Oh my goodness, how time flies! Forget a pause button for life--I need rewind! Luke is so big and smart these days that we can't even really call him a baby anymore. He's such a darling little boy. I keep kicking myself that I'm not recording more milestones. Am I a bad mom if I cram everything from the last 2 1/2 months into one post here? Obviously not all of this developed overnight--I'm just too busy chasing him around to remember what happened when, I think!
Okay, walking. Luke took his first real independent steps on a Saturday morning in April...I'm no good with dates, so I'll have to ask Scott for what day it was. I think Scott and I were getting dressed for the day, and Luke decided to walk from dad to mom all of a sudden across the area rug in our room. It was six or seven steps, and all three of us were quite surprised! He basically refused to replicate the feat for more than a couple of hesitant steps at a time until we moved to a new apartment with carpet. (I think he's a bit of a scaredy cat and didn't like falling on the hardwood floors.) Now he's a walking pro--he likes to do laps up and down the little hallway between the living room and the kitchen. It's probably only 10 yards or so, but it takes him something like 35 bouncy little steps to cross the whole distance. He looks like he's walking on the deck of a ship or something. It's so funny to me.
Luke is a little chatterbox. He's constantly talking about the things he sees or asking you what something new is called. He has a knack for picking up words...like today, we were hanging pictures up in his room (we've finally gotten unpacked enough that I've started hanging things on the walls. Yay!) and he asked me what a nail was (well, pointing to the nail in my mouth, he shouted at me, "a daaat??"). I showed him the one I was using and named it 2 or 3 times, and then handed him one (a stubby, dull nail...no eyeballs were damaged in the learning of this word) to look at while I finished hanging the picture I was working on. Well, I went to hang up the next picture and was awkwardly marking the place on the wall with my finger where I wanted the hole, when I realized that I hadn't picked up another nail. I turned to Luke and said, "Luke, will you hand me a nail?" He put down the toy he was playing with, looked up at me, looked around for where he had dropped the nail, found it, and picked it up. I said, "Yes! That's right, a nail! Will you hand it to me please?" and held out my hand, and he brought it to me and handed it over so I could hang the picture. I was so proud! Such a smart little boy!
It's silly, I know, but I want to make a list of the things he can say because I think it's so stinking cute and I want to remember all of his poorly pronounced little words.
ball ("ba" or, if he's showing off, "bahhww")
basketball (new one this week! "ba bap bahhwww")
star ("taw")
duck ("daht")
dog ("roo roo"--he's trying to say "ruff ruff")
bear ("beew")
light ("yaiii")
what's that? ("eyyzhdahh?" or, lately, "a daa?")
apple ("appw" or, if we try to force him to enunciate, "bap buh")
bread ("beh")
banana ("nana")
orange (it's hard to get him to say this, but I've heard it a few times--"ohwwwwdg")
cheese ("tees" or if he's really excited, just "ts")
water ("wahhw")
mama ("mamamamama")
dad ("dat" or "datiiit")
book ("bu guh"--I think I've probably been overemphasizing the k in this word...)
shoes ("sssyew")
hat ("a")
eyes ("eis" said with a lisp)
glasses ("gyaaaah")
leg ("yeg")
fan ("aaaa"--as you might imagine, it's hard to tell when he's talking about a fan and when he's just yelling, which is too bad since he loves fans. It means he yells a lot)
bath ("ba")
New ones since we moved to our two-story apartment:
stairs ("steh")
upstairs ("ah seh")
downstairs ("da steh")
outside ("ah siiiiiiie!!")
And things that he doesn't have words for, just sounds:
car (blows raspberries)
hot (blows air)
elephant ("bvooo")
monkey ("oo oo")
anything he thinks is cute--cats, flowers, bears, tiny logos (?), pictures of himself ("awww" and he snuggles his head into it)
after eating or drinking something he finds refreshing ("aaah"--you know, like a soda commercial)
This kid is addicted to books. Books are the last thing he sees before we turn off the light for every nap and bedtime, and they're the first thing he screams for when he wakes up. If we leave books on the nightstand too close to his crib, he reaches through the crib rails and knocks them to the floor trying to pick them up. He's convinced he can read, I think, because he demands his own hymnal every time there's a song in church and he screams if we try to turn the pages for him. He has 4 or 5 tub books, too, because heaven forbid he's expected to stay in one place for half a minute and be separated from a book. If we're reading a book and he points to something on the page and we don't name it or explain what it is, he screams and/or arches his back in a full-blown tantrum. He actually smacked his head in the tub tonight doing just that because I put down one of his tub books that we had been reading so I could scrub his grimy knees...little stinker. It wasn't even good enough when we discovered that the plastic book stuck to the wall of the tub--he pulled it off and shoved it in my hands and demanded that I keep reading until it was finished.
So basically I think he can identify so many things because he gets a lot of practice from us reading the same books over and over again. I mean, we own probably 30 or 40 board books (thank you, D.I. and grandmas!) and until we moved last week, we would check out 20 books at a time for Luke (10 from the city library and 10 from the county library--more variety for mom and dad that way) and he would get sick of them all before they were due back. (We won't say how sick of them mom and dad get.) I think we have a little nerd in the making. He hardly wants to walk, but he can't get enough books or enough new words. Here are things he's good at identifying, but he doesn't name yet:
nose
mouth
ears
eyebrows (he learned this one because he has a little plastic Pooh that plays music, and its eyebrows are pretty prominent. He got them mixed up for eyes once, so we practiced the difference between eyes and eyebrows for a couple of minutes and he hasn't forgotten it since.)
teeth
toes
arm
hand (this one is very new & he's still only got it once in a while)
foot
tummy
belly button
Big Bird
Elmo
giraffe
lion
cat
zebra
fish (about half the time)
horse
cow
pig
rooster
chicken
strawberries
lemon
blueberries
tractor
wheel
truck
fire truck
moon
sunshine
light switch
He's getting pretty good at following instructions and doing toddler kinds of things, too.
walk
hold my hand
go get it
go get [object he knows, like shoes]
throw it
bring it here
give it to me
sit down
be soft
don't touch
hot (blows on it)
no biting (well, he stops biting, but he throws himself to the ground in a tantrum)
good job
wait
okay
give me a kiss (open-mouthed, and sometimes you'll even get some tongue action)
clapping
peek-a-boo with a blanket (I'm dying to get this on video sometime...it's so stinking cute)
"reading" books (if we're not reading to him enough at the moment, he'll find a book, open it on his lap, turn the pages & point to stuff)
brush teeth (he knows what it means but he can't do it himself)
tries to feed you
play tricks (like offer to share a piece of food but take it away and laugh when you move toward it)
use a fork (still wobbly on this, but getting better every day!)
put a lid on things (needs help snapping/twisting it down)
pointing (at EVERYTHING. Constantly. Holy cow.)
dancing
containers--taking stuff in & out
wave bye--just a cute little open and closed fist, no flapping (he waves hi, too, especially at himself in the mirror)
helps get dressed (he knows "arms up!" to take off a shirt and he'll hold onto your arms and step into his shorts)
kisses & hugs all the time...he's so affectionate when he's not screaming.
ring stacker--he has a wooden ring stacker from Ikea that he's just mastered in the last couple of weeks. It's pretty tricky since the post is covered in this grippy rubber stuff, so the rings don't slide on.
keys--he tries to unlock the screws that hold the doorknob on, since that's as high as he can reach. It's pretty adorable.
makes mom talk on the phone--he'll find my phone and slam it into the side of my head when I'm not looking
gets jokes--like he gets that it's funny if you put a random object on your head and call it a hat
climbs "mountains"--if we're sitting or lying on the floor, it's a perfect excuse for him to master an obstacle course
scribbles with pen-shaped objects--I have hidden all of the crayons in the house and am numbering my days until he learns how to take the lid off a marker. How long do you have to wait until kids learn you only color on paper, and not the table?
kicks a ball (supported, until today!)
asks for the light to be turned on after a nap
teeth baring--so tonight Luke was asking about teeth, so Scott bared his teeth at Luke. The poor kid burst into tears and cowered into my shoulder. He was literally shaking! Isn't there some thing where primates show dominance by baring their teeth? It was pretty funny...
play chase--he loves to crawl away screaming if you chase him, but he keeps looking back and waiting for you to catch him.
binky--So I actually feel like a heartless mother because his binkies are his loveys--just recently he's decided he likes stuffed animals, but he doesn't snuggle them to sleep. Instead he needs a minimum of 4 binkies (but usually more like 7) scattered around the crib, which he holds onto while he falls asleep. If he's having a hard time sleeping, you can hear him on the monitor shaking the binkies so that the little hooks clack. You would think he has a word for these, wouldn't you? I haven't figured out what it is yet!
Anyway, this is getting ridiculously long and I'm sorry there's not more pictures. I will post some more soon!
