Blogging from Missouri

Hello! Just checking in from St Louis, or more specifically, Maryland Heights, on the west side of St Louis. I got in around 4, and then I spent no less than 4 straight hours at one mall or another, shopping on behalf of Marilu. I did get a chance to pick up Lucas some extremely cute outfits, and I may buy a couple more tomorrow after work. I won't be out too long though since my flight on Wednesday leaves St Louis at the painful hour of 6 AM. The things you do to make life easier on your wife when she picks you up from the airport.

Anyway, gotta prepare for tomorrow's training, and then I'm heading to bed. Later all!

This weekend

On Saturday, one of kids in our social circle had his first birthday so we headed over to their place for the party. I suspect kids' birthday parties are going to become the new social event in my life. Not quite the same as going out to a nightclub, but at least it ought to be better on my poor liver.

For the excursion, we dressed Lucas up in an outfit my mom got him a few months back. In addition to the fact that it's ridiculously cute on his own, if you look closely, you can see she had "Team Lucasaurus Rex" embroidered on it. Lucasaurus Rex is the first nickname I used for the little guy, and it's also the name of the fantasy football team I made for Lucas.


Lucas and the birthday boy Tyler in matching seats. As you can imagine, it was next to impossible to get both of them to look at the camera at the same time so I took the best of the lot.


Lucas really, really wanted to stick this entire balloon in his mouth. I didn't have the heart to explain basic physics to him. When I get back on Wednesday, I'll try and remember to upload the video of him trying to get the balloon.


Moving on to today (Sunday), the theme of today was relaxation. We caught Lucas in at least 3 different poses in which he's just kicking back. This first one reminds me of a cheesy guy lying on a sofa and asking, "How yoooouuu doin'?"


Before we move on to "comfort pose" 2 and 3, let me show off his New England Patriots outfit. This is another one my mom bought for him some time ago, but he finally is able to fit into it. I love his expression in these 2 pictures.



Now that we have that out of the way, here's a couple pictures of Lucas hanging out on my lap. Doesn't he look relaxed?



Finally, Lucas truly lets it all hang out while watching football with his mom later on in the afternoon.

Off again

Just a head's up for anyone who doesn't know already: I'll be out of town on business from Monday to Wednesday so after tonight, my next update won't be until at least Wednesday night. We've already taken some pictures of Lucas in his newest New England Patriots outfit so I should have that up this evening.

This business trip is a little more interesting than the last one to North Bay in the barrens of Ontario. This time, I'm off to the midwest to visit St Louis, Missouri. My flight leaves ridiculously early on Wednesday morning (6 AM, I think) so I won't have much time to see the city, but I'll probably get some Xmas shopping done and, if possible, at least drive by the St Louis Arch. Even if I have the time, I don't know that I'd go up in it though, since heights and I aren't on very good terms.

Let me be serious for a moment

I think I mentioned it, but November 16 was Lucas's 5th month in this world of ours. We took several portrait-type shots since we have a picture frame where we can put a picture from each month of Lucas's first year in it. You can see all of them in the photo album from the 16th, but I like this "serious" picture of him.

More from Thanksgiving

Marilu cooked a 15-16 lb turkey...for the two of us. Obviously, we know that we'll be eating a lot of turkey over the next few days. Here, Lucas looks at the end product that actually outweighs him.


Lucas hasn't quite figured out that when you eat solids that it doesn't mean you eat the solid bowl.


We offered Lucas some wine with dinner, but fortunately, he still can't figure out that whole "tilt" concept. However, he was happy to attempt to eat the glass itself.



Finally, like any red-blooded male, Lucas needs to lie down and relax after a big Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all the US readers! As you can see, Lucas is thankful for his mommy. :)

Alfalfa

If you recall, when Lucas first popped out of Marilu, he had an almost full head of hair. After a while, he started losing his hair, which is common for babies, or so I'm told. However, rather than lose it everywhere, he kept the hair on top in almost a mohawk pattern and then a little scruffy part at the back of his head, near his neck. The hair on the sides is just starting to grow back now, but the hair that has been there all along has become quite long, and so I decided to take a few pictures tonight to show off Lucas's wacky hairstyle.

By the way, if you zoom in on any of the photos, you may notice a fairly large cut on Lucas's cheek. That's what happens when babies decide to claw themselves, apparently. Marilu tries to keep his fingernails in check, but sometimes he still rips away some skin. It doesn't seem to bother him any so I just assume it's helping build character.



I had to include this next one since Marilu's face was just too funny as she blew air at Lucas.


And lest I forget, here's a cute one of Lucas in his Patriots jersey from the weekend.

The Eating Video

Here's the video I promised in the last post. YouTube finally decided to work. Enjoy!

Do the "firsts" ever end?

Last night, Lucas entered the next stage in his gastronomical journey through life. In other words, he had his first solid foods. To be fair, I use "solid" in its loosest definition, as it was nothing more than a tablespoon of rice cereal mixed with 3-4 tablespoons of breast milk. As a result, it ended up looking more like milk than anything actually solid, but now we're just flirting with semantics. Whatever the case, for the first time, he was fed something other than breast milk and it was delivered to him via a spoon while he sat in his high chair. Any day now, and he'll be eating his first filet mignon.

Lucas took to the new way of eating pretty well. I've heard that it's almost impossible to get some babies to make the change from the breast/bottle to the spoon, but he was more than happy to slurp the "solid" right off the plastic utensil. I was never really worried since he has our genes, and neither Marilu nor I are shy when it comes to eating food. :)

What follows are a few pictures from the eating affair, wrapping up with a video of him chowing down. Or at least attempting to get the food in his mouth instead of on the front of his shirt.

"Ok, let's do it!"


"Ok, it's no breast milk, but this doesn't seem so bad."


"Who needs all this liquidy stuff when I have FIVE fingers?"


No comment. Just cute.


"Now that it's over, I am one messy baby."


I'll be posting a video in a little bit. YouTube is being typical YouTube at the moment and is telling me that the video is unavailable. As soon as it is working, I'll update with a new post.

Yet another milestone

On September 9, Lucas first turned over from his belly onto his back. Today, one day shy of 5 months old, he finally returned the favor, and turned from his back onto his belly. It wasn't without amusing moments. Over the last week or so, he's come close to making the flip over, but he always gets stalled while on his side. Well, during his first turn today (which I missed since I was at work), apparently he got on his side, let out a fart, and then completed the turn onto his belly. I guess it just took a little gas-powered propulsion.

Thankfully, he decided to turn over quite a few more times tonight (without any emissions), and though I missed half of them on camera since the sneaky little bugger would wait until I was distracted, I got one of them on video. Here now, is Lucas doing a back-to-belly flip for your viewing pleasure. (Try to ignore Friday Night Lights on the TV in the background. Every time I turned the TV off, Lucas would stare at me.)

Firsts!

It's really late, and I have to be up earlier than normal tomorrow so let me make this quick. I wanted to show off several firsts Lucas had this weekend. Is it just me, or does every week bring a "first" when a kid is closing in on 5 months old?

This is probably the least monumental to most of you, but here's Lucas's first full USF outfit. Saturday was the first time he's been dressed up for a USF game in weeks, and maybe not coincidentally, it was the first time they won in weeks. I think he's a good luck charm. Except for the shoes and diaper, everything on him was rooting for the University of South Florida. (even the socks!)


During the afternoon Saturday, we went to Toys R' Us and picked up Lucas's first--and I suppose only?--high chair. We were going to let it sit in the box for a while since he doesn't really need it yet, but curiosity won out. I put the thing together Saturday night, and here are some of the first pictures of the big guy in it. Let me tell ya, he loves that toy on the left.



Along the same lines as the high chair, on Sunday we let Lucas try out his first sippy cup (or whatever they are called). He's still quite a ways from using this since he is still breast feeding, but we wanted to get his reaction. He immediately figured out how to grab it and wear to suck on the thing. However, he hasn't quite grasped the fact that he needs to tilt the thing back in order to get liquid out of it. Also, a little later on, Marilu fed him breast milk from it, and it came out a lot faster than he was used to, so I think about half went in his stomach, and the other half went on his shirt. Oh well, at least he's learning.

This and that

I didn't take many pictures this last week, but I did get some for each day (except Friday). Here are the best from each day.

On Monday, Lucas tried out one of his winter outfits while in his carseat. Judging by the smile, he approves.


On Tuesday, we went out to dinner at Don Cherry's with one of Marilu's cousins who was in town on business. Another cousin, who lives on the east side of Ottawa, brought their little one Megan (feel free to correct the spelling), and we posed her and Lucas together. She's about 3 months older than our little guy so for the moment, she's "towering" over him.


Cute alert coming up! Be warned.

On Wednesday, Marilu dressed Lucas up in an outfit her mom had bought him a little while back. In this case, a picture (or two or three) is truly worth a thousand words.




Finally, on Thursday, Marilu found a great new position for Lucas while she is watching TV. The little guy likes to move around a lot so who knows how many more times this will be effective, but for now, it kills two birds with one stone: he remains content, and he looks cute doing it.


As an added bonus, here's a video of Lucas enjoying time with mom.

Baptism weekend

Admittedly, I'm running way behind in posting pictures. About a week, judging by the date on the pictures I'm about to upload. As such, I'll probably put up 2 separate posts tomorrow in order to get caught up.

Last Sunday, Lucas got baptized. Both Marilu and I were raised Roman Catholic, and while I haven't paid much attention to church in years, I didn't think it was the worst idea when she proposed raising him that way as well. If nothing else, the church does teach some good morals and life lessons, so long as you aren't a fundamentalist. Plus, it'll allow me to sleep in on Sunday mornings when Marilu starts bringing Lucas to church. :)

To help celebrate the event, one of my best friends from my high school years, Jason, made the trip up here from Washington DC since we selected him to be Lucas' godfather. The trip for the godmother was much easier, as that role is being fulfilled by Tanya, who lives about 15 minutes away.

I took a LOT of pictures over Saturday and Sunday, all of which can be found in the photo albums. However, below I'm going to display some of the highlights of the weekend.

If, as the shirt implies, "Trouble" is Lucas' middle name, it appears by his expression here that he's been caught!


This next picture was from the first batch of pictures of Lucas with his godfather Jason. Thanks to the angle and the wonderful magic of red eye, Jason appears to be one of the offspring of Dracula here.


Lucas ponders the cake he can not eat. Poor child. At least he rocks.


On Sunday, we had to give Lucas a bath before heading to the church. This photo was taken right before the bath and gives you an idea of just how crazy his little baby mohawk can look.


There are only two points in your life you can wear pants up over your belly: when you are a baby and when you are an old man. Luckily, Lucas is still on the younger side of that equation.


Nothing terribly important about this next picture. I just think Lucas's expression is absolutely adorable. Marilu isn't looking half bad either. Yowza!


On to the group shots, pre-baptism! First off, the happy family...


Then Lucas, his dad, and his godfather. There were better pictures of Jason and I, but this is the only one that Lucas deigned worth his time to look at the camera.


We had plenty of pictures of us standing around at the baptism, along with the 10 other babies and parents that were getting baptized, but let's cut to the chase. Here's Lucas getting the water poured on him. I know this is the important part of the ceremony, but at the moment, I'm drawing a blank as to what the exact symbolism is, for those of you who are completely ignorant of the Christian ways. I'm sure it's out on the Internet somewhere. :)


The post-dunk picture, with the parents and godparents...


After Lucas' baptism candle was lit, we took another group shot. Lucas' expression towards Jason just kills me in this picture. It's like he just doesn't trust that unsavory looking character.


We also got a family picture with the deacon who did the baptism. He was a really nice guy, and the whole ceremony went smoothly. Unbelievably, all 10 babies/toddlers stayed relatively well-behaved, and I don't remember there being a single scream of discontent during the entire hour. That, my friends, was a true miracle.


After the baptism, we took one last group shot out in front of the church. Big thanks to Sara, one of my co-workers, who was kind enough to make the trip and take photos for us. (Btw, check out those sweet dress clothes on Lucas)


Our post-baptism celebration was quite small, with the four of us (plus Lucas) heading over to a nearby restaurant that has some of the best ribs ever. Lucas, once again, surprised us by being extremely well-behaved and patiently sleeping or sitting in his carseat during the entire dinner.


As you all know, after a big meal, sometimes you just gotta kick back, unbuckle the belt, and let yourself go.


Jason had to head back to DC later that night, so Lucas took one last shot with him (after changing into his New England Patriots gear). All in all, it was a great weekend.