As I mentioned in my last post, I took very few photos of Lucas during November. So few, in fact, that I'll get through November in one post. How's that for catching up?
Back on November 1, we had some friends visit with their baby daughter. Some of the pictures Lucas took with her were nice...
Others? Not so much. We'll really need to have a word with him about the birds and bees soon.
Bad dad that I am, I'm trying to get Lucas into comic books at a real early age. What can I say? I still read them regularly.
Hmm, I just realized the only other pictures I took of him in November are already posted here. So that's all for November, folks. However, I do have a video from that set that I never posted that is nice and humiliating so consider this bonus footage.
Here's another cute video of Bat-Lucas running around the kitchen island. Well, cute until the kind of sad ending. He turned out okay, though.
The only other November photos I have are from my 20th high school reunion, but I doubt this is the forum for seeing a bunch of drunk 38-year-olds.
In the next post, I'll probably jump back to the present for a before-and-after of his haircut from this past weekend. BIG difference.
In my last post, I finally got through October. The good news about November (for me, anyway) is that we took very few pictures so it won't take very long to get through it. How few? I only took pictures of Lucas on 3 separate days in November. So 2 posts tops will get me into December, when I remembered to start using the camera more frequently again.
November will have to wait though since I want to post a couple of recent items. As many of you know, last Thursday was my (ugh) 39th birthday. To help celebrate it, Marilu made my favorite cake, a Coca-Cola cake, and Lucas actually posed for the camera. Below, you'll see a great picture of the event as well as a short video of Lucas helping me blow out the candles. Enjoy!
In case you can't tell, Lucas isn't waving at the camera throughout the video. He's trying to clear the smoke from the candles.
The problem with posting pictures from eons ago--October, in this case--is that I've posted some of them already, back when October was classified as current. So I have to switch back and forth from the entry creation page that I'm on now and the blog itself, reviewing just what the heck I posted back in October and early November. Heavens forbid I post the same picture twice, what with this being a professional publication and all. So with that said, let's hope none of these are do-overs.
This is pretty much just a "Lucas Eating" photo, with the extra addition of a jungle hat I bought on a cruise I took back in 2001.
Coloring time! On a related note, his daycare provider praised his coloring ability yesterday. I guess he does a really good job at staying in the lines. I can't say I'm up-to-date with what the 2-and-a-half-year-old standards are for crayon usage nowadays, but it still sounds like quite an accomplishment. Next step: not peeing all over the couch.
This next picture is from when we were testing out his Tigger costume about a week before Halloween, to make sure he would wear it. You've already seen plenty of pictures of the costume from Halloween night itself, but what I love about this picture is his face. There is definitely something devilish going on there. Kind of makes me think I should lock my bedroom door at night...once he figures out how to open his own door (he's not mentally challenged, he just has one of those safety things over the knob). Click the picture for a larger view if you can't see the expression.
Heh, while uploading, I noticed that last picture was #6606. How appropriate. In this next picture, he was playing dress-up. Apparently, dressing up as one thing at a time isn't good enough for our son. Ladies and gentlemen, Spider Soldier.
I thought I'd already posted this next one, but then I realized I got confused since it was my computer wallpaper for a couple of months. Just Lucas posing with a Halloween decoration, but I thought it was cute.
Finally, we wrap up October with this cute one of Lucas and Marilu napping on the couch.
If you are wondering where the Halloween ones, I would advise you to visit this entry from November 3: Halloween 2009.
Next time, onward to November. At this rate, I should be through it by summer!
Sometimes I can't tell whether Lucas is wise beyond his years or whether he just says the right thing at the right time. I have an example from earlier tonight.
After we read to him each night, it's become customary for one of us to lie down with him for a little bit before he goes to bed. Otherwise, he screams and cries and pounds on his door, and lying down with him is just easier to deal with. For the longest time, it was a clear choice--mommy slept with him. However, over the past week or so, he has wanted me in there more often than not.
After lying there for 10-15 minutes (unless I nod off myself), I sneak out. If he's awake, I'll explain that I have to use the bathroom but that I will be back. This usually works and 5-10 minutes later, he is asleep. He has seen through our lies in the past, either demanding that we stay or, in one case, he said he would come along with me.
Tonight, however, he played a new card, one that I'm not sure he even realized he was playing: the guilt card. I got up, noticed he was still awake, and I gave him the bathroom excuse. Lucas looked at me and said ever-so-gently, "I'll wait in bed, daddy." Just about broke my heart! After heading downstairs to watch a little TV, I even headed back up to check on him about 15 minutes later and found that he was sleeping. If he wasn't, I'd have almost felt obliged to lie back down with him until he fell back asleep. I tell ya, he can be aggravating as hell sometimes, but other times, like tonight, he can be just the sweetest little guy.
Note: This story ends well so don't get too worried as you read it.
Monday afternoon, I picked Lucas up from daycare, and even though it was icy out, he refused to hold my hand. At the bottom of the stairs, I was trying to reach over and grab the back of his hood to help balance him when he hit a piece of ice fell back hard, slamming the back of his head into the edge of one of the stone stairs. He had his hood up, so there was a little bit of cushion back there, but he started crying real loud, real quick.
He ended up getting a massive bump on the back of his head, big enough that I called Marilu and urged her to get home from shopping asap so she could check it out. After that accident with Natasha Richardson last year, the media got me worried about head injuries. He didn't seem to have any concussion symptoms so we kind of forgot about it by the next day.
However, Tuesday night--a day and a half later--he ended up throwing up several times during the night, and that got us worried all over again, since vomiting is a concussion symptom apparently. I take Marilu's word for it since I've had none, and she has had, like, 3 or something. The thing is, Lucas has had a hacking chest cough from a virus going around his daycare, and the rest of the kids had all throw up from theirs. So we figured it was that, but we brought him to the doctor on Wednesday morning anyway. Better safe than sorry.
Short story long...he's fine. The vomiting was likely due to whatever virus he had in his symptom. At the very least, it has nothing to do with the fall so all is okay with the world again. I suppose I could have summed all that up in 2-3 sentences, but I'm all about the details, baby.
As a reward, the promised harmonica videos. Enjoy!
Sorry about the delay in picture posting. For once, I actually have an excuse. Two, to be precise. First, since I bought the new laptop, I don't get downstairs to my desktop quite as often. There are some days I don't use it at all, and since all of the pictures are on the desktop, nothing gets done. Second, Marilu's brother and his wife have been in town since last Thursday, and I've tried to be sociable as opposed to being a recluse downstairs.
This has been the "cover my ass" portion of the post. On to the pictures, which come from October.
While digging through some boxes of my old stuff, I ran across a harmonica that I got when I was stationed in Germany back in the early 90s. Of course, I had to hand it over to Lucas and see what his reaction would be. He loved it, but unfortunately, it feel apart a couple of weeks later so we are now harmonica-less, for any of you trying to brainstorm future birthday or Christmas ideas.
Sometimes, Lucas loves to run around the house in just his diapers, and oftentimes, even less. On this night, I decided to join him. Well, sort of. Boxers instead of diapers in this case.
Helping mom out with a Halloween-themed cake.
Lucas shows off his Thanksgiving hat. In case U.S. readers are confused, this is a reminder that Canadian Thanksgiving is in October.
Lucas often creates his own outfits that don't always make a lot of sense. In this case, he combines a college football jersey with a pair of hockey gloves. At least he's not wearing high heels in this one.
Unless I forget (which is entirely possible), I plan to post the harmonica-playing videos tomorrow. Just need to remember to let them upload overnight.
Earlier today, we finally got Lucas's Christmas gift from his godfather, Jason. What he lacks in promptness, he more than makes up in originality. This might very well be the coolest present ever. Note: you may need some Star Wars knowledge to truly appreciate it.
I was looking through my photos and realized that I forgot a couple of good ones from Christmas. The reason they weren't included with the original Christmas entry is that they were taken that night. We went over to our friends Jay and Christine's house, took the pictures, and then we accidentally left the camera there and didn't get it again until New Year's Eve.
Before I get to those, I just wanted to mention that we had a pretty active day with Lucas. This morning, he had his first gymnastics class. I'm not really sure that is the official term since it's really all about running around and jumping and rolling, but there is gymnastics equipment around so we'll go with that.
In the afternoon, after Lucas's nap, we took him skating for nearly an hour. A couple of days ago, we bought him the double-bladed ice skates that attach directly to the boot. He had a pretty good time skating and hitting a puck with his stick. He's still quite a few years from breaking any of Gretzky's records, unfortunately. After that, we went sledding on a hill near our house. When we bought the skates, we bought a couple of sleds so all 3 of us were able to go at the same time. All in all, it was a fun day, and it definitely helps makes winter a little less depressing, something I've been quite susceptible to in the past.
On with the pictures!
In the first one, we interrupt Lucas as he is trying to eat. No wonder he doesn't like us using the camera anymore.
Later, we all posed for shots. In this one, Lucas poses with Carter and Xander.
Afterwards, we got a great family shot in front of Jay and Christine's tree. It would have been perfect if Lucas was looking at the camera, but you take what you can get.
As promised, I have a new post for you today. I've already taken tonight's Percocet, in anticipation of going to sleep in the next couple of hours, but the effects of the pill aren't starting to hit me yet so I should be fine for the next ten minutes or so.
Before I get into the meat of this post, I'd like to refer you to last year's New Year's Eve post right here. It took me until February 1 to get it up on the blog so my October and November 2009 pictures that are still sitting on my hard drive nothwithstanding, I'm getting better at the big events. Right? C'mon, someone agree with me.
It's actually kind of funny to look at last year's photos alongside this year's since the subject matter is nearly identical. Both years, we're at a kids' New Year's Eve party and Lucas is kissing lots of pretty girls. I'm such a proud father. The only major difference between the two parties is that last year's was at Heidi's and this year's was at Christine's.
Before our little lothario got down to business, he took some time to eat dinner at the table with the rest of the kids. This was as close as I could get to him looking at the camera. He's not as paparazzi-friendly as he once was, unfortunately.
A little bit later, he and Sherri (spelling?) worked on a fire truck puzzle in the hallway.
In the following video, Lucas gets kisses from Heidi and Francesca. He also got a kiss from the third girl in that clan, Genevieve, but I didn't get that on the camera. He does seem to like that family. :) Also, I love how he downs the rest of his "champagne" after the second kiss.
More champagne, please!
Of course, ya gotta close out the night with a kiss for mommy.
Hope everyone has a great 2010! Oh, and for all my Canadian friends, in honor of last night's hockey game, I just wanted to say, "USA! USA! USA!" :)
I was planning to post something new this evening, but the Percocet I got from the doctor for my back (as mentioned in my last entry) is telling me that several paragraphs of coherent writing is not going to happen right now. However, I should be back tomorrow with many new tales of wonder, or at the very least, pictures of Lucas doing something cute.
I'll be out of commission for most of the day so I wanted to get a post up since the last one was on Christmas. I'm going to the doctor at 4:10 this afternoon (yay, rush hour traffic) to get my upper back looked at. I've had a sharp pain, somewhat like the whiplash-like pain you get in your neck, that has been bothering me off and on since a few days before Christmas. It really intensifed last night, making it impossible to get into a comfortable position in bed. I finally was able to fall asleep in Lucas's bed, due to the firmer mattress, around 4 something. Don't worry about him, he had already crawled in with mom hours earlier. Hopefully, the doctor can prescribe something for me or at least point me toward someone else who can help since I was in so much pain last night, I was ready to head to the emergency room.
Enough about me, let's check out Lucas. The latest pictures of him since Christmas are still on the camera, which is upstairs, so for this post, we're jumping back in time again. I plan to get the new ones up later today or tomorrow so you can see what he did to entertain himself over the holidays. Though we did forget our camera at Jay and Christine's house from Christmas Day until New Years Eve so that will make catching up easier.
Way back when, in October, my mom came up to visit. I didn't get many pictures, presumably since she took most of them with her camera. However, I did remember to snap a few during a trip to the Museum of Civilization across the river in Quebec. Part of the museum is a children's museum, and suffice to say, Lucas had a blast.
The quality of this first shot is so-so, thanks to our camera, but I think I make up for it by providing a video from inside the Indian bus that Lucas is pretending to drive.
Sticking with the driving theme, Lucas also tries out an Indian mini-taxi vehicle...
...and wraps it up with a ride on a motorcycle. (eh, why not wear a construction helmet?)
Whoops, how could I forget the camel?
Amusing story about this last photo. In one section of the children's museum, there were several animal cutouts. You can see Lucas holding an elephant in the photo. Right next to them was a fountain. Well, Lucas took literally every single one (elephants, giraffes, monkeys, etc) and brought them over to the fountain to give them water. He would hold the mouth end of the cutouts near the water, presumably giving them a chance to drink. Very cute stuff.
Real quick update with some highlight pictures from this morning. Tonight or tomorrow, I'll try and put up a few of the videos I took. Suffice to say, Lucas had a good time this morning though believe it or not, he appeared to get tired of opening presents after a while. That sets a good precedent for next year: less presents! To be honest, it was a little overboard this year as he probably had at least 30 gifts between us, grandparents, and other family members.
This was one of the very few where he was actually looking at the camera. Unlike days of old, Lucas doesn't much care for the camera anymore. Getting a "cheese!" moment out of him is a rarity as he is more often likely to turn his back or put up his hand and say, "No daddy!" So I guess we need to appreciate this type of photo more and more.
One of his presents was a Batman dress-up set, and he threw a fit, refusing to open up any more gifts until we let him put the mask on. Hence, this picture.
He cooperated with us for this gift since it was probably his most-wanted present, a pair of Spiderman roller skates. Actually, he's wanted hockey skates ever since trying out my roller blades several months ago, but he doesn't really know the difference between those and some plastic roller skates that attach over one's shoe so everyone wins! For the record, that was his lame ass attempt at saying cheese. I guess we should be thankful he didn't scowl or throw something at the camera.
A pretty good full-shot of the Batman costume. On the right side of the photo, you can see the edge of another of his "big" presents, an easel from Uncle Bub (Jonathan) and Aunt Chantal. I'm sure we'll be seeing more photos of him using that in the days to come. No doubt in the process of completely destroying our carpet. :)
Testing out the skates. Note the matching Spiderman elbow and knee pads.
Batman wasn't enough for costumes. We also needed to get him a fireman outfit. He's like our own living doll sometimes.
For the rest of the pics from this morning (mostly opening gifts), check out our Christmas 2009 photo album.
My dad sent Lucas a Christmas card that play "Jingle Bell Rock" when you open it, and Lucas used the occasion to dance up a storm, as you will see in the video below. Our favorite part is when he shakes his butt toward the end, and it's all we can do not to laugh out loud (as you may be able to hear).
I also love his gesture at about 13 seconds in, when he's trying to figure out what the heck happened to the music.
Man, when looking at the dates on these photos I've yet to post, I realize just how far behind I am. On the other hand, we haven't been taking nearly as many photos of Lucas as we used to--for instance, there was a 12 day stretch without a picture in November--so I guess if I were to catch up, there may be nothing to look forward to. Or maybe it would encourage me to take more photos? Eh, who knows?
The great bed experiment is still being played out. He hasn't taken to it that well. I should clarify here: he does sleep in it no problem, it's just getting him to sleep. Since he is able to get out of it on his own, as soon as we put him in bed, he's usually up and pounding on the door, calling for "Mommy!" within 5 minutes. I think Marilu has slept next to him on his twin bed more often this past week than in our much more comfortable king size bed. I suppose I shouldn't point out that this means I get to stretch out as much as I want. Hopefully, this is just a phase and he'll take to it sooner rather than later.
Since the rest of photos I have from September are pretty random, I'll just post each with a quick comment.
Sept 15: The latest photo of Lucas and his cousin Megan. We were over at their place to see Marilu's cousin Michael before his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. On a side note, he makes the best chili I've had in a long time.
Sept 16: Unfortunately, I couldn't get him to look at the camera--the easy "cheese!" days are long gone--but I still found it amusing that Lucas was running around with a "hat" he fashioned from his diapers. A clean one, lest you think we live in squalor.
Sept 19: I'm not sure why pictures of toddlers drinking "beer" amuses me so, but they do. In this case, I put some water in a Dos Equis bottle after I drank it and let Lucas pretend to be a drunken frat boy.
Sept 20: Here is the logical conclusion to that last photo, in video form. This was from the next night while watching a football game. Marilu's Brady jersey is a tad large on the little guy.
Sept 21: Taking a break from watching a video on the iPod Touch to drink from a more kid-appropriate device.
Sept 22: I know we just had a Baby-themed post a few back, but here's another cute one of Lucas and baby relaxing in the living room.
And that wraps up September. To prove my point from earlier in the post, the next photos aren't until Oct 7, so hopefully I'll get to those soon (rather than January). Until next time...
Tonight marks the biggest "first" Lucas has had in quite some time. Tonight he will be sleeping in his own bed for the first time. We bought the frame at IKEA this past weekend, but the mattress wasn't available so it took us a few days to finally decide where to get it (Costco being the big winner of that choice). Earlier, I broke down his crib, and then Marilu and I put the bed together. At this very moment, Marilu is reading Lucas his bedtime stories and then the fun shall begin.
I think the most interesting thing will be to see if he wants to sleep with us at 3 or 4 in the morning. He's been in a real clingy phase with Marilu lately, which has led to him being in our bed by the end of the night for the last week or two. The alternative is him wailing like a banshee, and let's face it, at 4 in the morning, I'd let Hitler lie in bed if it would shut him up. I'm sure you'll hear how it went in the next post.
For your viewing pleasure, a couple of pictures as well as a video of Lucas (and Marilu) testing out the new bed.
Due to the mini-vacation to Massachusetts and training for my new job this past week, I haven't posted anything since November 26. As you might imagine, my mom made me aware of this fact earlier today, but I was indeed planning to post something before the end of the weekend (which gives me a little less than 2 hours to submit this...nothing like procrastination, my friends).
As it happens, today was quite likely one of Lucas's Top 5 worsts during his short life. He was just plain awful today. It wasn't so much as one singular event as just one little thing after another all freakin' day. You know it's bad when even Marilu looks like she wants to knock him upside the head (don't worry though, no annoying toddlers were harmed in the making of this post). I think I summed it up well on Facebook earlier when I said that this was one of those days where we jokingly wished we had used birth control a few years back. All in all though, the good days definitely outnumber the bad, and we just have to remember that when knee deep in toddler attitude.
So enough of that, let's take a look at some pictures from way back when. The first 2 are from back on September 12, when we brought Lucas to his friend Genevieve's birthday party. One is a close-up, and one is him playing with other kids since you don't see that often on here. He does have lots of interaction; it's just that most of it is at daycare, and I can't really hang out there with a camera.
The next day, I took a couple of pictures of him jumping on the guest bed, wearing his Halloween costume from last year. I'm not sure if it is good or bad that he still sort of fits in it. I think it just says I bought him something a tad large for Halloween 2008.
The second picture is amusing since it looks like he's just beat from all that jumping.
And let's wrap up this post with a video from said jumping session.
Since I'm heading out of town for the next few days--20th high school reunion in Massachusetts on Friday--I wanted to post a few more pictures before I depart. This post started off with the intention of posting random photos, and then I realized 4 of the 5 pictures I picked included Baby, Lucas's all-time favorite stuffed companion. He's not quite as dependent on Baby as he once was, but he still sleeps with him every night. Earlier this year though, god help us if we forgot to bring Baby to daycare with him. (Note to Dad: this is the stuffed animal you bought him that we've been telling you about for months!)
If I recall correctly, Lucas wouldn't sit at the dinner table until we made room for Baby.
I'm not exactly sure what prompted this face, but in a video from the same timeframe, I was trying to get Lucas to howl so it's possible this is one of the contortions his face goes through when he does try and howl at the moon.
In this one, I had injured my eye somehow (damned if I can remember) and was holding a wet cloth on it on the couch while Lucas, blissfully ignorant of my pain, made tissue blankets for Baby.
And finally, a couple of pictures from the living room floor, where Lucas made a place for him and Baby to rest.
