Bit of this, bit of that

So Lucas is walking all over the place now. He's still a little shaky and I'd say he prefers to crawl by about a 60/40 margin, but he's definitely on two feet more now than ever. Marilu took some videos so I'll have those up soon.

Also, he fell off a chair downstairs and landed on his head today. I guess Marilu was letting him sit on one of the chairs in the basement since he always gets a kick out of that, feeling like a grown-up. She reached down to pick something up, and I guess he took that opportunity to crawl over the side of the chair or something, and then smack, right on his head. He did some yelling and crying, and he will probably have a bruise on his forehead, but he seems none the worse for wear. Like one of the women at work told me, that'll probably be the first of MANY ouches.

A few days after we got back from the cruise, we dressed Lucas up in a little Caribbean outfit that we picked up in St Thomas.


Afterwards, Lucas and I just had to get pictures in our "matching" shirts.


I'm not sure if I've posted a picture of Lucas's latest ride, but this is how we walk him around most of the time now. He likes it a lot more than the stroller. In fact, he's now figured out how to stand in the stroller, even when we've got the seatbelt on him. I think that will be seeing more and more limited use from here on out.


Not only has Lucas figured out how to open the majority of the drawers in the kitchen (if they aren't locked), but he also appears to like kicking back and relaxing in them, as evidenced in the picture below.


Here's a great picture of Lucas, Marilu, and her mom. It's one of those rare moments where everyone is not only looking at the camera, but there are smiles as well.


You can't really tell from just this one picture, but Lucas spent a LONG time one afternoon playing with the stool (after he had unceremoniously flipped it over). First he crawled on it, then he sat on it, then he grabbed Cow and stuffed him in there, followed by more sitting on Cow. The kid was enthralled by the possibilities. I can't really say much though since Marilu and I lay there on floor, watching him the entire time.

While we were gone

I'm not sure if I mentioned this in my cruise post a couple of weeks back, but our cruise got off to a less than stellar start due to the fact that we forgot our camera and videocamera back at the house. As a result, we had to hunt down a Best Buy in Manhattan the night before the cruise left and buy a new camera. It's not wasted money though since my mom needed a new camera so she's just going to buy the new one off of us next time we see her, which should be in August.

Anyway, the point of the whole story is that while we were on the cruise, Marilu's mom used the camera to take a bunch of pictures of Lucas. Below, you'll find some of the highlights.

Looks like we caught a baby in our hamper trap.


Even though he's still working out the mechanics of walking, Lucas has become an expert climber. For whatever reason, here he decided to climb on top of his little pinball toy. Why ask why.


In between our stairs and the wall, there is a very small space, in which it appears a baby can fit. Here Lucas demonstrates both his squeezing and climbing abilities as he climbs the stairs from the wrong side.


A couple of more pictures from the next day of Lucas in that little crawlspace. I like his face in the first one...cute. In the second one, if you look closely, it looks like he's in baby jail.



Sometimes, a baby just needs to get serious.


In this picture, Lucas is visibly excited to be sitting with his cousin. Second cousin, maybe? His dad is brother to Marilu's mom. Those of you who thrive on genealogy trees can probably tell me the right answer.


And here's the best of the bunch. This was Lucas's face when we took a picture after we got home. It's good to feel loved. :) For what it's worth, this is now one of my top 5 favorite family photos.


Next post will have photos from July 13 onward so I'm almost caught up. Yeah, it's 2 weeks back, but we haven't had that many photos of him so it shouldn't take more than a week to get caught up. Let's see if I say the same thing this time next Sunday.

That reminds me, Marilu and Tanya are off to Toronto to see the Dirty Dancing musical next weekend so it'll be just me and Lucas overnight for the first time. I predict nothing but smooth sailing, but he'll probably pick that weekend to go nuclear when I put him to bed. Oh well, keep your fingers crossed for me.

Photo update

In case anyone is interested, I uploaded the rest of the photos from our cruise to the photo album page. Since this blog is technically about Lucas, I didn't want to put the 200+ pictures here, but feel free to check them out. Also, all the pictures I've taken up to July 10 are also now in the albums.

Joe Cool

You can never have too many of these types of pictures...


In other news, it turns out Lucas is now truly afraid of certain things. I first noticed it with the hair dryer that was lying on the floor in our room. He was hesitant around it, and when I turned it on, he moved away and kept his distance. We'd also seen him put on a worried face with the lawnmower and the vacuum cleaner. However, tonight he was downright terrified of the shower nozzle when I brought him into the shower with me. He starting screaming before he was under the water, grabbing on to me, and doing everything he could to stay away from THAT HORRIBLE THING!!! I knew he was hesitant about it ever since some cold water dripped on him during a bath, but he was crying in fear for the first time tonight. As a result, we took a bath. God only knows when his first shower's gonna be, given his reaction tonight.

The day before we left for the cruise, I was lucky enough to catch Lucas taking a step for the first time. Not that it was the first step for him, but the first time I got it on film...oh, you get the idea. Anyway, it's a little late since he's now able to take many more steps from time to time--I think 10 is the record--but still, it's cool for historical purposes. Note that the step is at the very beginning of the video. Blink and you'll miss it.

Not impressed

I just submitted the following comment to Little Tikes on the customer support section of their website:

"In late April, I purchased the SwingAlong Castle from our local Toys R Us. While putting it together, I realized it was missing piece O, which is required for the swing. I contacted customer support via the phone number in the assembly instructions and was told I would be sent a new part, and that it would arrive by the end of May.

In early June, I still had not received the part so I called customer support again and was told that the package didn't arrive due to problems with my postal code. I've never had a problem receiving mail from the US to this postal code before so I'm not sure what the problem was. I also didn't understand why I wasn't contacted when the package was rejected. I only found out when I called for an update. I was then told that the part would be sent again and would arrive in 7-10 business days. This was somewhat of a disappointment as it would be arriving after our son's first birthday party so we would not be able to use it.

It is now mid-July, and I still have not received either the part or any explanation as to why it isn't here. It has been almost three months to the day since I purchased your product and it's still sitting half built with no swing. I am extremely disappointed with the service I've received while trying to resolve this issue and would like some kind of closure. Please contact me as soon as possible to let me know what the status is on this missing part. At this rate, summer will be over before my child has a chance to use the swing. I look forward to your response."

Suffice to say, unless they wow me with their response to my comment, we won't be giving Little Tikes our business anymore.

By request

Mom, this one's for you!

More random June photos

Here's one of Lucas's bigger stuffed animals, Pancake the alligator. Well, technically it's mine, since Marilu bought it for me after I was amused at seeing it at the local drug store, but he's kind of inherited Pancake. The name has no special meaning. It was the first thing that popped into my head, and since it makes absolutely no sense, I thought it was perfect. Unfortunately, just like the picture with his stuffed cow (named, originally enough, Cow), Lucas isn't holding Pancake in a way that shows him off very well. He looks like a dead Pancake more than anything else.


Honestly, does it get any cuter than this?


I've mentioned this outfit before, but I really like this Cookie Monster shirt Lucas is wearing below. Here, he's also modeling a jungle hat I bought on my last cruise in 2001 that I unearthed while packing for the latest cruise. As it turns out, I never did put it on since I was trying to bake under the Caribbean sun.


Sometimes a guy just needs to kick back and relax on his giant stuffed alligator.


This next video is just more posing of Lucas in the Cookie Monster shirt and jungle hat. However, if you listen closely, you'll be serenaded by Marilu's "talented" singing ability.



Finally, Lucas shows us a brand-new way to get around the room in style: Balloon-o-motion! Watch the end for a cute kiss between him and his mom.

Fresh Air

Back on June 21, the community in which we live held a multicultural festival. We went over after it had been going on for a while (and after all the vultures swarmed the free food). Among other things Lucas got this balloon tied around his wrist. I really thought he was going to find it more interesting, but well, just look at his face.


Here, we help him walk. The main reason I'm showing this is so that I can mention he is walking in small steps quite often now. Usually anywhere between 2 to 6 steps before he plops his butt back down and decides crawling is more efficient. At this rate, I expect him to be walking fully within a month.


Later on that afternoon, we filled his pool again. He has as much interest reaching out of the pool and grabbing part of the lawn as he does relaxing in the pool, as evidenced by the leaf stuck to his face (presumably after he tried to add some green to his diet).


Finally, we wrap up with a photo and video of him reclining in the pool. The picture makes it look much more relaxing than it actually was. It all actuality, I think he had accidentally got in this position, and was trying to sit up. You can hear a bit of his whining on the following video. Still, it has cute written all over it.

Random June Photos

This is the third post I've put up late Saturday night so be sure to check out the other ones below it afterwards. As the subject implies, these are just some random photos taken in mid-June.



Lucas doesn't really understand blowing bubbles yet. He's far more content to just take the wand and stick it in his mouth. Oddly enough, the soap taste doesn't seem to bother him. As a result, he doesn't get to hold the wand very often. :)

Belated birthday photos

In non-Lucas related news, there's a very slight chance I might have broken the big toe on my right foot earlier today. I'm pretty sure it's just very sore, bruised, and/or jammed, but you never know. In my infinite wisdom, while playing with Lucas I tried to hop from a kneeling position to a standing position without using my hands. Suffice to say it didn't go well. To any of you kids out there reading this, getting older sucks.

Enough about me, let's take a look at a few of the pictures I didn't get a chance to post from Lucas's actual birthday last month (as opposed to the party). The two best ones were posted on June 16, but these are pretty cute too.



Back when my dad was visiting a couple of months ago, he bought Lucas a big stuffed cow since we'd visited a farm earlier in the day, and Lucas really liked the cows. Well, that cow is now one of Lucas's favorite stuffed animals, and it occurred to me that I don't have any pictures of it. Let me remedy that right now. Probably not the best picture of the cow since Lucas is in the middle of playing with it, but you get the idea.

Swimming pool and other things

One of the outdoor gifts Lucas got for his birthday was a swimming pool/sandbox from his "Aunt" Tanya. We made use of it almost immediately, filling it up the day after his birthday party. As you can see below, he had a good time with it.

Lucas starts out by testing out the waters. Seems okay though he hasn't really figured out yet that when he splashes the water hard, the water usually ends up on him.



After several minutes of splashing, he finally plops down into the pool. If you look closely at his face when he first sits in the water, the expression is priceless.


A close-up of the wet kid.


After his swim, Lucas gets toweled off by my mom. I didn't notice it before, but I do believe the little bugger is blowing a raspberry at the camera.


Starting a little over a month ago, whenever I lie on my back on the ground, Lucas comes over, pulls up my shirt and either blows on my belly or investigates my belly button. Strange kid. Btw, try to ignore the massive belly; the cruise sure didn't help that.


"Mom, I think these are too big!"


The dual purpose birthday gift. Yes, it holds all of his Mega Blocks, but apparently, it also makes a perfectly good seat.


After his swim in the pool, Lucas was disrobed and we took this video of his naked hijinks. I get a kick out of his inadvertent modesty.



In case you are wondering why Marilu was crawling around in high heels in that last video, she had injured her achilles tendon in a soccer game, and it was less painful to walk with a heel than flatfoot. Just in case you thought we were doing fashion shows in our living room or something.

Year and a Month...and a day

I meant to post this yesterday since it was Lucas's, uh, 13 month day, but it totally slipped my mind. Anyway, this is a picture from a walk we took yesterday afternoon. We discovered a new park in our housing area that had baby-friendly swings. Possibly due to the fact that it had rained several hours earlier, no one was there so we had the place to ourselves. Lucas made the most of it by swinging to his heart's content.


I'd like to post more, but I'm dead tired and will be heading up to bed shortly. As I normally crash between 1 and 2 AM, and it's only 8:30, that's saying something. Since we have no plans whatsoever this weekend, I intend to put up a ton of pictures on Saturday and Sunday. I really need to catch up to July before we hit August.

Pictures from the party - Part 3

Ok, I've had enough time to relax; time to get posting again. Here's the third (and final) part of photos from Lucas's birthday party way back on June 14. Yes, I'm aware today is over a month after that. I shall endeavor to catch up.

As I mentioned at the end of the last party entry, many of the remaining pictures are from the gift opening. Since they almost all look the same, I just picked a few of them for your viewing pleasure. Lucas mostly just sat there trying to play with the already opened gifts while the older kids who understood what was going on, led by Brandon, helped Lucas get through them at a reasonable pace. Otherwise, we'd probably still be there.




"Yay, it's over!"


Here, Brandon models a pair of boots that Lucas will eventually be able to use. As you can tell, they are the must-have accessory of 2008.


This picture is a little fuzzy, but I really like how it came out, particularly the little guy's excitement.


This was as close as Lucas came to facing the camera in 3 pictures he took with my mom. He can be a squirmy little sucker.


Heidi went out of her way to avoid being photographed from behind during the party. So of course I felt it my obligation to take at least one shot of her butt. Here's to you, Heidi! :)


A picture of the birthday boy's final loot tally. He made out like a bandit. Heck, we still haven't opened up some of his toys. We figure once he grows out of some of his younger toys, we'll replace them with some of the older kid gifts. Not pictured are the outdoor toys, including a mini-basketball hoop and a sandbox/pool.


If those pictures aren't enough for you, check out the photo album since there are a LOT more there. Toodles!

The Cruise

Since this is technically a blog about Lucas and he didn't accompany us on vacation, I'm going to keep this (relatively) short (Yikes, I just finished writing this entry after an hour an a half, and I really need to look up the definition of "short" because it's anything but). Suffice to say, though, that the cruise was great. Of course, anything that keeps me away from work for 2 weeks falls under the "Awesome" category for me, so I'm a bit biased. We could probably have sat in the middle of a harbor somewhere for those 10 days, and I'd have been just as thrilled.

The vacation got off to a less-than-fantastic start when we discovered at the airport that we'd left the camera and videocamera back at the house. Thankfully, my mom has been wanting a new digital camera so when we arrived in Manhattan, we found a Best Buy and bought the latest version of our Canon camera to use on the trip. Once I've got all the photos downloaded, we'll then give the camera to my mom and everybody wins.

As it turned out though, I didn't use the camera nearly as much as I expected. Rather than view the vacation through a lens, we just experienced it instead, forgetting about the camera the majority of the time. We still used it for so-called Kodak moments, such as when we were high above a town in St. Thomas, but the majority of it is pictures of the boat or shots as we pulled into harbor.

As with any cruise, there was much eating, drinking, and laziness. I think I'd break a scale and/or cholesterol-checking machine if I were to use either today. Red meat every day and an unhealthy amount of vodka over the last couple of days on the cruise will do that to you. :)

I'm going to post a bunch of pictures below for your convenience, but if you'd like to see the rest, you can check them out in the photo album, which should be updated later on this weekend.

One last thing before the pictures. The only downside to the cruise was that we left out of New York. Why is this bad? Well, that meant that about 70% of the people on the cruise, by our estimation, were from the surrounding area, and let me tell you, the Long Island/Brooklyn/New Jersey accents were wearing pretty damn thin by the end of the trip. Don't even get me started about how they did nothing but complain about the cruise nearly anytime I overheard them (which was often since New Yorkers apparently have a broken volume button in their heads). Other than that, the cruise was a success, but if I never go anywhere near NYC and its wretched accents ever again, it won't be too soon.

Now, on with the pictures...

Crossing under a bridge as we left NYC behind on the first day.


Hanging out at the nightclub on Day 2. That was the only time we got up there during the trip since despite my goal to be buzzed over half of the trip, eating enough food to keep a large family satisfied makes it hard to find any extra space for alcohol.


Marilu poses in front of our ship after we disembarked in San Juan. We walked around a bit, but it wasn't one of the more thrilling stops. Maybe it's just me, but Puerto Rico just doesn't strike me as terribly exotic.


Here's one of the aforementioned pictures from high over St Thomas. We got these pictures done just in time since a massive downpour came through minutes later (see foreboding clouds/fog on the right side of the picture).


Later that day, we took a boat to nearby St. John and snorkeled in the lovely bay below. That was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. We took some pictures on a disposable, waterproof camera so once we get that developed, I may post a picture or two from that.


The next port was Tortola, but we didn't have much time AND it was a Sunday so not much was open. As a result, no memorable pictures from there. However, the following day was at Grank Turk, which was probably the best port from a beach standpoint. That's because the beach was right there and didn't require any effort to get to it. As far as I could tell, pretty much the whole island was nothing but beach. I wouldn't mind going back there sometime.

Here's a view of the beach from our cabin. In the foreground is another ship that was docked there. It looked like it might have been some sort of British military boat. The complex behind the beach was comprised of several duty-free shops as well as Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. That place was really cool, but the food was EXTREMELY over-priced. For lunch (just sandwiches), 2 beers, and 2 mixed drinks, we spent over $70!


Long before we left for the cruise, I came up with idea that it would be hilarious to take a picture with my buddy Jason (who got married on the cruise) in matching Speedos. We're far from the ideal body types for Speedos so I figured it would be an amusing gag photo (no pun intended, for those viewing it). Unfortunately, Jason bailed on me at Grand Turk, and since that was the last beach day, I decided to solo it. For those of you with sensitive stomachs, you may want to look away now since this may not be pretty. Of course, just wait until you see the ones that didn't make the blog cut when I upload the rest to the photo albums. :)


On the trip back up the East Coast, I took a few pictures of the pool areas on the ship to give you an idea what the upper deck was like. The first one was the most popular, and hence most crowded of the pools. I only sat by that on the last day since the New York accents and kids running around were almost too much during other days.


The other main pool was where the Movies Under the Stars screen was located. This is a pretty nifty concept since it allows people to watch almost first-run movies right by the pool during the afternoon and again at night. A lot of people seemed to enjoy this, but I only watched one movie, an 11:30 PM showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Kristen (Jason's new wife) and I even stood up and did the Time Warp dance. Fun stuff.


And finally, this is the pool I spent most of my time in or around (while baking under the sun). It was an adults only pool, which kept it a little more sane than the other ones. There was still quite a few floating New Yorkers, but the sheer relaxation value more than made up for it.


Here's Lady Liberty as we approached the Brooklyn docks on our final day.


And finally, what would a vacation blog entry be without Lucas tearing through our suitcases when we got back?