Lucas is 2!

For those of you not in the loop, Lucas officially turned 2 at 10:33 AM this morning. It's unbelievable how much he has changed since he first appeared in this world, screaming and peeing all over the place. Well, the screaming and peeing haven't changed all that much, but you know what I mean.

We had a birthday party for him this past Saturday, and I've posted several pictures below. To see the rest of the pictures, you can see them in the photo album, which can be found here.

A view of the back deck, where some of the gang are chowing down on lunch.


The requisite "cheese" photo from Lucas.


Lucas got a hold of my beer bottle and went to town on it. Don't worry, there was nothing in it. What, you think I'm going to waste good beer on a 2 year old? :)


Here's a shot of the cake Marilu made. The theme of the party was dinosaurs so she made a stegosaurus cake. The plates on its back are strawberries and the tail spikes are candles. I think it came out pretty well.


Lucas gets ready to blow out the candles with Brandon waiting in the background to blow them out himself if Lucas has problems.


Despite Lucas's face to the contrary, the cake was actually quite good.


One of Lucas's presents was his first baseball mitt. We're still trying to teach him to put it on the correct hand...and not backwards, but those things will come in time, I'm sure.


"Ok, opened the truck, where's the next thing I can unwrap and destroy?"


I love his face here. Kind of a "thank you all for coming...now uh, you mind getting the heck out?"


Having fun with the dump truck.


This is one of those moments Lucas needed to be reminded to "be gentle!" while playing with Jayden. He was a bit excitable by this point of the party.


This was taken later on that night, just before bed. I think it's safe to say by the expression on his face that he had a good day, huh?


I plan to post a couple of videos from the party, but they take a while to upload so I'll include them in a follow-up post later in the day.

Last but not least, thanks to everyone who came to the party. We had a great time and really appreciated seeing you. Oh, and Lucas liked your presents. :)

Early birthday present

We've been planning to buy Lucas a tricycle for his 2nd birthday for a while now, especially after he expressed so much interest (scratch that, delight is a better word) in the one at daycare. Since his birthday party is this coming Saturday--with his actual birthday being June 16th, next Tuesday--we decided to buy the tricycle this past weekend. Being the pushover parents that we are, we couldn't help but give it to him early. My reasoning is that he doesn't understand the concept of birthdays anyway, so whether we give it to him this week or next month, it's all the same to him.

To say he was excited is an understatement. I put the thing together in the living room, and he sat next to me the whole time, either watching, holding the tools or bike parts, or trying to help out. As you can imagine, the latter was usually the exact opposite of helping out, but he meant well.






An hour or so later--hey, I'm no handyman AND I had distractions--the tricycle was complete and Lucas posed for pictures. This is one of those cases where we didn't have to prompt him to smile. At all.



Here he is on his first "ride." What you don't see in the video (or the previous pictures) is that there is an extra piece that attached behind the seat that allows me to push the trike just like a stroller and I can even turn it. Having pushed him around on the neighbor's tricycle without that handle a weekend before, my back thanks me profusely. It makes life a LOT easier, for any of you mulling over whether it's worth it.



One last thing. You can hear Marilu mention it briefly in the first video, but Lucas wore that helmet from the point we picked it up at Walmart until right before he went to bed. Yes, that includes dinner. We couldn't help but laugh and joke that he looked mentally challenged eating dinner wearing a bike helmet. Hey, whatever floats his boat, I guess.

Sprinkler

Over the past couple of weeks, one (or sometimes both) of Lucas's eyes has been getting a little pink. It comes and goes, and there is no discharge or anything so we'd pretty much ruled out pink eye, but Marilu brought him to the clinic this morning just to be safe. The doctor thinks it's probably just allergies. This isn't all that surprising, given his gene pool. Marilu has a few allergies herself, and I have some of the most sensitive eyes EVER. My mom used to torment me by saying "drip" or "wet," which would typically lead to my eyes watering. Heck, they are a little watery right now, just from typing that.

Enough of current events, on with the media.

In the past, Lucas liked to stick his head in the pots and pans cabinet, and once in a while, he would crawl in the bottom and play around. As you can see, things have progressed.


The weather in early May wasn't that great up here (or throughout the rest of the month, come to think of it). As such, we sometimes had to toss the raincoat on Lucas to let him play in the backyard. In this series, he was trying to get the sprinkler turned on, even though it was overcast and pretty cool out. Logic is not a word often used with toddlers.







This video, the last of the sprinkler series, makes me laugh out loud with Lucas and all his "daddies."

The Cheese Bear

Man, every time I think I'm catching up, I look at the date of the photos I'm about to post and realize, nope, still way behind. These are from April 30.

I introduced Lucas to Kool-Aid popsicles for the first time that night. As you can probably tell from the picture, the popsicle was a big hit with him.


Later, he not only let us put his bear head from last Halloween on, he actually liked it. A far cry from October when he was tearing it off as soon as we put it on him.


Still wearing the bear head (for a while, at least), Lucas says "cheese" a few times. I find this video really cute.

Imagination Movers

I've probably mentioned this before, but Lucas's favorite TV show is a Disney program called Imagination Movers. It's live-action, and it's about 4 guys who work in an "imagination warehouse" and help people solve problems. Very basic stuff, but the music is catchy, and it's not annoying like some kids TV shows (die, Dora, die painfully).

Imagination Movers is one of the few programs that Lucas typically will watch from start to finish, which makes it good for those times where we need to get something done without him interfering (such as cleaning up after dinner). Lucas has also gotten into the habit of dancing along with the various songs they play on the show. Below, I've included video clips of him dancing to three different parts: the theme song, the "brainstorming" song that is played before they start trying to solve the problem, and the song they play at the end after the problem has been solved.

These videos just show Lucas (and Marilu's legs), but nowadays, we usually dance with him. For anyone looking in our front window during such times, we must look like an odd family.

Videos on the way

I spent a good deal of tonight uploading videos so that they'll be ready for future posts. Videos are one of the things that really slow me down so that should quicken the process considerably for everything up until late May. I'll have at least one new post up tomorrow for your viewing pleasure. Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Rocketman

The video below was taken last night. I don't want to say anything about it before you watch it since it is amusing enough on its own.



Yes, this is what life with Lucas is like lately. Alliteration unintended.

My Prize Fighters

A portrait of mom and son, both missing teeth.


For those of you not aware, Marilu was born without a tooth up there and is in the midst of replacing her fake tooth with a permanent something-or-another.

Lucas speech update! Lately, it seems like Lucas knows 5 words: "yes" (almost always followed by "please," so at least he is polite), "no", "mine", and "more". He throws in a "ball" and makes animal noises from time to time as well, but those are the big ones. He understands a lot more words than those listed above, but I think he's holding off on saying any new ones until he has driven us crazy with those. Oh, lest I forget "mommy" and, to a lesser extent, "daddy" are quite common at 2-3 AM in the morning when he wants to come in bed with us.

Visit from grandma

Around mid-April, Marilu's mom came to visit for about a week. Now, the stereotype of the mother-in-law visit is usually a very negative thing. Not so in our house! Barb woke up earlier than I did and would take care of Lucas in the morning, giving me an extra hour or so of sleep, so as far as I'm concerned, she can move in and stay with us. :)

Here's a few good pictures of her and Lucas from the trip. We didn't get many on our camera since I think the majority were taken on hers.




And while we have a family theme going, here's a picture of Lucas and his cousin Megan hamming it up for the camera.

Scattered shots

Feeling confident in his bright red rubber boots, the young toddler surveys the pile of laundry in front of him, grins, and thinks, "Time to destroy."




Step 1 complete. "Step 2: Mowing the lawn" and "Step 3: Shoveling snow" to follow. Then daddy can relax completely.


Someone was having a tad bit too much fun eating chocolate.


Why use a storage bin to organize all his kitchen accessories (seen piled above his head in the picture) when he can instead kick back and chill in it? Living the baby dream...


Words fail me on this one. What the heck is Lucas doing? Or me, for that matter?


Speaking of words, Lucas has been talking quite a bit lately. He still can't really string together a sentence, but he knows several words. Just a couple of nights ago, we got him to say "touchdown" while also raising his hands the way refs indicate a TD. That's one of the bigger words he can handle, but don't get me started on his whiny "no." Ugh, that's annoying.

Another cute phrase he has almost went unnoticed. For a while, he would say "up" when he wanted us to pick him up--usually to grab something out of his reach. Then, he started saying "uppies," which we just assumed was a toddlerized version of "up." Eventually, we put two and two together and realized "uppies" is his way of saying "up, please." Very cute AND polite. He says "yes, please" quite a bit so hopefully we'll have a respectful kid who likes football.

Until he is a teenager, and then all bets are off.

Bluebeard

Last weekend, we went to the 2nd birthday for Thierry, one of Lucas's friends. I didn't think to bring our camera, but thankfully, Thierry's mom Tracey took some great pics. Here's my favorite one of Lucas, taken just after he ate his cupcake. I think the picture speaks for itself.


If you are interested, Tracey has a few more of Lucas (as well as the rest of the partygoers) over on her Flickr page here.

FYI

Lest the news get out through the grapevine, I just wanted to let it be known that I quit my job on Tuesday. Years of teaching the same training sessions over and over, as well as having customers who tended to be complete jackasses, took its toll on me, and I walked out of there during the afternoon (right after telling one of the aforementioned customers what I thought of them in no uncertain terms).

So, I'm jobless at the moment, but my full-time job now is to find a new one. I don't suspect it will be a huge challenge since I've dabbled in so many areas that I have a pretty well-rounded skill set. I'd prefer to get out of the technical fields altogether, but if that's not possible, I'll grin and bear it. I have more than just my mouth to feed nowadays.

All that said, this blog will continue unhindered. Heck, if anything, it might be updated more frequently since I have a little more time on my hands. :)

April! Finally!

As you've probably seen in past blog entries, Lucas does a lot of crafts at his daycare. At the beginning of April, he made a set of bunny ears. Unlike many of his other crafts, he hasn't destroyed these yet. In fact, he had them on briefly earlier today. However, these pictures are from Day 1 (circa April 1).



On April 2, we received an early Easter package from my mom. We saved most of it until Easter, but we let Lucas have the egg-shaped chalk. He had a fun time defacing the sidewalk.

New Kitchen (for Lucas, that is)

At the end of March, we decided to pack up a lot of Lucas's loose toys from the part of the first floor that has become his play area. Since that left a fairly large hole in the area, we replaced the toys with the kitchen set that he really enjoyed at cousin Megan's birthday party, seen here.

As you can see in the following pictures, it was a wise purchase. However, a word of warning to anyone planning to buy this. It's the single most frustrating thing I have put together in the last 5 years. The barbecue and every piece of furniture in his room was a breeze next to this infernal hell toy. If he hadn't liked it, I may very well have sacrificed it to pagan gods in the backyard. Suffice to say my relationship with Little Tikes has not improved since last year, when I dealt with the swing with the missing piece (which we eventually returned).




And finally, a video from right after he woke from his nap, where he sees the kitchen playset for the first time.

Quick picture update

It's amazing how clever kids are today when it comes to technology. Lucas watched me use my iPod Touch a few times, and now he has no problem unlocking it and getting in there and pushing the buttons. He doesn't really have any idea what he's doing, but he does know how to start it, which is pretty impressive considering he's not even 2 yet.


Just a happy picture of the little squirt.


Little Devil vs The Huggies Beast From Beyond.


Mistakes were made.

5 second update

Very busy week. I'll try and get some new pictures up tomorrow!

More March Madness

I just realized that this is my 401st entry on this blog. Man, that's a lot of drivel that I've written. Hope you've enjoyed the pictures. Now, on to more random photos from March.

Back toward the beginning of March, we were having problems getting Lucas to eat dinner, which led us to many different ideas in trying to get him to eat. This one worked for about 5 minutes before he realized his stuffed animal Cow was not, in fact, eating dinner with him.


Right in time for St Patrick's Day, Lucas made this shamrock hat at daycare.


Here's Lucas doing his impression of a pretentious Hollywood agent.


Yeah, not really a big fan of this photo.


Wow, that bring us up to March 20. Keep in mind all those photos a while back from Montreal and the Museum of Nature were in March as well, which helped us fly through the month. That's all I have for now since I'm tired as hell and need to go rest.

Onwards to March...only a month late!

Here are some random pictures from early March. In the first one, we see that sometimes a kid just has to kick back, relax, and toss back a cold one.


Trendsetter DJ 2 Small unveils what all the cool people will be wearing this fall.


We bought a new storage unit for Lucas's closet, and while I tried to put it together, he decided it made a better playset.


Does TV rot the brain? It sure does capture a kid's attention as we can see Lucas transfixed by whatever happens to be on (probably Madagascar 1 or 2, based on that timeframe).


Speaking of rotting brains, let's rot daddy's too! (I really like this picture of the two of us, by the way.)


Especially when you see what I was watching.

Easter 2009 Videos

In case you haven't seen it already, the post immediately before this one includes pictures from Easter 2009.

As promised in my last entry, here are a few videos of Lucas during his Easter egg hunt this morning, up to the point where he finds his basket. Cute stuff.