Saying Goodbye to 2009

So we're back in Chicago after spending Thanksgiving and Christmas in Upstate NY. Luke now has professional traveler status - no kids/family security line for him! Actually we flew for Thanksgiving and drove the 11 hour trip for Christmas. I can't really say one was easier than the other - does anyone else see a problem with this statement? On the way home for Christmas, Luke's eagle eyes were able to spot NY state from the lovely Indiana tollway: "I see New York!" Yeah, I wish, kid. We broke up the trip by staying in Cleveland overnight - and now Luke is in love with hotels. Before I move on to details of our overly gifted Christmas, I need to alert you to the fact that Matt and I grew smarter while in NY and purchased a portable DVD player for the trip home.

And now on to Christmas! We started the week out in Canandaigua where ravioli making and swimming at the Y were some of the highlights. Luke is quite the sous chef - just ask g-pa. Then off to Corning for a few days of spoiling highlighted by a brand new power wheels (Ford 150 model) which will stay at mimi's house. Again, Luke's kitchen skills came into play but this time as a pastry chef - think "sprinkle man extraordinaire." Luke learned how to wake a sleeping princess up (Aunt Emily) with kisses and learned how to wake up a hibernating bear (Uncle Tommy) by barging into his room and yelling. And on Christmas morning, Luke had so many gifts that he pooped out halfway through opening them so mommy had to go the distance for him. Aunt Emily scored at Carter's and got Luke some great new clothes and enough play food for 6 play kitchens and Uncle Tommy got Luke some really exciting and noisy toys! And of course, mimi bought out 8 toy stores to round out Luke's gifts. On Christmas afternoon, we headed back up to Canandaigua for the annual family ravioli dinner. Luke had fun playing with his second cousins and even held baby Ellie. The next day, Luke had Christmas #2 where he was spoiled yet again by the grandparents and Uncle Nick. Luke now has an entirely new library of books, a new closet of clothes and a Cookie Monster to go with Elmo. He even received a new firetruck from Uncle Nick which Luke keeps mistaking as a ride on toy when it clearly doesn't look comfortable to sit on. This kid just doesn't get enough attention being the first and only grandchild on both sides of the family.

Oh, this is exciting: Luke is day potty trained! It took about a week and to be completely honest, our nanny did the heavy lifting on this topic. Now of course, we've had a few accidents here and there, most notably the time he let it go while he was sitting on my lap. I guess he wanted us both to be able to feel what wetting your pants feels like. But since that time, we've had almost no other accidents! Now arguably the best part about potty training a toddler boy is the cuteness of little boy underpants! We've got elmo underpants, plain ol tighty whities, monster underpants and even some box briefs. And I just couldn't pass up posting some pictures of said underpants below.


Well tonight is New Year's Eve and we'll be saying goodbye to 2009. We celebrated with an early bird dinner at Sushi Mura, or as Luke affectionately refers to it, "The rice store." 2009 didn't treat us badly at all but here's to an even better 2010. We've already got some excitement cooking for 2010 - most everyone should know by now that Luke's going to be a big brother in June!

Goodbye 2009, we'll miss you, thanks for being so good to us!

Luke's sibling comfortably baking at 16 weeks:

More presents than Luke can deal with:

Modeling his new tool belt, hard hat, and underpants:

Riding the non-riding firetruck:

Christmas Came Early

On a recent adventure to Target, Luke gave me inspiration for this year's Christmas present. As I dragged him kicking and screaming from the pink princess play kitchen on display in toy department, I knew what to get Luke this year. No, I didn't get him a princess kitchen, but I did get him one fit for a prince. The deluxe model I ordered came in just 2 days, just in time for the weekend which meant time for Matt to put it together- you can imagine he was thrilled. And if you think I was going to hide it from Luke until Christmas, you're wrong...there was no way I could contain my own excitement about this thing! Ah, I still remember the play kitchen in my kindergarden classroom with fond memories...

So 4 hours of hard labor later, the kitchen was ready. Now it normally would have taken handy manny, Matt about 2 hours to put it together but because he had a special helper that was stealing screws and our only screw driver, it took a little extra time. Matt and I both agree that we've never seen Luke play with one toy for as long as we've seen Luke entertained by the kitchen. We did have one small issue, our technilogical prodigy was a little miffed that the "buttons" didn't actually make noise, light up, or make something move. He kept telling me that the number pad on the microwave needed batteries. Sigh, this is a wooden kitchen Luke, no batteries, no beeping! Apparently Luke's already a part of the "plugged in" generation.

Needless to say, Luke is really looking forward to Christmas this year. He knows that Ho Ho Ho (what Luke calls Santa) brings toys to children. He doesn't quite get naughty and nice yet but we're still working on that concept. He does know that he's a good boy and he thinks that daddy is a bad boy. I'm laughing to myself as I write this.

Behold the play kitchen:

A Day in the Life

Most mornings begin with the heavenly sound of Luke calling out for the person who rocked him to sleep the night before. If that person doesn’t show up within 5 minutes, he’ll do a quick roll call through his toddler-sized address book, and hope that one his amigos come to his rescue. It usually sounds something like this, “Daddy/Mommy (repeatedly for 5 minutes, then)…Emmy, Tommy, Mimi, Nick, G-Pa, G-Ma”. He doesn’t really know anybody else that’s tall enough to spring him from the crib, so the calling out usually ends there, then Mommy/Daddy usually come in and save the day.

Today was no exception…730am Luke belts out “Daddy…Daddy…Daddy…Daaaaaaaa-dddddyyyy.” Matt procrastinated for a few seconds, gathered himself, and then entered Luke’s room, only to witness Luke doing his morning crib gymnastics routine. This involves Luke doing seat-drop after seat-drop (fyi, seat-drops are when Luke stands up in his crib, then jumps up in the air with his legs and toes pointed out, firmly landing on his baby butt…Mary Lou Retton would be proud). Many perfect 10 seat drops later Matt and Luke were off to seize the day.

To Luke, seizing today meant,

-Licking the icing off of three cupcakes at his friend Dylan’s birthday party.
-Attempting to take his pants off at that same party (for the ladies of course).
-Drawing all over every surface, whether it be paper, skin, drywall, friend or foe.
-Barking out “fries peez (please)” at the sight of any golden arches we drove by in the city…and believe me, we drove by at least 5 McDonald’s today…this McDonald’s marketing campaign to kids is way to good.
-Having no reaction when we saw Vince Vaughn on Michigan Ave, apparently Luke isn’t a fan of his work, probably because of the “earmuff”s comment Vince made in Old-School
-Putting on his Mamma’s pajama top, which looked strangely like a wrestling singlet on Luke…that picture will come in handy when we need leverage on him in his teen years.
-Maintaining a diet that includes a mouthful of soap and a few teaspoons of bathwater (the kid loves the taste of soap, no kidding)
To Mom and Dad, seizing today meant just trying to keep the wheels of this crazy cart on the road.

New Post Out of Order

Hi All,

I wrote about Halloween but it posted below the H1N1 post...so please look there for the new post.

H1N1 Hysteria

So, let's talk a little bit about the H1N1 hysteria and the vax shortage. Are you kidding me! What on earth is going on with this?! As the mother of a small child, in fact, as the mother of a small child who has already done is his time in an intensive care unit - I find it a bit ridiculous that there is a shortage of this vaccine. Luckily Luke was able to get his stick of the needle yesterday at his well child visit but had he not, we'd be standing in line this saturday morning for 4+ hours trying to get one. And I should mention that we were lucky Luke could get the vaccine because the day before, our dr.'s office had run out of it and they randomly got a shipment an hour before Luke's appt. Now clearly, Luke was not as excited about this as I was but I wasn't on the receiving end of the needle either.

So I'm going to get on my soapbox for a short minute here, but then I will step off. Please tell me why the Wall Street giants received shipments of H1N1 vaccines for their employees today when the rest of the minions are searching high and low for it. I'd love to know the statistics about how many pregnant women and small children work on Wall Street. Last I read, gazillionaires are not on the high risk list. Now I can see how some of them might think they make the list but hyperventilating at the sight of this year's bonus and the fact that it won't by you a McMansion does not make you asthmatic!! Stepping of my soapbox.

Halloween

Well another successful Halloween has come and gone. Our little fireman was slightly confused at times, calling himself a firetruck. oh well, at least we got some cute pictures. We did our 3rd annual jaunt down Southport to raid the stores of as many lollipops and Reese cups as possible. One for Luke, one for mommy. You see how it went. We weaved in and out of the sea of strollers, toddlers, babies, dogs, weirdos and such. Here's an idea for the masses...if your kids aren't going to ride in it, don't bring your obnoxiously wide double stroller just to run over other peoples' kids. tsk tsk, finger wag. Little did we know that along with the candy, some germs hopped into Luke's bag and a fever came home with us.

So that was the first Halloween event of the holiday. Event #2 was actually on Halloween and we took our little fireman upstairs to play with his buddy Ben, a fighter pilot. You see the neighborhood kids moved on this year from animals to professionals! While at Ben's, we munched on some Halloween goodies and decided we weren't going to wear our costume anymore. So no costume meant no trick or treating but Luke couldn't care less since he knew there were plenty of Halloween treats in our condo building's treat bucket. Why walk to houses in the cold with an annoying costume on when you can go trick or treating right in the lobby? He's a smart one, I tell you!

Catch Up

Matt informed I was going to start to lose loyal blog followers if I didn't write a new post soon so here it goes! We've been quite busy lately - what else is new, I'm sure you're shocked. Matt's schedule in Detroit is slowing a bit in that he now only travels Tuesday through Thursday. This should continue for the remainder of October and then his trips to Detroit will be on an "as needed" basis. Luke and I are enjoying having him around but Luke still hasn't caught on that daddy can do all the things mommy can do. Cleary daddy can pour a sippy just as well as I can but Luke insists that I do it!

We have a new obsession to accommodate these days - Doggie Jammies. Mini boss only wants to wear doggie jammies and nothing else. They have a pair of striped pants and a t-shirt that has 2 dogs on it. He wants to put them on as soon as he comes home and pretty much refuses to take them off in the morning - this morning battle has become part of our routine. This obsession means that i have to wash doggie jammies everyday and in the event that they aren't ready by bed time, Luke loses his mind and there is hell to pay! Mini boss does not tolerate missing deadlines!

Luke is starting to speak in sentences, or should I say Luke is starting to speak in commands? "Momma come!""No, I wear Doggie Jammies!" If I hadn't bought the doggie jammies seasons ago, I'd be out buying 6 pairs! So along with starting sentences, Luke can now identify all his letters and numbers though 10. We are staring to sing the ABCs but I think being able to identify the letters is more important than memorizing a song. I love it when people are like, my 5 week old (exaggerating) can sing the ABCs but then the kid doesn't know E from W. I have to say, I crack up when Luke gets to the part in the ABC song for "LMNOP" and it comes out like "uh,uh,uh,uh, Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeee."

We are also in the beginning stages of potty training, but don't fret, I'm not a freak and I promise to spare you details and pictures of various bowel movements.

I'm attaching pictures from our recent trip to a pumpkin patch. This was our first visit to this particular pumpkin patch and it was out in the middle of bufu! We actually had to take the Lincoln highway to get there but it was entertaining for Luke. I can't say Luke had any interest in the pumpkins because all of his attention was concentrated on the play tractor, the corn silo, and racing rubber ducks. Luke monopolized the tractor and thought he was the only one allowed to drive it but luckily it wasn't a huge attraction for the other children because it was actually the least exciting attraction there!

Enjoy!

Soccer Star

Someone definitely taught Luke how to dribble a soccer ball while I wasn't looking. Who done it?! Honestly, he can dribble a soccer ball and he even looks like he knows what he's doing. My little theif pilfers soccer balls from unsuspecting children at the park and dribbles away to his little heart's desire. I wish I had it on video so you all could see Luke's super soccer skills because I am not exaggerating. If I were exaggerating, I'd be saying something like "Luke is the smartest child that ever lived - think Einstein." Gah, there is nothing that annoys me more than "that" kind of parent. I digress.

Back to Luke's pilfering ways, along with soccer balls, he has a penchant for scooters as well. As if he doesn't have enough toys with wheels, we'll be purchasing a scooter in the near future *sigh*. At this rate of wheel collecting, we'll be buying the kid his first car in kindergarden.

My little man also has a magic carpet for transportation. Yep, blankie turns into a magic carpet and mama turns into the engine. I'll translate, Luke makes me pull him around the house on his blankie repeatedly until my quads burn. I even ask the slave driver for a break and he says "no....again!" And so the humble servant halls his majesty off down the hallway. That's right folks, I'm a huge pushover and I love it!

But you know who isn't a push over? His nanny/best friend Tali:

Me and my prince:

Back from Paris Back to Blogging

Wow, well that was quite the hiatus I took from the blog! I guess I left off with preparations for Paris. Well, we're back, duh. We had a super fabulous time which would be hard NOT to do in Paris. We roamed the city child-free and care free...saw the main attractions, ate some good gub, browsed a lot of stores and basked in the sun. We walked so much every day that our legs ached by the time we got back to the hotel room. Matt and I are now Paris pros as we mastered to metro system and discovered some off-the-beat gems. We missed Luke a ton and I filled the void by dragging Matt into every kid store we came to. We, of course, spent some Euros on the kid - his wardrobe theme for the fall is total Euro toddler. As soon as I snap some pics, we'll have a virtual fashion show in the blog.

When Matt and I returned, Luke literally couldn't contain his excitement and threw up all over himself. I wish I was joking, but sadly, I'm not. His other new tricks include saying words like, delicious -or dee-ish-is, bonjour, which sounds exactly the way it is supposed to and j'taime, or tem as Luke says it. Luke's report card from his time with mimi came back with all A+s, imagine that! Mimi even took Luke to his first Wiggleworms class, which is toddler music/singing class. Luke is starting to "sing," and tonight in the car, he was singing the uh-uh-oh-uh-uh-oh part to Beyonce's Single Ladies song - freaking hilarious.

We might be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for Matt's ridonculous work schedule; he's in the last big push of his Detroit project and he actually might work less than 80 hours a week beginning sometime in October - woo hoo! I'm really not sure who's more excited about this, me or Matt.

Random Cuteness

Luke and I went to Targo (aka Target) tonight for a few supplies. I've duped Luke into thinking that Target is one of his favorite places because it is one of my favorite places. We visit the toy department as a treat for being good - Luke already knows how to work the McDonald's register (his favorite toy to tryout at Targo) - guess we've got a backup plan if the presidency thing doesn't work out.

I'm not sure if I'll have time to post again before I leave for our trip to Paris, so if not, I'll owe a bunch of posts when I return. Luke's gonna be hanging with mimi...I'm sure he'll have learned how to do back flips, swim and read by the time we return. We'll miss him so incredibly much!

Back to tonight, after Lukey's bath, I got some cute pictures that I wanted to share - the actual reason for this random post, so without further ado:

Hibernation?

Mother nature wasn't so kind to us this, uh...summer? Can I even call it that? A harsh winter followed by a lackluster summer makes for some pretty unsatisfied and vitamin D deficient Chicagoans. Hibernation is just around the corner. Even Luke has started the process - he slept in until 9:00 AM *gasp* this morning. This is a good 3 hours later than normal. No idea why he did it, but it fa-reaked me out. I couldn't take my own paranoid thoughts any longer (after being awake myself for an hour) and I went into his room and woke him up. He didn't really enjoy be woken up...sorry, next time I'll enjoy it! Luke was quickly cheered up by a trip to Einstein's bagels with Grandpa and Uncle Nick followed by a train ride and an outing to the park.

All the mothers on my street are already stressing/fearing the long winter months inside with energtic toddlers. We've got Luke scheduled for wiggleworms on Saturdays through December so that will be at least one outlet for his antics. We'll be in France for Luke's first Wiggleworms class so mimi will have the pleasure of taking him. She just doesn't know what an experience it will be trying to get Luke to follow some directions and stay in one place :-)

We are gearing up for our trip, well actually, we are thinking about gearing up - no doubt that last minute packing will be fun. We're gonna miss little Lukey B - I really miss him alreay, but he'll be here having fun with mimi. I see multiple trips to Dairy Queen and the Swedish Bakery in Luke's near future!

Story of the week time:

We have neighbors who have a little girl that is about 18 months old...we see them in the neighborhood a lot and they come play in our yard sometimes. Anyway, we haven't run into them in about 1 month and we finally saw them on Friday. As we walk up with Luke, the dad says "Oh my god, when did Luke turn into a five year old?" I almost cried. He proceeded to go on and on about how much taller Luke got, and how is hair and his face changed and how he looks so much older. :( He truly must have had a growth spurt because all of a sudden, his shirts and sweatshirts look like belly shirts.

Pics of us and the growing little man:

Beach,Rides,Pools, Oh My!

If I could look into a crystal ball, I'm pretty sure it would show me tons of beach trips in our future. My little crazy one is a beach bum! We all had a blast with the super warm weather and the super warm Atlantic ocean. Luke enjoyed the sand and had a habit of crashing in on other groups of kids playing with buckets and shubbles. When he got bored with the sand, the little beach bum took off for to water - running straight into the waves. I held my breath the first time he got knocked down by a wave but was quickly relieved when I heard his deep belly laugh. Who knew getting knocked around by rough waves was so funny. Luke especially liked it when other people got knocked down including mimi and aunt Emily. I guess his mother didn't teach him that it's not nice to laugh at others' misfortunes. We got him back though - we ghad quite the laugh when a wave took his little shorts down and exposed his bum. There can't possibly be anything cute than a squishy little baby butt.

Following hours at the beach were hours at the pool. Again, the daredevil surprised us by not freaking out about going under water! Lukey loves jumping off the side into the pool. We did get him down for a few naps here and there but there was so much fun to be had, he only got about 60% of the sleep he normally gets. So next in the lineup after the pool was the pier full of kiddie rides. Luke only wanted to be on rides that had some sort of steering wheel- rides without a steering wheel were not under consideration. Picky, picky! Most of the rides required a chaperone so we all took turns sitting in rides 5 times too small for adults with our knees up by our ears. Ok, ok, so I exaggerate when I say this happened to all of us - I guess I fit quite nicely in the kiddie rides (do not laugh!) and my knees were nowhere near my ears like Matt's.

If the Jersey Shore didn't offer enough options for fun, mimi decided to have Christmas in August for Luke. Funny, mimi claims she didn't know those trucks had sirens and made all that noise *raising one eyebrow.* I'm scared for Christmas in December!

Ok, so my last story about the trip takes place in the airport and on the airplane. Southwest was torturing me on the way home. A 3 hour delay is so not fun with a toddler, especially a very active toddler. So I was attempting to entertain Luke in a book store but that was going very badly as Luke was ripping books off the shelf and throwing them on the floor. So there I am picking up all the books when Luke runs at mach speed out of the store. I run after him and he almost duped me by scooting into the next store - which happened to be a CRYSTAL shop. So I see him turn into the store just out of the corner of my eye and I follow him in there and the little booger runs behind the checkout counter to hide. Luckily the woman running the store thought this was funny and helped me get him out but things could have ended very very badly in the crystal store. I'm pretty sure I got the side-eye from the customers in that store.

So part two of the Southwest torturefest came on the plane. Luke came *this close* to losing it because he was so tired but he sat there and said "All done plane, all done plane." I had to explain to him that he couldn't be "All done plane," halfway through the flight unless he wanted to try skydiving. Let's just say that by the time I was exiting the plane with a hot, sweaty, sleeping Luke flung over my shoulder, other passengers were complimenting me about how well I did with him - I think they were really saying "glad it was you and not me." LOL.

As usual, here are some pics: