue that we can't figure out, he'll eventually cover it himself. Babies...go figure.

A couple of pictures now for your perusal. This one is from a couple of days ago, and it's Lucas with his maternal grandmother and her sisters (so does that make them grand aunts or great aunts? I can never remember):


I'm sorry, but I just can't get enough of sunglass pictures:



And finally, a rare, full-length shot of our little mutant (or mommy's prince, if you'd believe the shirt):

Check-up!

Thanks to everyone who offered advice on Lucas's rash from last my last post. Who'da thunk so many people knew about baby butt cracks?

As luck would have it, Lucas had his latest check-up earlier today, and the doctor said his sores are probably NOT due the diapers or his wipes, but rather may be a side effect of his poop. That is, he's pooping so much, it's frequently on his skin, and that may be causing the problem. At least I think that's what Marilu said. She explained it to me earlier, but I have a memory like a sieve and forget things pretty quickly. So that's likely the explanation, give or take 10% of reality.

Anyway, the doctor gave Lucas a prescription for a hydrocortisone cream that we'll be using directly on the sores. Woohoo! My baby is just shy of 4 weeks old, and he's already juicing up on the steroids! Watch out, NFL!

Oh, the other big news (no pun intended) from the doctor's appointment is that Lucas is now 9 lbs, 2 oz. To put that in perspective, he was 7 lbs, 3oz, when he was first born, and he dropped to 6 lbs, 9 oz, at the worst point of the jaundice incident. So in the roughly 2 1/2 weeks since that last weight, he's put on a good pound and a half. I suppose that doesn't sound that impressive when I eat a 16 oz steak, but for him, it's great news. The jaundice is definitely gone, and he's a growing boy. Go Lucas! Only 220 lbs or so until you catch up with dad!

Lazy babies

Sometimes you just gotta kick back and catch some zzz's with mom:


Over the last couple of weeks, Lucas developed a pretty nasty rash on his backside. Actually, I'm not even sure if I'd call it a rash since at times, it almost looked like open sores. The "rash" showed up on both sides of his little crack, and we've been trying to figure out how to get rid of it. Since we're not sure exactly what causes it, it's hard to determine what we need to do to fix it. We've swapped out 2-3 different brands of diapers, we switched from wipes to a wet washcloth, and we've been putting ample amounts of rash cream on his butt after each diaper change. It looks like it's been getting a little better, but maybe that's just wishful thinking. It also doesn't seem to bother him too much, as he's actually getting better in coping with his changes. All that said, any of you parents out there know if this is a fairly common thing?

Speaking of coping, Lucas had his first scream-free bath tonight. Previously, he would go bananas when we were washing his body, but tonight he sat there in his little tub, content as can be. Of course, that could be due to the fact that he made his own pee fountain at the very beginning (necessitating a water change) and then he pooped in his towel when we were done. I tell ya, that kid is an excrement machine. Oddly enough, Lucas has never had a problem with getting his hair washed, going all the way back to his first bath in the hospital.

Then and Now

Today, Lucas wore the same outfit he had on when he left the hospital many moons ago (okay, 3 weeks ago). Take a look at how he's changed since then.

Then:



Now:

Quite a difference, huh? And for all the people who like to smile and sigh at baby pictures, this one ought to melt your heart (if you can't read his onesie, just click on the picture for a larger view)...

Lucas's Book List

I've decided to make a list of all the books I'd like to get Lucas at some point in his younger years. I came up with the idea last night while reading Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl. That's one of my favorite books from growing up, and I figured it would be cool to expose him to some of the novels/short stories that helped warp me into the weirdo I am today.

This post is likely to be updated frequently so I'm going to link to it from the right side of the screen over there under his photo album link. Wow, that was a lot of prepositional phrases in a row. Good thing no one checks your grammar online. Feel free to leave book suggestions in the comments since I plan to read Lucas a bunch of books before he thinks it's not cool anymore. :)

FYI, I know he's still way too young for most of these books, but you can never start thinking about them too early.

The Big List of Books for Lucas

Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl (OWN)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl (OWN)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Roald Dahl (OWN)
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak (OWN)
Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey (OWN)
Where the Sidewalk Ends, Shel Silverstein (OWN)

Chronicles of Prydain series, Lloyd Alexander
Matthew and Maria Looney series, Jerome Beatty Jr (if I can find them!)
Encyclopedia Brown series, Donald J. Sobol
Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators series, Robert Arthur
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel), Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
Black Stallion series, Walter Farley
Pretty much anything by Dr. Seuss (I currently own Red Fish, Blue Fish, The Cat in the Hat, and Green Eggs and Ham)

Suggested by others
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Skinnybones by Barbara Park

To be continued...

Friday night BBQ

Watch out, Paris, it looks like Lucas is becoming the next big socialite. To wrap up a busy week of meeting new people, we headed over to our friends' place last night for a BBQ where Lucas got to see Brody (Wes and Kelly's boy) again and meet brand-new arrival Kayden, Brigitte and Casey's daughter who was born on July 1. Yes, amazingly enough, Lucas wasn't the youngest baby at the party. The three babies were quite popular, as you can imagine, and I don't even know how many people took a turn at holding Lucas. Having the trio at the party also made for some great photo opportunities.

The first picture for today is the dad/baby shot. From left to right we have Wes/Brody, Casey/Kayden, and then me and the little poop monster:


After that, we saw the opportunity to pose them by themselves on the couch. As you can see, it started out well, and then Lucas kind of tumbled over on to Kayden, so it looks like he's already becoming a ladies man. Brody just kind of lay there, accepting our mistreatment.



As we got ready to leave, I posed Lucas in such a way that he is most definitely his dad's son:


Once we got home, Lucas decided to kick back and chill on the nursing pillow. Apparently, sometimes the kid just wants to relax.


We wrap up today's installment with Lucas trying to figure out what to do with the cigar that Casey gave me. It would appear he's less interested in smoking it than conducting the Boston Pops.


That's all for now. We'll be heading to Home Depot soon since Marilu is hell bent on finally getting new cupboards in our kitchen so we have an appointment with someone there to talk about those. If the rain stays away, Lucas will probably get a nice long walk later this afternoon, and then we have nothing planned for tonight, other than being lazy. However, I'm sure Lucas will be more than happy to present us with plenty of Kodak moments. (hmm, is "Kodak moment" even a valid term now that we've entered the digital camera age? *shrug*)

If the pictures above aren't enough, there are plenty more from yesterday in the photo albums. Check em out!

More than meets the eye!

Sorry, no new pictures today since I was at work all day and then Marilu and I had a date night, thanks to her mom watching Lucas. We headed to the nearest movie theater and watched the latest summer blockbuster, Transformers. If you like that type of movie--that is, lots of special effects, big explosions, cheesy romances, and plenty of humor--you ought to like this movie. Since I AM a big fan of those types of movies, it hit the spot for me and Marilu liked it too. Considering she knew next to nothing about the old Transformers cartoons and I watched them religiously, I guess the movie is good for fans new and old.

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July to all the U.S. readers out there. To my fine Canadian friends, uh, well it's hump day, eh? Lucas celebrated his first Independence Day by meeting lots of new people, and get this, he had his first kiss from a girl! oooooooOOOOOOOOooooooo!

The first person to visit Lucas today was Stephanie (a former co-worker) and her daughter Gwen. I ran into them while picking up diapers for Lucas at the local drug store. Since she hasn't seen Lucas yet, both mom and daughter came over to see the bundle of joy. Lucas pretty much just lay there while the women talked and Gwen crawled around. So pretty much the way I act when Marilu has friends over. As you can see in the picture below, Gwen was quick to make the moves on Lucas and later on, we let them kiss. So Lucas, if you're reading this years from now and Gwen is a supermodel, you can say you were there at the beginning.


Later in the day, Tracy came over with husband Andre and their 6-week old Thierry. Once again, Lucas was mostly oblivious, so we just switched them off so I could get a preview of what a heavier baby weighs (he was over 9 lbs at birth...yikes!) and Andre could remember what it was like to hold a baby without pulling one's bicep.


Just as Andre and Tracy left, Christine B. (since there are like 3-4 Christines we know) showed up and took her turn at giving Lucas some love. With all the cute chicks holding Lucas over the last couple of weeks, it kinda makes me want to throw on a pair of diapers to get in on the action. Unfortunately, that's just creepy on way too many levels. Here's a happy shot of Lucas and Christine:


Tonight was my mom and Kevin's last night in Ottawa as they are flying back to Massachusetts tomorrow. We decided to take a bunch of group shots, a couple of which I am including below. The rest are, as always, in the photo album. I should point out that Marilu's mom Barb will be with us until mid-July so no worries about me accidentally burning down the house in some diaper changing mishap, at least for the next couple of weeks.

Enjoy!

Lucas's serious side

It appears Lucas is starting to warm up to the camera. I was taking pictures of him post-bath earlier and for the most part, he was just staring at the camera. This is probably my new favorite picture of him (serious one, that is...you just can't beat the sunglasses):


For several more from this series, check out the photo album. He was definitely hamming it up earlier.

I forgot to mention this the other day, but the general health nurse came out earlier this week. I'm not sure if this happens down in the States, but a couple of weeks after your baby is born in Canada, a nurse visits your house to check on the baby and see how he/she is doing. The nurse also checks out your setup, offers suggestions, and answers any questions one might have for her. All in all, a good follow-up to the hospital stay.

Well, the reason I bring this up is that she weighed Lucas and he was up to 7 lbs, 15 oz! If you remember, his birth weight was 7 lbs, 3 oz, and at the worst point of the jaundice episode, he'd dropped to 6 lbs, 9 oz, so this was great news. Not only has he pretty much put the jaundice behind him, but he obviously has an appetite and is starting to grow. No big surprise, I suppose, given my ever-growing gut.

In other news that is only tangentially related to the baby, I finally got my Father's Day present from Marilu: a Nintendo Wii. For those of you unfamiliar with next gen video game consoles, you play the Wii with motion-sensitive controls so rather than use a traditional joystick or gamepad, now you're flailing around the room, throwing your arms to and fro, all in an attempt to jump over things, hit tennis balls, or whatever it is that the game requires. The irony was not lost on me that my flailing around will make me look all the more like my squirming son.

Relaxation

Ah, the glory of the 3-day weekend. The sheer majesty. For those of you unaware south of the border, July 1 is Canada Day--basically Canada's version of the 4th--and since it fell on a Sunday this year, we get the Monday off. Throw in the fact that I'm also taking the 4th as a vacation day, and it's going to be a nice, short week. Really, is there anything better than not working?

In honor of Canada Day, we dressed Lucas up in a red Canada onesie (I think that's the correct spelling) yesterday. Check out the patriotic half-Canadian below:


Rest assured, since he's got my blood running in his veins (and arteries and probably those little capillaries too), he'll also be sporting some American colors this Wednesday.

Lucas has become a lot more active over the last week, which I suppose is to be expected. He can't quite turn himself over yet, but he's getting there. He does particularly well on his playmat, reaching out for the dangling toy pieces. Here's a picture of him in action:


It occurred to me that while I've taken plenty of pictures of Lucas and his adventures, such as they are, I've neglected to post any pictures of his room. Since we finally put up the last piece of it yesterday, I'll try and get some shots later and post them on here later tonight. For now, we're about to head off for a walk with Lucas. I leave you with his full outfit from yesterday: