Another pic

Since I ran out of pictures of my own, I'm blatantly stealing a great one of Marilu and Lucas that I found on our friend Tracey's Flickr site. This is from the same day where Lucas looked like a businessman making plans at a conference table. Check it out...


Just a couple more days until they are back, which probably explains why I am running around trying to restore the house to its original state. Looks like a tornado hit it after one week of "return to bachelorhood."

Blast from the past

I've run out of new pictures of Lucas, so I decided to upload a video from way back when...his second day in this world, actually. I may have posted this already several months ago, but even so, it's worth another look. Enjoy!

More highlights (from March 16)

Here's the latest in the movement update for Lucas...and no, I'm not talking about the contents of his diaper. According to Marilu, the only way he wants to "crawl" anymore is on his hands and feet, no knees. So it sounds like he looks like a human crab, I guess. It'll be interesting to see what it's like when he gets back, if he isn't already walking.

Get him a medallion and a white man's afro, and that boy would be perfect for the 1970s.


This video is great. Not only does Lucas show off his attempts to stand (circa March 16), but there's a great spiraling tumble toward the end. No babies were hurt in the making of this video.



As cute as Lucas is, not every picture is a prize-winner. Exhibit A, if you please?


It's never too early to get them ready for the corporate world. This weekend, I'll try and remember to post the related video to this picture. Lucas screams at the computer in much the same way I'd like to at work sometimes.


Since we had fun at his expense, let's wrap it up with a cute one of him riding on my shoulders.

Highlight day

Three days of being sick. That's how I've spent the last few days. Sick as a dog, only leaving the house once, and that was to pick up more cold medicine. And you want to know what kind of luck I had? I got rearended on the way to get that medicine. Luckily, the idiot lady who hit me just bumped me lightly, and there was no physical damage to the car or myself. I can vaguely see rearending someone in stop and go traffic--not that I ever have--but how the heck do you rearend someone who has been stopped at a red light for 10-15 seconds. Morons. The world is filled with them.

Anyway, I'm about to hit the sack, but I wanted to post a couple more shots of Lucas. Apparently, he is doing well up in Labrador, and everyone loves him. As if the latter fact was ever in doubt. According to Marilu, he's had a couple of cases where he briefly lets go of whatever he is holding when standing and has a look in his eye like he wants to walk so it'll be interesting to see if that is soon. At this point, it appears walking may arrive before teeth.

In addition, Marilu said he's making a noise that sounds like "dadadadada." I'd love to claim that he's calling out my name (or moniker), but since I'm not even there, it's more than likely just a reflex word. Nonetheless, I'll enjoy the idea.

So without any further adieu, pictures!

I think is one of my favorite "non-cute" pictures of Lucas. By that, I don't mean he's not cute, but that the first thing you think when you see isn't "awww." What I love about this picture of Lucas (along with cohort Thierry) is that their positioning, particularly Lucas's, reminds me of business men planning big things over a conference table. I think it's the rolled-up sleeves thing Lucas has going on, but I could see this as a scene in the baby version of Wall Street. I'm sure it would lose a little bit of its "power" as soon as one, or both, of them fell over.


Unfortunately, that's all I have time for now. Sleep beckons. More tomorrow!

No work for me

It would appear that the moral of today is "be careful what you wish for." Since we just had a three-day weekend, and I didn't have anything overly pressing at work today, I was thinking I might take the day off and stretch it into a 4-day weekend. Well, lo and behold, the Fates agreed with my assessment of the day, but rather than take a simple vacation day, they saw fit to infect me with something midday Sunday, which overnight graduated into a full-blown cold. So now I sit at home--away from work, true--but saddled with a runny nose, a head that feels like my sinuses are about to pop, and oh, what's that?, I've started to get the chills. I think it's more along the lines of a cold than a fever, so hopefully that last symptom is merely in my head.

But enough about me. Presumably, you're here because you want to see Lucas, and since I promised unposted pictures from past weeks (ah, alliteration is a beautiful thing), I now deliver. So sit back and enjoy!

We start off with a hair-raising video (literally) of the little guy in the living room. Obviously, this was taken before he got his haircut.



Another shot from the living room. Lucas was playing with the laundry basket here. Once again, this was obviously taken before his haircut, back when he looked like the wild child.


As you all know, a baby just can't start the day without a big ol' cup of joe.


And we wrap up today's update with Lucas, post shredded apples meal. More pictures in a day or two!

Flight update

For those of you keeping score, Marilu and Lucas made it to Labrador without any complications. In fact, Marilu described Lucas's behavior as that of an angel, so apparently he took the flight well. The same can't be said for Air Canada, who found some way to lose Lucas's suitcase.

UPDATE (March 23): Air Canada found the luggage and is delivering it today so Lucas now has his clothes back.

Easter 2008

So it's 6:32 AM on Saturday morning, and I am awake. What's up with that? Actually, I've been up since 4 something, which is even worse. The reason? I had to bring Marilu and Lucas to the airport since, as I mentioned in the post the other day, they are heading up to Labrador City until April 1 to visit with her family. It should be a good time for all involved since this will be her youngest brother's first chance to meet Lucas, and her dad hasn't seen Lucas since he was about 2 months old. As you can tell by looking at the pictures in this blog, he's changed a tad since then.

As for me, it's a return to the bachelor way of living for the next week and a half. True, Marilu made a few meals and put them in the freezer for me, but I suspect the next week will be made up of plenty of bad food, beer, video games, and no pants. Ah, a return to the good ol' collegedays where the vacuum would see use once every six months (that said, if any Ottawans feel like dropping off leftovers, I wouldn't turn them down). :)

Yesterday evening, we went to our neighbors' place for an early Easter dinner: turkey and all the other fun stuff. It just wouldn't be Easter without dressing up so here's Lucas looking like a dapper young lad (while trying to eat a gum wrapper).


Next, we find Lucas test driving Tyler's high chair. After dinner, he amused himself for no less than 20-30 minutes trying to get the buckle in his mouth. He never did get it since it's fixed in place, but it did a fantastic job of keeping him occupied.


I'm not sure how I managed it, but I got Lucas and Tyler both looking at the camera at the same time. It's hard enough to get one baby to focus for more than a second, let alone two. The gods must have been smiling upon me that day.


Earlier in the day, I took several shots of Lucas sitting inside a new scrapbooking carrier/container that Marilu bought. Here's a few of the highlights.




Like I mentioned a few days ago, even though Lucas is gone for a while, I'll still be posting new photos. I have about a week of stuff from when I was in DC that I've yet to upload either here or on the photo albums so keep an eye out for that. In addition, I sent the USB cable with Marilu so if she gets a chance, she'll email me some photos from this week of the little guy.

Until next time...

First Haircut

If you're wondering why I'm not posting a bunch of pictures from last week, there's rhyme to my reason, a method to my madness. As most of you probably know, Marilu and Lucas are heading up to Marilu's hometown of Labrador City on Saturday, and they'll be there for about 10 days. Since I won't have any new photos of the little guy during that time, it only makes sense to ration out the existing photos so that I can add a few new ones each day or two during the "hiatus." Then when the two of them get back, I can shower the blog with a plethora of new pics. See, it all makes sense when you stop thinking about it too hard.

This afternoon, Lucas had his very first haircut. Since he had quite a bit of hair when he was born, and he just turned 9 months old, he was starting to get shaggy. And as his godfather mentioned in an email, long hair isn't bad when you have facial hair. However, before that time, it's easy to get confused with a girl, and we don't want that! So without any further adieu, some pictures and two short videos from our trip to the barber shop (or hair salon or whatever the heck they call those things nowadays).









Post haircut, Lucas chews on a piece of paper and tries to forget the trauma. Seriously though, he was pretty good throughout the whole thing. A little bit of shaking his head around and whining, but no big temper tantrums. Well done, Lucas!


We took a couple of pictures with each of us and Lucas when we got home. I think both of these turned out pretty well. Marilu thinks Lucas and I look identical in this photo below. I don't see it, but if so, poor kid. :)

Cutest Baby in Ottawa?

Marilu and I just went through all of Lucas's pictures since the start of 2008, and we came down to the following 3 finalists. We'll be deciding on one of them tonight and sending it out in the morning, but feel free to comment on which one is your favorite!

#1


#2


#3

St Patrick's Day 2008

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! I was going to put up some pictures of Lucas from the last week, but I'd completely forgotten that today was an "event" day. As a result, we got some cute pictures of Lucas dressed up for the occasion. Enjoy!

Growing up

Just in case you didn't know, Lucas turned 9 months old today. Amazing, huh? I'm going to bed early, but tomorrow I'll post some of the pictures we took of the "old man" today. Actually, I have plenty of other ones from earlier in the week as well so keep an eye out for those. Until then...

On the move

If you recall, last weekend I proudly proclaimed Lucas was now able to crawl a little and, with our help, could hold himself up against things. Well, what a difference a week can make. See the video below to find out what Lucas figured out how to do while I was in DC...



Kinda makes you wonder just how far off walking is. Based on today's activity, sooner rather than later. And at this point, it might even be before he finally gets a tooth.

Triumphant return

For the record, I'm back in Ottawa now. Once Lucas goes to bed, I'll try and get some of this past week's photos (taken by Marilu) up so you can get your regularly scheduled baby pic fix.

Two for the road

As mentioned last night, I wanted to post a couple of videos before I headed out for the rest of the week. The first one shows Lucas sitting in his high chair. We usually have to keep him entertained while preparing his dinner. Otherwise, he gets vocal about being left there. As you can see in the video though, he also gets vocal when his toy, in this case a ball, gets out of his reach. I guess you can say the kid knows what he wants.



In the second video, you see the latest evolution in Lucas's attempt to walk. It's somewhere between crawling and standing, and he's obviously not perfected it yet. :)



See you on Saturday!

Take 2

The last I heard from Air Canada, the next flight to DC wasn't available until Wednesday. Now I'm not sure why or how, but I was able to get another flight out tomorrow (Tuesday). So basically, I'm going to try and make my way down there a second time. Since I was already going down a day early to hang out with my friend Jason, this is only going to push the training back one day. Then I'll spend an extra day at the end of the week to make up for the missed "hanging out" day, which will probably involve a considerable amount of alcohol, as meeting between old guy friends often do. The moral of the story is that I won't be updating until sometime on Saturday, when I return to Ottawa. (not totally true...I plan to upload another Lucas video before logging off for the night, and I'll post it in the morning)

I missed a couple of cute pictures of Lucas eating from last week. He has a tendency to want to pick at his food so he can feel the texture. One of the days, he was doing it a lot, and it made it really difficult to feed him with the spoon. Finally, I decided to descend to his level (real mature, I know), and I started feeding him with my own hands. All in all, it became a very messy affair for both of us. Observe...



The next night he stayed clean (relatively speaking), but he did a number on his tray.


Now, let me get to uploading so you have a movie or two in the morning...

Snowed in

Well, that was a short trip. Thanks to the massive snowstorms that hit Ontario this weekend, pretty much all flights that relied on planes from other Canadian cities were canceled. In fact, things are so bad that the next available flight to Washington isn't until Wednesday morning. Since I have to wait to talk to the customer tomorrow to see when they will be available, there's almost no chance I'll be flying this week. I might be able to go next week, but it's unlikely since the other trainer will be out of the office as well. So if I were a betting man, I'd say I'll be heading out sometime 2 weeks from now.

So how bad was this storm that effectively shut down Eastern Canada? Take a look at some of the pictures of Marilu next to the snow in our front yard. We literally have nowhere else to put the snow so we have to carry it across the street to an empty field. More snow is forecasted for Thursday so we're really hoping some of this melts before then. Ugh.

Cutest baby in Ottawa?

One last thing I wanted to mention before I head out for the week. A local TV station is running a cutest baby contest, and in order to enter, you send in one picture of your baby. We figured it can't hurt so we're going to send in a picture of Lucas. Worst case, nothing happens. Best case, there's a good top prize and then 50 something runner-up prizes. I find it hard to believe there's 50 babies cuter than Lucas so I would say the odds are in our favor to win at least something for him.

Anyway, Marilu and I will be sorting through our pictures this coming week and sending the official photo out by next weekend. In the meantime, if you'd like to get involved, feel free to go through the pictures on this blog or the pictures on the photo album site and let me know which one you think is the cutest. It should probably be one from the past couple of months since anything older than that isn't really representative of him anymore.

Personally, I've got my money on one of his bear suit ones, but who knows, maybe another one will jump out at us when we go through the rest of the pics. So get out there and give me your opinion. It's about time the rest of Ottawa realized just how cute the little bugger really is. :)

Around the house

Tomorrow, I'm heading down to the Washington, DC area for work. I'll be back on Thursday, but during that time, there won't be any updates. I suppose one of these days I ought to show Marilu how to update as well, but that's neither here nor there. Anyway, before I go, I wanted to post a few more pictures to hold you over until I get back. These are just random shots I took over the last few days so enjoy!

I think I've posted a picture of Lucas in this snowsuit before, but if not, check out the toasty little guy.


For some time now, Lucas has been at the point where he needs to be entertained while waiting to eat in his high chair. If we don't give him some sort of toy, he lets us know it. Usually, that's done through some kind of high volume alarm. In the case of the other day, I gave him a ball and let him play with it. If I remember, I'll post the related video when I get back. It's amusing watching him get angry when the ball is out of his reach.


Most little kids like Elmo from Sesame Street and Lucas is no exception. We bought him a couple of Elmo DVDs recently, and I took this picture of Lucas watching it. Like the previous picture, I have a related video for this as well, but it's not quite as interesting as he basically sits there almost transfixed. Note that I say "almost." Lucas hasn't become a slave to the TV yet (and hopefully won't). He's still at a point where he'll watch the screen for 10-15 seconds and then look around to see if any new toys have shown up or anyone new is in the room. What can I say? The kid likes to be stimulated.


Later on, I put the funky $8 sunglasses I bought on Venice Beach during our California vacation a couple of years ago on Lucas. As you can see by his face, he was not very pleased. Don't feel too bad for the little guy though. He got back at me later by snapping one of the pieces off it. Guess I'll have to buy some new ones when I go back to California (hopefully next month...also work related).


Finally, to make up for making him so sad, I let Lucas ride up on my shoulders. I don't why, but the kid loves it up there. Unfortunately, this picture is one of the rare times he isn't laughing or smiling while in this position.

Leave me the hell alone!

CNN and Fox News have nothing on me. The picture below was taken literally minutes ago. Lucas woke up at roughly 12:25 AM and was lightly crying. So as a good father, I went up there and took a picture of him. :) It looks pretty bright in the picture, but actually the room was almost pitch black. Ah, the wonders of flash photography.


Lest you worry about the little guy, immediately afterward, I laid him back down, re-soothered and re-blanketed him, and he's been quiet ever since. Let's just hope for mommy's sake that he stays that way for the next 8 hours.

He keeps going and going and...

More crawling from Lucas. This time the horse had a carrot!



By the way, the background music, which I think is perfect for this video, was just playing by chance since I had put on an Elmo video for Lucas earlier.

Another 1st birthday! (still not his)

It's a couple days late, but here are the aforementioned pics from Saturday's birthday party.

The little man all dressed up and raring to go...



I didn't get any pictures of Lucas and his cousin (what number and how many times removed, I have no idea) Megan both looking at the camera at the same time, so here's the best one with Lucas looking.


Actually, this one is pretty good too. Not only do you get Lucas and Megan, but there's Marilu and yours truly in the background.


I had to take a picture of Megan's birthday cake. How cool is that for a little kid?



And we wrap up this installment with a solo shot of our bouncing baby boy having fun on the rocking giraffe thingamajig.

First weekend of March 2008

I know videos are good, but three straight posts of videos are probably overdoing it. As promised, here are some photos from this weekend.

On Friday, Marilu dressed Lucas in a new snowsuit. Despite how the picture looks, he actually fits into most of it. However, I found the picture funny enough that I almost spit up my drink when I saw it for the first time. Fair warning...


Not every picture of Lucas can be perfect. The next one is a good example. However, whereas we caught him in a less than flattering pose attempting to eat, it still makes for an amusing picture.


Since we've made fun of the little guy in 2 straight pictures, here's one of his trademark cute photos. Can we all say, "Awwwww"?


Yesterday was Lucas's last swimming lesson. While he's far from being ready to swim the English Channel on his own, I do believe he's a lot more comfortable with the water. Heck, if his activity in the bathtub is any indication, he'll be developing gills and fins by age 2. Anyway, Marilu was able to sneak a couple of photos of Lucas and I during the last lesson.

We'll start with an action shot...


...and then later on, we mugged for the camera in the kiddie pool. Though I suspect Lucas was more interested in eating his floating toy.


Although that was the last lesson for this class, we'll likely have him signed up for another one soon. He seems to like it, and it's a good activity for us to share together.

Rather than throw all the pictures from the weekend up in one post, I'll ration them out so expect more tomorrow. Saturday afternoon, we went to Marilu's cousin's house for the 1st birthday of their little girl (who we be Lucas's cousin in some fashion...I'm not even going to try and figure it out). Since we took plenty of photos for that, it'll be something to look forward to. See ya then!

A big milestone

This morning, Lucas crawled for the very first time. Well, technically, he crawled one "step" yesterday, but today, he made it 4 or 5 steps. He did it initially for Marilu before I woke up, but then we got him to do it for the camera about an hour and a half ago. His form needs a little work, but he's got the basic idea. As a bonus, at the end of the video, he pushed himself back into a seated position. Enjoy!



By the way, we've taken a bunch of pictures this week so I hope to have some of them up later this evening.