Earlier tonight, Marilu and I had an "interview"/meeting with a potential daycare provider for when she goes back to school in the fall. The meeting went well, as the woman is extremely nice and really seems to love what she is doing. The entire basement of their house has been converted to a little daycare center, and she watches 5 (maybe 6, but that would be it) kids at a time. She caters to teachers' kids as she runs her daycare by the same schedule they do. That is, she's off over the summers and all the same breaks that the teachers have. In addition, her house is located in our housing division so it's literally about a 2 minute drive and it's on my way in to work (which is, in itself, a 3-4 minute drive). Finally, Lucas not only didn't cry when she picked him up and played with him, but he actually smiled. He's been going through a shy spell lately where he cries whenever someone besides Marilu or I pick him up so this was one more vote in favor of this daycare location. All in all, the magic 8 ball says, "Signs point to yes." I'm sure there will be more news about this down the line, and I'll keep all of you informed.
I'm a little late on this, but here's the pictures (and video) I was hoping to post yesterday. The first is a shot of Lucas holding one of the multitude of toys he owns. I swear, the kid could play with one toy a day for the next two months and probably still not go through all the toys he owns. Better to have too many than too little though, right?
Lucas is getting closer and closer to figuring out the whole crawling thing. Currently, he kicks his legs like a madman, but he hasn't figured out how to get traction and propel himself. The next two pics show him almost getting there. The second one, in particular, has him on both his knees (we may have helped, I forget), but he inevitably flattens his legs out and stays put. Well, sort of. He's figured out how to both scoot and roll so he can end up quite a ways from where you first left him. While he's not yet at the stage where you can't take your eye off of him for a minute, he's rapidly approaching it.
I love his smile in the first picture.
We've taken a lot of good videos of him lately so it was hard to pin down one good one in particular. As a result, I'll probably have to post a couple more over the next week. I would post more, but uploading them on YouTube can take up to 20-25 minutes so I try to keep the uploading to a minimum. One of these days, I have to figure out if there's a way to condense the size of the video. I see other videos with quality as good, if not better, than the ones I post, and they are several minutes long. There's a 100 MB limit on YouTube videos, and most of mine are 70-80 so I don't know how they are doing it. Any YouTube or video experts out there?
Hmm, as it turns out, the video I wanted to upload is 102 MB so I can't upload it. Guess we'll go with a different one. This is the video version of Lucas's first attempt at broccoli. Enjoy!
I didn't post anything this week since we really haven't taken many pictures lately. It's the middle of winter so we're not out that often, and there's not much going on lately, like parties or other events, so not a whole lot of Kodak moments present themselves.
However, as I was uploading some pictures Marilu took today, I realized I forgot to upload some other ones going back as far as the 9th. So without any further adieu, here are some of the highlights. For the rest of them, check out the January 2008 folder in the photo albums.
We've already established that Lucas likes to put things in his mouth. In this case, it doesn't matter if that thing happens to be attached to his friend Thierry's shirt.
Watch for more updates to this post later today. Right now, I have to run to the gym!
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Ok, I'm finally back at 10:36 at night after going to the gym, running errands with Marilu (and Lucas, obviously), eating dinner, watching TV with the family, and finally playing a couple of boardgames with Marilu. It's been a busy day when you also throw in Lucas's swim lesson this morning. All that said, let's get back to the pictures!
Part 1 of "Lucas's Adventures in Eating" focuses on his attempt to eat something yellow, I think maybe squash. He didn't mind it eating it, but as you can see, he didn't mind wearing it either.
Whoops, I was just reviewing my older posts, and I realize I've already posted the picture above once. Oh well, you can never have too much cuteness.
To make up for my mistake, our next entry is a video! Lucas was nice enough to pose for Marilu as he sat on the chair. About halfway through the video, you may be able to hear him make a sound as if he is blowing air through clenched lips/teeth. That's a sound that he just started making around that time (Jan 11), and in the video, it's just kind of a random thing. Jump to this week, and that's now his "I'm not very pleased with the situation and I'd like you to know it" sound. Yes, before he reaches the crying and screaming stage, that's the sound he makes to alert us to his negative opinion of the current situation. It's become quite frequent lately.
This photo just makes me laugh.
We're kind of on a regular evening schedule nowadays. We usually make Lucas's dinner around 5 and wrap that up by a quarter after. We then head downstairs to the basement to eat our dinner, at which point we put Lucas in his jumperoo while we watch TV. As you can see here, he definitely likes his jump time.
This next picture is from a series of very cute pictures. I would strongly suggest checking them out in the photo album (January 2008 folder). However, I selected this picture in particular since we just happened to catch Lucas in a moment of pure, unadulterated evil. Oh, I'm sure he's sweet and all on the inside, but the first time I saw this photo, the first thing that ran through my mind was the Emperor from Star Wars saying, "Rise, Lord Vader."
Last Sunday, Lucas had broccoli for the first time. Well, mushy broccoli mixed with sweet potatoes, but it was broccoli nonetheless. To put it bluntly, he hated it. He gagged on the first spoonful of it, and it never got any better. We tried giving it to him a couple more times during the week, since in the past he's warmed up to foods on the 2nd or 3rd try, but no dice with broccoli. As a result, we've decided to hold off on giving him any more broccoli in the near future.
However, one good thing that came from the broccoli feeding is one of the funniest (from my perspective) pictures I've taken in a while. This is post-feeding, which was a messy affair in its own right. The thing that makes me laugh out loud when viewing this is the look of pure misery on Lucas's face. You can almost hear him say, "Why would you DO this to me?" Ah, priceless.
Later that same day, Lucas's friend Brody came over with Kelly and Wes (to watch the AFC Championship Game...go Patriots!). I'm not sure what's more amusing in this picture: Brody's look of sheer joy at being photographed or Marilu's maniacal face as she holds up Lucas. Either way, another fun photo.
And that catches us up to last Sunday. No pictures were taken this past week so the latest ones we have are from earlier today. I plan to put highlights of those up tomorrow (or maybe today, depending on when you are reading this), along with another video or two from the last couple of weeks. See ya then!
While downloading pictures from the camera moments ago, I noticed that we've hit 3000 pictures taken with this camera. That's quite a few considering we just bought it this summer. As you can imagine, the vast majority of those photos have been of little Lucasaurus Rex, and #3000 was no exception. Rather than just show you that one picture, I've decided to include all three thousand marks in this post, just to get an idea of how he's grown over the past several months.
We start off with photo #1000, taken on August 15 in Newfoundland. Lucas was one day shy of 2 months at that point, and here we see him stretching out in his grandfather's arms.
We next jump to November 4, where he is at the ripe old age of about 4 1/2 months. That was a big day for Lucas, as he got baptized. In the photo below, Lucas and I pose in the church.
Finally, we jump to this past Friday, January 18, 2 days past 7 month mark. Of the 3000 pictures we've taken of Lucas, this probably isn't going to be one of his favorites. I'm not sure what he was thinking of us right there. :)
It'll be interesting to see what occurs in the next thousand photos. Will he be crawling by post 4000? Walking? Will he visit any new places? My bet is yes, no, yes, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Whatever the case, it's a journey that I'm having a hell of a lot of fun on.
During my St Louis trip a few months back, I bought Lucas a bunch of outfits, two of which I found particularly cute. You've already seen one, the Frosty the Snowman one that he wore back in December. This morning, Lucas debuted the second one. If there's such a thing as a cuteness overload, I think this thing takes the cake. Here's a few pictures of it (and him) for your viewing pleasure.
Between the fact that work has been ridiculously busy and that I've started going back to the gym every other night, posting pictures has taken a bit of a hit. Also, there hasn't been many "events," so we haven't taken many pictures. However, we've taken some here and there since the start of January so I figured I'd put up some of the highlights.
Before I do that though, let me announce that Lucas is SEVEN MONTHS OLD today! Unbelievable, huh? Seems like just yesterday he was getting a hospital-approved tan for his jaundice. Oh well, time flies when you're having fun with the little guy.
Here's Lucas after his first meal of mashed up green beans. You may recall the video from last week where he wasn't too thrilled with them. Obviously, he's not very neat when it comes to green beans either.
Ok, this isn't Lucas related, but I had to show off the slippers Marilu got me for Christmas. All of you Family Guy lovers out there have got to appreciate these. And they keep the feet extremely warm when our basement gets cold!
Over the holidays, I made the not-so-smart decision to start playing World of Warcraft again. It's a terribly addicting game but thus far, I've done a good job of waiting until my alone time to do it. Hey, the little guy needs attention. However, we got this shot from one of the weekends of Lucas watching the brightly colored screen as I heroically slay evil monsters.
Not much to say here. Just a cute photo.
Apparently Lucas isn't any cleaner when eating his non-green foods either.
Another "just plain cute" photo of the little guy.
Don't get too excited about this next picture...he's not walking yet. Heck, he's not even crawling. However, he can sometimes balance himself on his legs when leaning against something if we put him in the right position. So yeah, no marathons anytime soon. :)
This was Lucas's first walk while sitting in the stroller without a car seat. Our boy is growing!
I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for this bib.
Here's a shot of us boys coming up from the basement. You can also think of this as a "Before" picture of my hair. Yesterday, I got it almost all cut off. It's much, much shorter. I'll have Marilu take a picture this weekend, and show you the "After."
Okay, that gets us caught up to January 10th. I'm still a few days behind, but then that gives me something to do tomorrow, right? Later!
Last weekend, Lucas had his first swim lesson. I suppose the word "swim" is a bit of a reach, as the class is basically intended to get babies acclimated to being in water. Some of the activities are bobbing the baby in and out of the water, encouraging them to kick their feet, and splashing water. Marilu went in the pool with him last week, and I went this week and will probably continue to go in the future. It's a pretty fun half hour activity, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures. I guess for the privacy of the kids at the pool, photography and videotaping is not permitted. Just another one of those rules and regulations that gives you an idea of the state of the world we live in.
Anyway, in the spirit of his swim lesson, I've uploaded a video from last weekend of him splashing and having a good time in the bathtub. To protect his modesty (in case a future girlfriend sees this), we were nice enough to cover his nether regions with a conveniently-placed washcloth. You can thank me when you're older, Lucas. :)
After much prodding by my mom, I've finally created an updated version of Lucas's book list. The first version of it is just a list of the books we currently own. In the future, I plan to add another list of books that are on our wish list.
If you want to sort the list by author, let me know, and I'll send you instructions on how to sort the original spreadsheet. In case you are curious, I created the list via Google Docs, an easy way to create spreadsheets online.
I'm going to wrap up the Massachusetts trip with the remaining highlights. We'll start off with a picture of Lucas and Aunt Julie. You want to talk about a study in contrasts? Lucas is just over 6 months old and Aunt Julie turned 103 a few days ago. Nevertheless, they seem to be getting along pretty well here, don't you think?
Let's follow that up with a video of the exchange between oldest and youngest family members.
Later on, Lucas had a good time with Kevin...
...and my cousin John...
...and Elise and Mark. The kid really gets around. :)
Here we see the Rebel two-fisting his spoons after a fine meal of mashed something or another.
Finally, just to ensure we have some good blackmail material for when Lucas starts acting up as a teenager, here's a photo taken shortly before his "kicking back" video from a couple of days ago. Lucas, you poor kid, your future girlfriends will be laughing heartily at your expense.
It took us a couple of days, but on 12/29, we finally got around to exchanging Christmas gifts. Lucas got an early start on his since Marilu and I went shopping in the morning and my mom let him open a couple of his to keep him entertained. It should come as no surprise that Lucas enjoyed the bag and tissue paper nearly as much as the gift itself.
Later on, Uncle Randy dropped by and took some photos with Lucas. It's hard to say which of the two had a harder time remembering to look at the camera. :) However, I finally got both of them looking in the right direction.
First, Lucas checks out the gift bag...
...then he eats it!
Here, Lucas checks out one of the many books he received. In case you are wondering, Mom, I plan to update Lucas's list of books sometime this week since he's received a lot of them in the past month.
Lucas LOVED this Carter's tag that was on one of the pieces of clothing he received. He must have chewed on that thing for a good five minutes. That may very well have been his favorite present. :)
We wrap up this post with a video that shows Lucas doesn't have very high standards when it comes to what goes in his mouth.
The last couple of days have been primarily devoted to watching NFL playoff games, hence the lack of updates. That and I've been trying to make the most of my last couple of days of vacation. I'm back to work tomorrow after 2 weeks off, and as you can imagine, I'm not exactly thrilled.
Although I don't have any pictures of it, Lucas went for his very first swimming lesson yesterday. I suppose "swimming" is stretching it a bit since the main purpose of the program is to get him accustomed to water. Marilu held him in the water as the class went through several exercises moving him through the water, such as bobbing him or swishing him from side to side. All in all, it appeared he had a pretty good time. He only cried once and that's when Marilu thinks she accidentally dunked his face. I was going to do the lesson with him, but I've had a cold since 12/31 that doesn't seem to want to leave, and I figured getting into a kiddie pool may not be the wisest decision. Our plan going forward is that we'll switch off who holds him in his remaining lessons each Saturday for the next 9 weeks or so.
Now that you're updated as to where we are, I'm going to start working on a picture and/or video update. Look for that to be completed by later this afternoon/evening.
The video below was taken on the last day of our trip to Massachusetts. There's not much I can say to properly introduce it so let me state that sometimes a baby just needs to kick back and relax. Enjoy.
After we arrived in Webster on Day 1 of the trip to Massachusetts, we did something that became very common during this vacation: we ate. We went to one of my favorite pizza places, Lake Pizza, which also happens to be next door to where my mom and Kevin live. So not only is it good, but it's ridiculously convenient. A lethal combination, so thankfully I don't live there year round.
Lucas found the tablecloth at Lake Pizza particularly intriguing, and it should come as no surprise that he tried to put the table in his mouth. We'll start with a video that shows him teasing us and the table with his intentions to devour it.
We wrap up this little foray into tablecloth tasting with a picture to show that he did indeed get a hold of it at one point.
Two other points: one, you may notice he's sitting in a high chair. This was his first time in a high chair besides the one we bought for him that ties directly to the chair. Second, in his later attempts to dine on the table, he ended up smacking his nose or some location of his face on the table edge. He repeated this action the very next night at a different restaurant so the moral of the story is that if we put him in a high chair, we need to pull it back from the table. For now, at least.
Keeping with the eating theme, on the second night of the trip, we ate at a place called Eighty Ates, which is owned and run by the son of some family friends. Here's an amusing shot of Lucas with Bobby, the father of aformentioned son.
In the next installment, we'll cover 12/29. It's too much for this post since that's the day we opened our presents so there's a bunch of pics there. Later!
Ooh, Marilu must love me now. When we put Lucas to bed, typically the process is that she changes him while I get his crib ready. Then she hands him off to me, and I put on his sleepers while she sits down and prepares to feed him. After that, I typically head downstairs while she feeds him and then reads to him. Presumably, I'll do more of the latter once he is past the breastfeeding stage.
Tonight, after I put Lucas in his pajamas, I was standing him up and letting him lean against the side of the crib (which I'd raised to its highest level). Somehow or another, he slipped and he bopped his head against the headboard. It wasn't terribly hard, and he's fine, but to hear him scream, you'd think we'd cut off a foot. Anyway, I did my best to calm him down, which worked to a degree, and then handed him off to Marilu and escaped any more crying. So yeah, I'm probably not on her favorites list at the moment. :)
Before we get to the rest of the vacation pictures (and let me tell ya, some of them are great), I have to show you a video I took of Lucas yesterday while he ate green beans for the first time. And by green beans, I mean a mashed up, liquidy form of the vegetable. He ate them all, but as you'll see in the video, they probably aren't going to rate as one of his favorite foods. Enjoy!
We took a LOT of videos, in addition to pictures, over the last week, and rather than let them sit on my hard drive and gather dust (or whatever happens on hard drives), I'm going to do my best to get most of them on YouTube so you can enjoy Lucas in motion. I figure the easiest way to do this is just to separate them out by date so let's begin with the first day since my last update.
In Canada, the day after Christmas in known as Boxing Day, and other than the fact that it has nothing to do with Rocky Balboa or any of his pugilist peers, I'm pretty clueless as to what this holiday is all about. However, we get the day off so it's all good by me. (I suppose I could look it up on Wikipedia and know in about 30 seconds, but I'm a busy man with busy things to keep me busy!)
As you all know by now, Lucas loves to chew on things. While this is not normally an issue, sometimes he feels like chomping down on human flesh as well. Here we see the little hooligan going all cannibal on his mom.
Apparently, Lucas is already preparing for a life in the corporate world. And just like me, he's not too fond of the keyboard that he must work at all day.
Whereas the first two videos are "funny," this one falls more under the cute label as Lucas and Marilu both show off the Labrador pride.
Happy New Years! We got back in last night, but because I'd caught a pretty nasty cold, sitting in front of the PC uploading photos wasn't high on my list of priorities. I feel much better today, and I expect to get some photos from the trip to Massachusetts up a little later this afternoon. In the meantime, check out some photos of Lucas (and others) that our friend Tracey took at the Christmas Eve party. You can find them on her Flickr site, which is located here. The Christmas Eve shots start about midway down the first page and continue on to the second page (at the time of this writing). There are some great shots in there, with our favorite being this one: "I Have a Plan"
