Christmas blur!

Wow! Christmas this year was crazy! It was basically a huge parade of family members: my mom and my grandparents came up the weekend of the 15^th; then my parents and brother were in town from the 18^th to the 21^th; Greg’s brother Ken and his family arrived on the 22nd; Greg’s parents and Uncle Rob came up on the 23^rd; and they were all joined by Greg’s other brother, Chris, and his family on the 24^th! So for those counting at home, we had nine adults and four children ages four and under for our Christmas dinner this year. And I’d like to send a big thank-you to Publix’s pre-cooked meals for making it all possible:). There was plenty of other cooking and cleaning involved, but, being over 8 months pregnant, I didn’t consider myself up for the challenge of a fully home-cooked Christmas meal this year! We all had a great time getting caught up on each other’s lives and especially of watching the cousins interact. Luke loves his cousins. He gave Grace his special laughing and patting treatment that he reserves for favorite relatives; he practically stalked Amelia around the house chanting “Am! Am! Am!;” and he had a ball playing with his easygoing cousin, Jack.

The last of the revelers left late this morning—including, incidentally, my husband, who, through an unforeseen chain of events, took his mom and uncle home to Alabama. He’ll be back tomorrow, but for today, it was just Luke and me in a very empty house. I think that Luke missed everyone because he was very emotional and kept wanting Daddy and “Ga-ga.” He also would start crying whenever his toy trains went off the rails, leading me to decide he was overtired and to settle in with him and a Thomas video before his bath. But even the video was traumatic for him: he’d tear up whenever Thomas ran into anything, or when any train crashed—even the “troublesome trucks,” who are kind of the antagonists of the series! So I finally just gave him an early bath, and he sacked out at 7:15.

Here are a few photo highlights:

With Mammaw and Pappaw Pogue and Grandma


Helping Granddad put together Luke's "Cozy Coupe"


The most ferocious face I've ever seen Luke make. Greg and I die laughing every time we see this picture. In case, you're wondering, he's running across the church parking lot with his football of his own volition. No one is chasing him, I promise!


Storytime with Aunt Jill and cousin Jack

Okay, time to switch to medium-sized pics. Those were too small.

Jack and Luke playing with trains


Christmas carnage


Licking my dessert plate (Chocolate Delight--yum!)


Sugar high


Sugar crash! (Oh, and Grace isn't really strangling Jack--it just looks that way:)).


Victoria made these adorable matching wool sweaters for each of the cousins. We tried to get a group picture, but it didn't work so well!


Luke, giving Amelia a hug. She looks less than thrilled with the overture.

New camera

Our poor Canon Elph. It just hasn't aged well. We loved it so much when we first got it, but these days, it hardly holds a battery charge. Also, it finds it increasingly difficult to muster up the energy to take more than one picture within the same thirty second period. And with an almost 18-month old, those delays are just unacceptable.

So we needed something new. Something that takes good quality pictures in quick succession and yet doesn't make it look like we work for National Geographic. Also, we didn't want to have to take out a loan to purchase it. These were the requirements we gave to two salesmen at different stores, and they both immediately took us to the same camera: the SonyCybershot H7. The in-store demonstration showed that it met our specifications: it took good pictures quickly and even had a "burst" mode where you held down the button and it would take several shots in a row. So we got one, and have had fun trying it out on Luke: the true test!


Luke loves his train...


...it's so funny!

Sequence one: selected pics from a "burst mode."

Picking just the right vehicles...

...working hard to connect them...

...triumph and applause!

Sequence 2 in "Burst Mode"







So we've decided to keep it. It works well, though even it is no match for our lightning fast son!

Crazy Story Legacy

Have you heard the one about my dad wrestling the gun away from the carjackers, wrecking his car but saving his life? Or, speaking of cars, the one where my mom won one because the radio station drew her name first and then my dad’s name as a backup—out of thousands of entries? Or what about when the crazed, drugged out teenagers came tearing through our yard late one night, causing my brother and dad to charge a moving vehicle, unarmed and on foot, all the while screaming like extras from Braveheart?

Hopefully, you have because those are some good stories. And apparently, our family gets it honest: crazy stories are part of our family legacy, particularly the Pogue legacy (Pogue is my mom’s maiden name). The Pogues have some doozies: they have saved drowning victims and administered CPR; survived death-defying high speed motorcycle crashes; captured would-be burglars through civilian stake-out; run over people with jet-skis (in two separate incidents!); shot through houses on hunting outings; and survived serious seizures, in which tongues have been swallowed and policemen’s arms inadvertently broken. It’s like our family’s collective lives are one ongoing episode of Rescue 911. You could say I was making it all up had most the incidents not been covered by the papers!

And now to add to the pantheon, there’s the one about the exploding tractor. On Tuesday, my brother was doing some mowing for my dad out at Brown and Williamson. As he was contemplating stopping for some more gas, he heard a hissing behind him. He turned just in time to see the huge blossom of flames that briefly enveloped him before receding. The explosion caught his jacket on fire, singed his lips, and sent him off his feet, helping him to jump off the tractor and ditch the flaming coat. He then immediately called dad, who was picking pecans nearby (being the CEO of the landscaping companyJ). Dad ran to his truck and grabbed the fire extinguisher. He had just run out of… fire extinguisher juice? Not sure what that’s called…when a second explosion rocked the tractor, leaping to the surrounding grass and trees. In the windy, dry Georgia weather, the fire spread like, well wildfire, soon proving even too much for the fire station conveniently located across the street to handle. It even jumped across the road! Reinforcements from other fire stations soon came, and they fought the fire until about 2:00 am. The problem was that every time they put it out, it would come right back. Even the tractor itself was like a trick birthday candle. Finally though, everything was under control, leaving a sensational story for both the evening news and the morning paper.

No one’s sure what made the tractor mysteriously explode, despite being fairly new. So even though my dad didn’t have insurance on it, when the company heard what happened, they eagerly offered a new one, probably terrified of a lawsuit. The new tractor arrived today. Hopefully, it will stay in one piece!

Christmas Spirit

It seems like everyone around here is getting into the Christmas spirit. Last night, after Luke went to bed, Greg and I were sitting on the couch talking when we looked over and saw two new "ornaments" on our Christmas tree. Luke loves trains, so he probably thought these letter cars painted by his Grandma Bev were a nice addition!

Best Birthday Ever!

Well, I turned the big 2-7 yesterday, and I must say, my husband really outdid himself in celebrating it. Since Wednesday night is church, we went out to dinner on Tuesday night instead. Greg made all the arrangements; I didn’t even know where we were going. We ended up going to downtown Charleston to a little restaurant called the cru café. It was in a renovated Charleston single house, and only had about eight tables. I had never eaten there, and it was so nice! I got the ginger-seared salmon with lemon risotto, which was amazing. While at dinner, Greg gave me one of my birthday gifts. Inside were Crabtree and Evelyn candles (best candles in the world!), bath salts, and my favorite chocolate truffles, but those weren’t the best part. The best part was a stack of little “coupons” tied in a bow for everything from ten minute back rubs to daytime soaks in the tub to loads of laundry. The most surprising ones were for use on my birthday: “one Luke breakfast” (meaning getting up early with Luke and feeding him breakfast, which I usually do), “one lunch with husband,” and “one afternoon matinee movie.” Huh? I thought this was my birthday date! But no—Greg had arranged for childcare on Wednesday as well, so that the festivities could continue! He also read me the list of matinee movies, and I chose to see Enchanted.

After dinner, we walked over to Kaminsky’s, my favorite dessert place, for incredibly rich desserts (I got the Nestle Tollhouse pie, their most popular dish. Words cannot describe it.) Then we returned home to find Luke asleep (go babysitter!), and I immediately cashed in a coupon for a head rub. I’ve been really burning through those things, by the way!

The next morning, my birthday, I slept in while Greg got up with Luke. When they finally came down to get me, Luke had a birthday balloon and a party hat. Well, actually dad was wearing the party hat, since Luke refused! When I went up for breakfast, I had a big plate of chocolate chip pancakes waiting for me, topped with whip cream! Even my milk was in a fancy champagne glass. There were also flowers and more presents—this was insane!

I don’t think I did any kind of chore that morning—Greg took care of everything. Then when our sitter came, we went to Atlanta Bread Company (my choice) for lunch and then to see Enchanted, which was exactly what I thought it would be, and very enjoyable. As Greg had intended, when we got home, I cashed in two coupons: One for a bathroom cleaning and one for a tub soak. So after Greg scrubbed out the tub, I enjoyed a long bath reading the book he had special ordered for me for my birthday. It’s one I had been dying for. Afterwards, I was a little pressed for time because I needed to make cookies for my cell group before taking Luke over for dinner at the church building. And again, my husband the hero came through, and volunteered to make the cookies while Luke and I went and ate dinner (Greg eats with the teens after church).

All in all, it was a truly amazing birthday. When I told my mom everything my wonderful husband had done, she asked, “Wow—how is he ever going to top that?” No pressure, sweetie! You’ve already won the “husband of the year” award:)!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Well, it is officially the Christmas season here! The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we put up and decorated our Christmas tree, and that following week, the house was gradually decorated during Luke’s naptimes. Now everything is up, almost all of the presents are wrapped and under the tree, the Christmas cards are in (just need to get a ton of addresses before I mail them), and several Christmas parties are on the calendar.

On Saturday evening, we also had our first Christmas festivity: we went to downtown Charleston for the lighting of the tree in Marion Square. Greg dropped us off in the square before facing the nightmare of trying to find a parking spot among the crowded, narrow Charleston streets, and Luke had a ball making friends with every dog and blond girl around (it’s official: Luke LOVES blondes!). Case in point: he marched right up to a toddler named Molly (as I soon found out), grabbed her hand, and—no lie—started to dance. Being a student of ring-around-the-rosy, Molly was totally game, and in response to this overture, began to spin Luke around. Luke found this confusing but entertaining, as Molly’s parents and I cracked up. He followed several more (blond, female) toddlers around and accosted many dogs throughout the evening. Of lesser value to him were the performers and kids’ choirs up on a big stage in the square, though we did stop and listen for awhile. We left, however, before the actual “tree lighting,” because we had to get dinner before the boat parade.

From Marion Square, we walked down King Street until we found a small barbecue place. Though the barbecue was pretty bland, everything else was great, especially the muffin shaped biscuits (“miscuits?”) the waitress brought out. Luke was a HUGE fan of these, and after they were gone, he pointed petulantly to the empty basket with a chorus of, “ma ma ma ma ma!” (meaning, course, “more more more more more!”). When the waitress came and took the basket to be refilled, he turned all the way around in his high chair to watch her go, and didn’t turn back around until she came back with the biscuits a few minutes later. Like I said, he was a serious fan.

From the restaurant, we walked all the way to Waterfront Park for the boat parade. Apparently, anyone with a boat can decorate it with Christmas lights and join in an annual boat parade, which starts in Mount Pleasant, and proceeds through Charleston Harbor, accompanied by fireworks. We figured that Luke had outgrown his hatred of fireworks that manifested itself during the 4^th of July show, but no. Even though it was much earlier in the evening and the fireworks were not that loud, he still found them extremely unpleasant. When they stopped, however, he became much more aware of the boats themselves, which he found to be thrilling. From his vantage point of Daddy’s shoulders, he would point to each one as they passed, excitedly shouting, “Bo! Bo! Bo!”

After the parade, we walked through the throngs of people (to which Luke vehemently and repeatedly told, “Bye-bye!”) back to Marion Square to see everything lit up. The giant tree, by the way, is not really a tree at all, but a bunch of Christmas lights in the shape of a tree. You can walk right in the middle of it and look up, and the sight is very bright and dizzying. Luke, of course, enjoyed it immensely. He also liked all the illuminated palmetto trees around the square. By this point, I was exhausted, so we hiked back to our car and headed home. Luke fell sound asleep on the way home, and after briefly awakening for a diaper change, slept through until morning.

Luke and mama at the tree lighting.



A messed up picture, but you can kind of see the chorus in the background.


The tree in Marion Square


Inside the Christmas tree. The camera's flash totally obscures the tree's brightness!

Gobble-gobble

No, this is not a Thanksgiving report (though Thanksgiving was a lot fun, by the way): “gobble-gobble” is one of Luke’s new babbles. He has been babbling away lately, which is so fun to hear. Our favorite is the repetition of “gobble-gobble,” though there’s also times when he speaks a Martian-sounding language, which is also very entertaining. In addition, he’s picking up several new words—his versions of them, at least. The following words, he says on his own, without prompting from us:

Mama and Daddy (okay, those aren’t new)
Grandma (“ga-ga”)
Granddad (“dada)
Dinner (din-nah or din-din)
Banana (“nana”)
More (“mama”—apparently, he’s recycling sounds he already knowsJ, or just “Ma!”)
Plus, I swear he occasionally says, “No more,” which sounds like “Mo ma.”

When we ask him to, he also says:
Grandpa (“papa”)
Home (hom)
Water (“wa-wa”)
Amelia (“Am,” “Am-eh,” or some three syllable version, depending on his mood. He stoutly refuses to attempt Grace or Jack, though we’ve been practicing for their upcoming visit).

None of this is revolutionary, I guess, but it’s been so much fun to hear him talking, since he hasn’t shown much interest up to this point. We can’t wait to hear what words he says next!

Halloween in Macon

Luke and I went to my parents’ house in Georgia the week of Halloween. I realized that we hadn’t visited since my mom’s birthday in July, which was crazy. On Wednesday night, our good friends, the Noe’s, had a big Halloween party at their house. Luke dressed up as a giraffe and loved it.

You can see more pictures of this trip here.

Sabbaths, Snuggle time, Etc.

From a blogging standpoint, this week has been pretty uneventful. I had a couple of exhausted days at the beginning of the week, where I went to bed at 8:00 or whenever Luke went down and then slept any opportunity I got throughout the day. I don’t know what that was about, but I’m over it now. Since then, I’ve been busy with various projects, such as the 2-3 year old curriculum for our church and the church newsletter. Greg has been busy with ministry things—he’s been gone five evenings this week with church and various activities—though our daytimes have been pretty laid back. But the week did have some highlights:

--Horses
Luke has been obsessed with his rocking horse ever since he learned to crawl on it by himself. He now drags it into our bedroom or bathroom from his nursery whenever we are getting ready in the morning and plays on it. A side effect to this obsession, however, is the fact that he now views almost anything as a potential horse, including us. If we are ever lying down, he loves to sit on us like horses. This has led to many conversations about the fact that mama has a baby in her tummy, and how we can’t squish the baby. It’s not sinking in. However, one thing that has sunk in is Luke’s official third word, which is

--Anna
Obviously, he has no idea what “Anna” refers to. It’s just a sound he started making the other day when he was trying to climb up on the windowsill from the couch. From the context, his repeated exclamations of “a-NA, a-NA,” were his version of “I think I can, I think I can.” Once we realized he could clearly say it, however, we’ve been encouraging him ever since. Sometimes he says “Nana,” and sometimes just “Na,” but he’s busted out quite a few crystal clear “Anna’s” at our prompting, causing us to deem it his official third word.

--Sabbath
I was talking at church one morning to a man who explained to me the ways in which his family tries to make Sunday a “Sabbath.” Understanding that Sunday was our biggest workday, he asked if we had another day we took as a “Sabbath.” I think I mumbled something uncertain at the time, but the answer is no. For one thing, though Greg is really busy a lot of nights, our days just aren’t that intense, and since our lives all overlap so much, we have tons of family time. But nevertheless, since I’m going out of town tomorrow, Greg decided to take a Sabbath of sorts yesterday. It was a great choice b/c neither of us slept well the night before, and the day was really gloomy and rainy. Between 7:00 and 10:00 am, we took turns with Luke while the other slept, and then at 10:00, all three of us went to sleep, and slept until noon. It was lovely. Later, when we all finally got ready, we went out to lunch and then ran various errands, but by far, the highlight of the day was

--Snuggle time
Snuggle time has become a part of our daily routine, and it’s great. When I get Luke out of the crib in the morning and change his diaper, I bring him in bed with us. He’s gotten a lot more snuggly recently, so we basically spend about 15 minutes giving hugs and kisses and lounging around in bed before Luke decides that one or both of us is a horse, acts accordingly, and then crawls out of bed. Unfortunately, he then always pulls MY hand, meaning “Get up and fix me breakfast!” Once, just once, I wish he’d pull daddy’s hand instead:)!

Greensboro

[Sigh. I wrote this blog on Monday, but had trouble putting the pictures in. I then completely forgot about it until today--Friday. This has been a really scatterbrained week! Luckily, Greg was here this time to put the pics in, and he also added helpful captions on some of them.]
We got back on Saturday night from spending a couple days in Greensboro, NC, at the Kirby’s annual family reunion. Greensboro is where Greg’s granddaddy lives, and his two sons, along with their children and their children all gather once a year to see him. We all stayed in Crestwood Suites, which were very reasonably priced and fairly comfortable. However, the low price also meant that the building wasn’t well insulated, among other oversights. So sometimes it seemed like a herd of buffalos was stampeding above us at night, when in fact I think it was just a family with a few children running around. Luckily, Luke slept like a champ through it all.

We spent most of the days just catching up with family in Greg’s parents suite, though the siblings did venture out to downtown Greensboro one afternoon to see the sights. Perhaps the highlight, though, was having all the cousins together. Luke had recently spent some time with Grace and Amelia, but, as expected, throwing Jack into the mix made things even more fun.

Our biggest accomplishment (in my opinion) of the weekend came on the last day after the three siblings had checked out but hadn’t left…leaving naptime space at a premium. Our problem was compounded when Jack, Amelia, and Luke all needed to go down for a nap at the same time, with one available room. I first ventured in with Luke and laid him down in the unfamiliar crib (in an unfamiliar room). I didn’t have high hopes for this endeavor, knowing how Luke loves HIS crib and even his pack-n-play. To my surprise, though, he laid there calmly and didn’t even get up when Victoria and Amelia came in a few minutes later. Within maybe fifteen minutes, they were both asleep! Then Chris brought in an already sleeping Jack. Jack went in crib #2, while Amelia took the bed. And I was left on naptime duty with the three children. They all snoozed away for about 45 minutes, but then Jack cried out and started stirring. My initial instinct was to whisk him out of the room before the two others woke up, but upon further investigation, I saw that he just needed his pacifier back. Unfortunately, Jack realized this, too, and was apparently convinced that his pacifier was inside of his mattress. Thus, he was busily burrowing down as far as he could into the mattress, face first. I finally got under him enough to get his paci and find his mouth from behind as he was still digging away. Once I put it in, he went right back to sleep. Unfortunately, his cries and “digging” had by that point woken Luke, who started crying loudly. This time, I did rush him out of the room, and even though he fell back asleep on my shoulder, he woke up and began cooing when I laid him back in the crib. His coos woke Amelia who, thankfully, didn’t signal her consciousness with a loud cry like the other two had. Instead, she just sat up sleepily and confused, and crawled over to me. I sat her in my lap and tried a little more to get Luke back to sleep, though by this time Amelia was waking up enough to realize that, not only was I not her mother, her mother was nowhere in the room. As her face became ever more deeply concerned, I gave up on Luke and took both of them back to where everyone was eating lunch…while Jack, who had started all this, slept blissfully!

:

Luke and his cousin Jack sitting in front of the counter where, if you've ever had any exposure to history according to Dan Kirby, you'll know that some black men sat in the '60's and just wanted some cherry pie. College professors and the like seem to think there was a little more to it than that. For the record, Jack and Luke didn't get any cherry pie.

Luke and his cousin Amelia with the two most popular toys that Grandma & Grandpa brought with them. From the body language here, it seems as if Amelia is presenting a trade to Luke: the firetruck for the green pickup, but she doesn't seem to have any intention of really giving up that firetruck. That's okay though, because Luke had no intention of giving up that green truck. We had to hide it from him when we left on Saturday because he had gotten so attached to it.

Sleeping, Pooping, Climbing

Do we have a newborn? This past week, Luke went through a phase where all he did was sleep and poop. Okay, that might be a bit of an overstatement, but he began taking naps that lasted longer than 2 hours and going to bed extremely early. Twice in the last week, he went to bed before 6:00 pm and slept until 7:30 the next morning! (Well, that’s not like a newborn…) And then he would have an average of six dirty diapers a day! What the heck?! During this time, he was a little fussier than usual, but nothing too extreme. And no fever or stuffiness. Our theory—the one we always fall back on for unexplained behavior—is that he is teething, though we haven’t seen any evidence of that in the form of, um, teeth. And now both sleepiness and poopiness are starting to subside a bit, though they remain above average.

Another thing Luke does a lot of is climb. He’s getting tall enough where climbing is more of a tangible goal, and he wants to climb on everything: the coffee table, the couch, his rocking chair, the church pew. We are increasingly shocked at how much he’s able to do. I was folding clothes in his room yesterday and looked up to see him standing on his rocking horse while bent over holding the handles. He then slid down until he was seated in a proper position and beamed up at me with sheer, unabashed pride. This was the first time he’d ever climbed on by himself, and while his methods were both unorthodox and somewhat alarming (standing on the horse?), I was also pretty impressed.

In other news, we have made a partial leap into the land of cloth diapers. Now, cloth diapers were always somewhere in the category of “never in a million years” for me. But I was out with my friend, Caryn, the other day, and she was raving about a diaper called Bumgenius. She went on and on about how easy it was, how it was a kind of hybrid between cloth and regular, etc. And since I would consider our (me and Caryn’s) commitment to the environment, to economy, to convenience, and to sanity as pretty comparable, I decided to give it a try. So we ordered a three pack, and so far we like them. With three diapers and Luke’s propensity to poop, we’ll obviously still use disposable quite often, but if we continue to be happy with these, I can see us moving more in the cloth direction for Anna—especially after I looked at our budget the other day!

Family Visits and New Tricks

This week brought a couple of family visits: my mom dropped in for her usual biweekly visit, and then my brother came in for a couple of days. Grandma’s visit is always a highlight for Luke, but this was Luke’s first time spending extended time with Uncle Mike without my parents around. And Luke quickly realized that Uncle Mike is just as hilarious as Grandma! It was crazy: after just one afternoon with Luke--who started off quite skeptical--Mike had Luke cracking up with the abandon only reserved for Grandma. Watching him interact with Luke really revealed to me how much Mike gets from mom. Their ways of playing with children—the naturalness, the goofiness, and the originality—are so similar. And while Grandma has Uncle Mike beat in the affection and maternal departments, Mike dominates in strength and energy. He can toss Luke around for hours, and do such ludicrous things as get on his hands and knees and push Luke around in a toy dump truck on a playground padded with woodchips (Imagine how taxing that has to be—a TOY dump truck, not one that is meant for children to ride in it. Luke weighs about five times as much as that thing. I can’t believe he actually fit in it! Luke, by the way, thought this idea was genius. And Mike would not only push him all over the place, he would pick them up and “fly” them around. I was tired just watching them!) Mike also introduced Luke to the joys of standing on the outside air conditioner thing (Luke was amazed by the way it would blow his hair straight up) and unique ways of mixing his toys (Mike’s response upon seeing Luke’s toy cement mixer: “I bet the monkey would enjoy this.” And then he gave Luke’s plastic monkey a ride in the cement mixer. Luke loved it.)

The only other thing that has stood out about this week is that Luke’s daredevil ways seem to be returning. Our church has a toddler playground with several small slides, which Luke loves to slide down. A couple of days ago, he was sitting backward at the top of one of them, about to stand up and explore the connected play area. Then suddenly, without warning and without once looking back, Luke decided to push off and go down the slide backwards! Luckily, I was at the bottom to catch him! Luke thought it was hilarious, and it opened a whole new world of possibilities for him. He went down on his stomach, feet first. And then face first. And then on his knees. Sometimes, before I can stop him, he stands up and basically throws himself down the slide, knowing (I assume) that we are going to catch him. We obviously strongly discourage this last practice, especially, and the rest have me concerned. But for now, I know that Luke is not going to be anywhere near a slide unless I’m with him, and I help him up it, and I’m there to catch him. And by the time he’s old enough to slide on his own, I’m hoping he’ll have the cognitive skills to know what would happen if he slid down backwards with no one there to catch him! And also, even though his abandon kind of concerns me, I do like the faith that he obviously has in us that we will catch him when he falls. It’s a theory that he’s been consciously testing for quite some time now, and though it puts a lot of pressure on us (“Luke, make sure mommy’s paying attention before you decide to flop off the rocking horse!”), it is definitely a lesson I want him to learn: we will always be there for him, and we will always do everything possible to catch him when he falls.

The Visit

So, by “tomorrow,” I apparently meant next week! There are really no excuses besides the standard busyness, but we also haven’t had the internet here for a week. And since my blogging time is usually when Luke is asleep, and I’m also confined to the house when he’s asleep, I haven’t had as many opportunities to stay caught up with my blogs. Which is a shame, b/c there’s been a lot to blog about.

But we’ll start with our trip to Ken and Victoria’s. We had a great time! To me, the whole visit was really relaxing, which was wonderful. I remarked to Greg on the way back that I was kind of sad to have to get back to the “real world” of cooking and cleaning and getting stuff done! Much of our time in Maryland was spent just hanging out, talking, eating Victoria’s delicious meals, and playing with the kids, which was ideal. But we did make a few ventures out: on Saturday afternoon, we went to the Ukrainian festival, and on Sunday evening, we all went to the mall. The Ukrainian festival was held at Victoria’s parents’ church, and we got to watch all sorts of performers sing, dance, and play various instruments. Greg and I enjoyed it immensely, and Luke was moderately diverted, though he preferred pushing his stroller around and making friends with people in the audience over watching the actual show! We also had a dinner of all sorts of Ukrainian food—it was all delicious, though I can’t remember what any of it was called. [Incidentally, Ken or Victoria, if you read this blog, can you remind me of what it was that we ate, as well as the name of Victoria’s parents’ church? I need it for my scrapbookJ. I know I could email you, but I still don’t have internet here. Greg is going to post this blog for me at the church building.] After dinner, the three cousins diverted themselves by running around and playing, notably with an old dilapidated Jeep (a child-size one) that was inexplicably on the church grounds. We got some cute pictures of them all sitting in it, which you can see on our photo site.

On Sunday evening, we went to the Columbia mall, which was a lot of fun. Grace and Amelia have two traditions at the mall: drinking smoothies and riding on the carousel. Luke LOVED the smoothie tradition, though he seemed less thrilled with the carousel ride. He, Grace, and Greg were all in a carriage-type thing, and every time they came around, Luke was in a different position—sitting next to dad, sitting next to Grace, on Greg’s lap, etc. I guess he just couldn’t find the perfect one for him!

The coolest thing about our trip was how well the cousins all got along. Honestly, I’ve never seen Luke interact as much with other children as he did with Grace and Amelia. They even got him to open up and start talking a little. For instance, he would say, “ba” for ball, something that, despite our best efforts, we have never been able to get him to try. We thought that maybe his being with them happened to coincide with a language breakthrough, but he definitely has not been as talkative since we got back. I think the girls just inspired him! Also, this trip marked his transition from bathing in the sink to bathing in the tub. I know, I know: it’s about time! But the sink is just so much more convenient, and he’s always liked it so much. In fact, the tub has kind of scared him in the past. But the first night as he bathed in the tub, Grace supervised with me, and interacted with him. She showed him all the bath toys, and when he would set them on the edge of the tub, she would push them in and laugh uproariously, which Luke found to be hilarious! It was so funny watching them laugh together! Then the next two nights, the cousins all took a bath together to save time. I can’t speak for Grace and Amelia, but Luke thought this was great. And don’t worry—we became “those” parents and got all sorts of incriminating bath photos. I mean, how can you resist that opportunity?

Well, I hear Luke’s mobile, which means he has woken up from his nap. I’m still set on a once a week blog, but at this point, I think that’s my maximum!

The Sleep Chronicles

Last Thursday, we took a trip up to Maryland to visit Greg’s brother, Ken, his wife, Victoria, and their two daughters, Grace and Amelia. We’ve realized that the tenor of every trip is largely determined by Luke’s sleep habits while traveling, so I’ll start with that.

We’re happy to report that Luke slept amazingly well at Granddaddy Kirby’s house, where we stopped for the night to break up the trip. He woke up once, 45 minutes after he went to bed, which is his normal trip behavior. After that, however, we didn’t here from him until almost 9:00 am—causing us to oversleep! (Luke is our alarm clock.) Not that we were complaining! Another key factor to this scenario was the fact that Luke slept upstairs, while we slept downstairs with the baby monitor in our room. Still, at the time, we just regarded his full night’s sleep as a miracle and moved on.

[Sidenote: One thing about having a baby with you is that it makes you very in tune with houses and all their creaks and sounds. The way the floor squeaks, the way a door closes, the way the air conditioner cuts on or off—you hear all of these things at an abnormally high volume b/c they are factors affecting the sleep of your child. The amazing thing is that our house—which is kind of a pastiche of construction; which has nary a square wall in the place; which is so inexplicably accessible to living creatures that I wouldn’t be surprised if a deer found its way in—is actually amazingly quiet, at least on Luke’s end. It’s been such a blessing!]

At Ken and Victoria’s, Luke started out upstairs in the same room with us. He went down fine, and slept great until 11:30, when he woke up fussing. Rather than go right back to sleep as he always does, he continued crying. And continued crying. Despite trying every trick in the book—including things we’d last used when he was six months old—his cries escalated into frustrated screams. He wasn’t running a fever, and we thought he might have a stomach ache from trying new foods at dinner, but really, nothing could explain this behavior. He angrily pushed away the water we offered him, and did the same with the Motrin—something he never does. And of course, we were very mindful that a family of four was sleeping on the same floor, including a 19 month old and a 3 ½ year old. Finally, we took Luke down to the basement just to get the screamin’ demon away from all the other sleepers. He eventually calmed down, only to flip out again whenever anyone suggested he actually sleep. Greg sent me back to bed and later came and got the pack n play to take down to the basement. All told, Luke was up for 3 hours that night. We thought he was possessed.

It turned out, though, that the basement was the perfect place for Luke. For one thing, it was cooler, and Luke is used to sleeping in a rather cool room. Even more importantly, the Kirby’s have a rabbit named Oscar down there. They were worried that the rabbit would be too noisy for Luke, but as it turned out that Oscar served as the travel version of Luke’s mobile (Luke has a very deep relationship with his mobile. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he turns it on and even plays with it a little, and then goes back to sleep. In the morning, while it serenades him, he lies on his back and has long conversations with it. He babbles more to that mobile than to any human, I think!) So from then on, Luke was banished to the basement, and Greg and I alternated sleeping down there with him (there was a bed in the back, very much out of Luke’s sight). He slept like a champ! The few times he woke up in the middle of the night, he would look at Oscar, laugh, wave, and put himself right back to sleep. He also napped great, and woke up happy. So all in all, it was a great trip, sleep-wise. Tomorrow, I’ll write about the actual daylight activities!

Christmas In September

Well, the day after my blog about Luke’s favorite book, Construction Zone, Luke got a huge surprise. We were coming home from a walk when, before our very eyes, a huge dump truck, pulling a backhoe, pulled into the church parking lot! Luke was in his stroller, and he let out a series of unearthly screams of longing and excitement, all the while reaching out desperately, as if to embrace the construction equipment. He and Greg went over to investigate, and the owner of the equipment (who was there to fix a ditch in our parking lot), graciously suggested that Luke climb all over it and sit on the seat. Needless to say, Luke thought he was big stuff!

The next morning, we went back out before they started working and got some photos and video. Once again, he was enamored. Which is how, even though I hadn’t taken a shower, even though I had to a ton of laundry and packing to do for a trip to Maryland, even though I had to clean and prepare for cell groups at my house that night, I found myself sitting cross-legged in the middle of the church parking lot with Luke on my lap, watching the slow and almost imperceptible progress of the backhoe like it was an Oscar winning movie. The sun was beating down on us, and Luke was breaking a sweat just sitting there, but he didn’t care: he was mesmerized!

This is the video of Luke sprinting to investigate the backhoe. Make sure you have the audio on for this one:

A New Goal

From now on, I’m going to try to write some kind of blog at least once a week. I’m not assuming there’s some huge demand out there for our blog; it’s just that, why have a blog if you don’t ever write, you know? Plus, I love reading other people’s blogs, and it makes me sad when they don’t update theirs. So I feel kind of hypocritical not updating mine more regularly. I set the weekly goal because, well, I just do better with goals.

This week’s topic is on how children’s books can be boring. One of the things I most looked forward to with kids was reading to them. And I do really enjoy it. It is always great time with Luke. I just didn’t realize how mind-numbing it could be to read the same book over and over and over again. Or to try to read books at Luke’s rapid pace (he’s quite the page turner)! We tend to read several times throughout the day, so one thing I do to break up the book monotony is make frequent trips with Luke to the library. We always get at least ten books, but inevitably, Luke latches on to one or two. Once it was a version of “Old McDonald” with about 78 verses (Luke did make great strides in animal identification during that phase, I must say). Most recently, though, it was the notorious Construction Zone that Luke picked to be his favorite. Even though I’ve already returned the book (thank goodness), I can read it to you right now. It goes a little something like this:

Rubber-tired backhoe
Bulldozer
Concrete truck
Forklift Crane
Tamper
Crane with clamshell bucket
Forklift
Crawler backhoe
Cherry picker
Paver
Roller
Garbage Truck

Each page also included photographs of the construction equipment in question. Luke ADORED this book. We had to read it all the time. And I must say, I did learn a lot about construction equipment (“That’s called a tamper? Who knew?”). However, Greg and I both had to suppress groans when Luke would toddle up holding out that book. Luckily, our newest batch of books seems to be without a dud in the bunch. Unfortunately, it’s the one with which Luke has been the least enamored so far.

It's a, it's a....

…stubborn mule!

Let me tell you, the anticipation was killing us as we sat in the ultrasound room. We were so excited to see whether our baby was going to be a boy or a girl. And as the ultrasound technician zeroed in on the picture, we saw a beautiful…baby. A beautiful baby who was curled tightly into a fetal position. You have got to be kidding me.

When people look ahead to their lives’ most momentous moments, I don’t know that many picture the moment they find out the gender of their second child. But for us, it was huge—even bigger than finding out what Luke was. I guess that’s because we are almost 100% positive we only want two kids. So this moment had a definite air of finality. Would we be a family with two sons, or would we have a boy and a girl? There was definitely a closing of a door with this ultrasound.

Complicating our emotions was the fact that we both wanted a daughter. I don’t know that either of us realized this before getting pregnant. It’s just that mental pictures are very powerful, and we both had always pictured having a daughter. It’s not like we said, “It’s a dream of mine to be the parent of a daughter.” It was more like we just assumed that we one day would be the parent of a daughter. And—like the assumption of getting married or having kids—that’s a big assumption.

Back to the ultrasound room. We saw the head. The hands. The feet, the spinal cord, all four chambers of the heart. And yet, the baby just wouldn’t turn enough to see whether it was a boy or girl. We really started to worry whether we’d find out at all. Did we need to paint another nursery? Order girl bedding and start buying girl clothes? I really wanted to know, daggonnit!

It’s not like having a son would be a bad thing. Far from it. Two boys sounded like a lot of fun. They could be play mates. Plus, so many people had been telling me that I’d be a great “boy mom,” and as Luke and I loaded and reloaded a dump truck with dirt yesterday on the playground, I thought, “I could get used to this.” Playing boy games. Being the queen of the house. It would certainly be more economical. We have a ton of boy clothes and bedding. And we could make good use of hand-me-downs throughout the younger son’s life! No paying for prom dresses or a wedding. No, it definitely wouldn’t be the end of the world.

It was just that darn mental picture. A boy and a girl. Having a daughter. Neither Greg nor I could shake it. As the day to find out grew nearer, Greg remained unabashed in his desire for a girl, though we both became more convinced that it was a boy. The theory among church was that, while most of the teens wanted a girl, most of them (and people in general) thought it would be a boy. I had started out sure it was a girl, but as the second trimester started, I became more and more doubtful.

So there we were, sitting in the ultrasound room. After measuring everything on the baby that could be measured, the technician could offer nothing more than a weak guess as to the gender. And then, just as she was about to pack everything up, she suddenly said,

“Oh! She just moved! It’s a girl.”

Here’s hoping our daughter is always this modest.

The Epic Summer Update

Wow. Where to start. Um, well, while Greg’s brother Ken was composing amazing, informative blogs with clocklike regularity, and while Chris and Jill even managed to put up a slide show in the middle of all the craziness of moving to Indiana with a baby, we have apparently taken a vow of blogging silence. But I guess now that summer’s almost over, I should probably provide some sort of update. I mean, it’s not like we don’t have big news: we’re going to have another baby in January, for pete sakes. But I guess everybody already knows that by now! Still, it seems obligatory that I would formally publish that information in our blog.

In other news, Greg has had a very eventful summer with the youth ministry. Our first big trip was to Impact, which went well. By that, I mean it went well for the kids. For me, after the first night in the dorm with Luke, I was ready to cry “uncle.” For one, I had planned on staying off-campus, but it didn’t work out. One consequence of the housing falling through was that I had no way to bathe Luke. I simply turned on the shower, held him in to get wet, took him out and lathered him up on a chair, and held him back in to rinse off. He loved that, let me tell you! Also, even though he slept fairly well, he woke up a few times at night and then seemed to be up for good at 5 am. (The whole week before, Luke had been sleeping through the night, and when he did wake up, he would simply turn his mobile on and put himself back to sleep without so much as a cry. I snuck in once and watched him curled up on his stomach, his whole body rocking back and forth in a kind of bouncing motion. It was very impressive. So I wasn’t too happy about him waking up again, though it was understandable. Luckily, once we were back home, he resumed his blissful sleeping habits—sleeping until 8 or 9 in the morning!—and has been maintaining that ever since.) Anyway, I was feeling nauseous and worn out from being pregnant and was ready to pack up and head out for Macon then and there, but luckily, Greg called his parents, and they very generously came up early to help take care of Luke. They were a Godsend. For one thing, I was actually able to attend parts of Impact, which up until that point, had not been possible. Plus, they stayed in the dorm room next to us during Jr. Impact and brought their baby monitor, allowing them to listen for Luke at night while we were at the sessions and he was asleep. So Luke and I stayed for almost a week, though we did end up going to Macon on Wednesday—life in a moldy-smelling dorm room having gotten the best of us. Luke officially turned one at Impact, and it was great that he could spend his birthday with his grandparents, Uncle Chris, Aunt Jill, and cousin Jack. We also loved the opportunity to see Jack, since we hadn’t seen him since shortly after his birth.

In July, our church hosted Carolina Work Camp this year, which was quite an undertaking. Greg had to find 14 houses to paint; buy and organize supplies; arrange for food, housing, nightly entertainment, speakers, and worship leaders for 200 teens; and keep on top of 14 work crews spread over Summerville and Ridgeville for a week. Needless to say, he was pretty worn out at the end—especially since he decided to kick the week off by staying up until 5am working on an intro video! But thankfully, it was a smashing success. All the houses got painted, and the kids seemed to have a great time. We had some wonderful worship and some great speakers, if you don’t count the one who articulated his desire to tell churchgoers to “go to hell” from the pulpit. That he was from the Christian church made it even more fun to address with the elders. Though honestly, they didn’t seem to mind so much—as our youth elder put it to a disgruntled church member, “That’s what you get when you’re on a tight budget!”

Also, Greg just got back from a week-long mission trip to Rainbow Omega. I wasn’t sure how far out of our teens’ comfort zones the experience would be, but it turned out that it wasn’t out at all. They LOVED the residents and have announced that they want to go back every year. In fact, most of them thought the residents had it made and wouldn’t mind moving into Rainbow Omega themselves (sometimes, we wonder a little about our kids’ level of awareness…)! So after gifting individual residents with picture frames and t-shirts, and taking a ton of pictures, they are all back home now.

Over all, it seems like the youth group is doing really well right now—low drama, great attitudes—but maybe it’s because I’m a little more out of touch now, so I don’t see the negative as much!

In Luke news, he has had a busy week. He randomly got two new teeth out of nowhere (we’ve decided that teething is a non-issue with him), bringing his grand total to 6! He has two top teeth, and four bottom teeth. It’s about time! The poor thing loves to eat, but at the age of one, he only had two teeth! He’s also discovered his belly button, which has made quite an impression. Plus, he learned to drink from a straw finally. I think we messed him up by feeding him from the other end of the straw when he was younger, but he’s now grasped the concept.

It’s amazing to watch his awareness expand and to see things click with him. Though he’s not much of a talker (“dada” and “mama” are the extent of his repertoire), he understands a good bit of what we tell him, and, among other things, can identify his giraffe, zebra, monkey, lion, elephant, frog, duck, and pig. He also loves balloons, balls, dogs, and cars, and can play with any of those things indefinitely.

One thing he doesn’t have is much of a poker face. When he gets a concept or spots something he’s looking for, his whole body visibly jolts, and he lets out an unearthly scream—his version of “eureka!” And when he’s coming to knock over my block tower, I always know by his series of barely suppressed snickers as he innocently toddles over. Here’s hoping this transparency continues for quite some time!

Well, I still haven’t written about Luke’s first birthday party, our July 4^th trip to Macon, or his getting to see his great-grandmother, great-aunt, and cousins, but this blog is way too long anyway, so it will have to wait!

Mom the mobile

Luke has a “mobile” on his crib that plays music when he pushes a button. He also has several other musical toys that are activated by the push of a button. So tonight as I was rocking him to sleep on my shoulder, I would sing to him. Whenever I thought he was asleep, I would stop singing, and he would sleepily look up at me and push my mouth with his hand. I took that as a sign to keep singing!

Obviously, Luke continues to keep us very entertained. Other than that, things have been pretty crazy here with travels and youth ministry goings-on. Summerville Church of Christ is hosting Carolina Workcamp this year, so Greg has been running around like crazy for the past month getting houses to paint, church members to house kids, companies to donate food, etc. Plus, we’ve had Impact and have made a few trips to see family, so we’re always going, it seems. One consequence of that is that our blog is beginning to gather dust. We do apologize and hope to do better in the future!

Graduations, Parties, and the Great Teething Monster

Wow—these past few days have been crazy! One thing in youth ministry that, for some reason, I didn’t see coming, was the madness that surrounds each year’s graduating class. We arrived back from a relaxing trip to Macon around noon on Saturday, only to go straight to four graduation parties. Luckily, I only had to go to every other one b/c Luke napped in between, but Greg was going non-stop. Then, Sunday, Greg had two graduations to go to and another graduation party. That, together with church, took up his whole day. Plus, we have our Senior Banquet tonight, and Greg has spent the nights making the Senior’s slide show videos. So yeah-pretty crazy.

All of that wouldn’t have been so bad if Luke hadn’t been TEETHING. Honestly, I didn’t know what TEETHING was until now: I knew what “teething” was. Luke had a couple of fairly cranky days preceding his first two teeth, and I thought, “Oh, he’s TEETHING.” No, he was just “teething.” It was definitely not legit. But yesterday, he began the real deal. It started when I got paged from his cradle roll b/c he was so cranky—I can’t remember when we’ve last had to go get him. And it was downhill from there. He’s been running quite the fever since Sunday night, and he has some diarrhea (don’t you love that I feel comfortable enough to share that with you!). And he has been clearly in A LOT of pain. I’ve tried to check his gums periodically to see if his teeth are making any progress, but he is NOT having it. He is also very attached to us—especially me. And he’s been waking up every hour or two throughout the night. So last night, I finally took him to bed with me, while Greg slept in the guest room. He only woke up once, but otherwise slept from 11:00 until 8:00. So we might be repeating that again tonight. And so we continue down the road of “bad habits” to break…

A close up of motherhood

I feel as if everyone should know that I am married to a fantastic mother. It's really quite unreal. I feel like watching Kim with Luke is kind of like watching a great artist paint a masterpiece or a composer write a symphony. The girl has some talent. It is very difficult for me to believe that she and I became parents at exactly the same moment. Because most of the time I feel like I don't have a clue what I'm doing here, but she makes it look easy. If you've never seen her in action, you're missing something. Over the past several months, I've been amazed by the self-sacrifice I see from her every day. She always seems to have the energy to teach, take care of, and play with Luke. She's always singing a song, playing a game, changing a diaper, feeding some green peas, reading a book, or some other care providing activity. On top of that, she manages to keep our house in pristine condition, manages all our finances, ministers to the teens in the youth ministry, teaches a 5th and 6th grade Sunday School class (and this Sunday School class rocks - I kind of wish that I could be in 5th grade again to do all the fun stuff they do in there), and publishes a monthly newsletter for the parents. I'm not gonna lie, it can be a little intimidating to be married to such a capable woman. But then again, it pretty much awesome that such a capable woman is on my side in this thing called life.

I grew up with a great mom. My mother took incredible care of me and my brothers. I am pretty sure that Chris and Ken would agree that any levels of success that we've been able to achieve on personal, emotional, spiritual, or professional levels, we owe a great deal to our mom for being there for us and investing so much time making sure we stayed pretty much in line. I am so thankful that Luke has the same type of mom. I felt the rest of the world (or at least the 20 people that keep up with our blogs) should know what a great mom Luke has.

To Kim and my Mom, I'd like to wish a Happy Mother's Day

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

Well, I realize that, when it comes to the internet, my world is really compartmentalized. For instance, I have this blog (even though it's technically Greg's:)) where I basically write about Luke. I don't mean to; that's just how it happens. Well, I also have a myspace blog, where I blog more about spiritual matters and life in general. The myspace one is a lot more interactive, and a lot of people leave comments, but it's more of a ministry tool than an electronic brag book (like this one is turning out to be!).

Anyway, in the spirit of wholeness, I thought I'd post my most recent myspace blog here. Just to give a nice change and to prove to people that I can write about more than just Luke! So here goes:

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S

We flying the first class

Up in the sky

Poppin' champagne

Livin' the life

In the fast lane

Listening to “Glamorous,” by Fergie today in car, two things came to mind. One, the girl likes to spell. She spells “glamorous” in this song, and in another one, she spells her name, along with the words “tasty” and “delicious” (these are really great songs, if you can’t tell). She must have been into spelling bees as a child or something, because she just can’t resist showing off her skills! [Note: I later posted as a comment that, as it turns out, she mispells "tasty." So much for the spelling bee theory!]

Secondly, I was thinking about people I know who probably really like this song (okay, I admit, I like this song. Sue me.), and for the first time, I realized something: there are a lot of people I know who wouldn’t want my life. Honestly, that thought had never occurred to me, as arrogant as that sounds. I think I’m the luckiest girl in the world. I think my life is so good, it’s almost embarrassing how blessed I am. I think I have everything I’ve ever wanted, and all my dreams have come true. In short, I feel like I’m “livin’ the dream,” as corny as that is.

And then I listened to Fergie and was like, Holy heck—I bet there are people I know who would rather be shot than have my life. I mean, think about it in terms of these lyrics. Or the “MTV standard” of the high life. I’m not rich. I don’t own my own home. I live in a parsonage, so my life literally revolves around church. I don’t wear designer clothes. I don’t turn heads when I walk into the room. I’ve only flown first class once in my life, and that was b/c of the airline’s mistake. I don’t have money, fame, or power, which it seems like a lot of people want in life. And really, my life is 0% glamorous. No glamour. At all. Take today. It was GREAT. I loved it. And what did I do? I went to the opthamologist and paid $300 to hear them tell me I needed new contacts (okay, so I didn’t love that part.) And then I came home, picked up Luke, and we went to Chick-fil-A for lunch. Splurge #1. Then we went to Target to buy Sunday school prizes, and I bought $10 worth of scrapbook paper. Splurge #2. I came home, played with Luke, vacuumed the whole house, scrapbooked some, ate dinner, bathed Luke, and then spent an hour rocking him to sleep. When Greg gets home, maybe we’ll watch the extra features of “The Holiday” or return it and get another movie. Since my life is all about taking care of Greg, Luke, and my house—not to mention the teens at church—this day was a treat! It was beautiful weather, I got out of the house, I splurged on something I really wanted, and I had fun with my husband and son.

So where am I going with this? I guess it’s not a huge point. It’s just that, despite my realization that my life isn’t glamorous or the model that everyone aspires to (not even close!), I’m perfectly, completely, 100% content. And ultimately, isn’t that the dream?