Halfway to One!

We celebrate fractions over here.  Jack is now 5 3/4, Cora is 3 1/4, and Luke is "a half."

1. Happiness

Luke is a "joy baby" as his teacher says.  He radiates happiness, as in give him a smile and he'll squirm with happiness back :)

Luke wakes up happy.  He doesn't cry in the morning.  I'll often walk in to find him already awake just lying on his back waiting patiently for attention.  Other mornings, I'll wake to find the hall light on and Jack up reading books.  Luke's light is also sometimes on. If Jack hears him, he'll turn on his light and give him a few toys.  I like these self-sufficient boys!

2. What makes Luke unhappy

Being tired. When he's tired, he's tired and he pretty much only wants to be held (which he hopes means you are moving toward putting him in bed.)  

Our main challenge with Luke is that he's the world's best sleeper if you will follow his sleepy cues and put him to rest in a quiet place.  For five days in a row this month, he slept for about 6 hours of naps over the day.  But most other days, at day care, on busy Landry family days, on our Nashville trip, he's taken cat naps and shown that he doesn't fall asleep well when it's noisy, exciting, and not in his bed.  This means that he's often ready for bed quite early (like even 6:00 or 5:30) because he's not getting the sleep he needs during the daytime.

We're troubleshooting over here, but luckily, see item #1 - he's still a very happy guy.

3. Diet

I proudly offer exhibit A to show how my baby loves him some breast milk!  The evidence is in the thighs :)

We are two weeks in to offering other foods.  Just like Jack and Cora, the first people food we offered Luke was sweet potatoes.  We are going to mainly go the Baby Led Weaning route and offer Luke foods similar to what the rest of the family is eating (rather than making purees.)  The thought is that it will empower him to continue to control his own intake and determine how much he wants to eat at each meal.

He had roasted sweet potato wedges (plain - not even any olive oil) on day one and roasted squash wedges on day two.  The next few days were busy and Luke didn't get any big people offerings.  Then we took him on a grand adventure to Nashville which expedited his foray into the culinary world.  But I think he was too young for the excitement as everything we gave him (a biscuit from the Loveless Cafe, cheese grits from Biscuit Love (if you are ever in Nashville, GO HERE!), hummus from Epice), he couldn't seem to figure out how to get off his tongue.  The food would just sit there while he made horrified faces :)  And then eventually he spit it back up - usually on us :)  He did seem to enjoy the blackberry that came with my dessert.  He likes to suck, but is not yet sure what to do with food in his mouth.  I well remember how this eating thing takes TIME!

I think that is broccoli on your head Luke :)

4. Personality

Sweet.
Precious.
Fun-loving.
Curious.
Serious.
Lovable.

5. Stats

19 lbs 3 oz at 6 months

He's our smallest baby at 6 months as silly as that sounds :)

He has his big brother's fairness and sensitive skin. He has his sister's precious little nose and mouth. He has my blue eyes (something he also shares with Jack and Cora.)

He has his own perfect round head, his own yet-to-be-determined hair color, and his very own one-of-a-kind chunky thighs :)

This has been a busy, busy season so it was SO nice to reconnect with Luke (and Jacob) on a four day getaway trip to Nashville.  As the third child, I feel like Luke gets put in a chair, plopped on the floor, forgotten about, etc. and so it was nice to focus in on him over those four days.  He's so easy to enjoy.  He didn't seem to want to miss a minute of the trip, hardly napping, but still managing to be very sweet :)

For me, some things to remember

If I'm a really lucky person, one day Jacob and I'll be old and living together in a nursing home and spend our days rereading our family blog reliving the "good ole days" :)

So, this post is purely for me.  Almost through week three of three kids at three locations and a 36 hour knock-out round with mastitis, I'm pausing to note a few things of late.  Today, I focus on Jack.

Jack
- He's so persistent.  He will negotiate with you until you will do anything to make him stop talking.  He's very smart that way.
- He's intensely focused. Jack has had a love of firetrucks from before he could appropriately say that word.  He spent 3 Halloweens as a firefighter.  His interests have evolved as he's aged.  He wants to know about real fires and he's been especially interested in the Great Chicago Fire, with several books currently checked out on the topic.  We also have Fire Disaster and Disasters: Natural and Man-made Catastrophes through the Centuries in the house.

It all starts so innocently and then you find you have a child who is becoming more and more fascinated with the darker side of rescues: the danger, the potential death. He is so curious about the events of September 11th.  He found an In Memoriam DVD Jacob's mom bought years back and he's always asked questions since he saw a firefighter on the cover.  We've always said that this was a sad story and a movie he couldn't watch until he was older.  Well, when you let your child flip through books like Fire Disaster he ends up asking questions about all kinds of events.  He has the basic facts of 9/11 and he pleads to learn more. And we just keep saying no but he wears us down for small details.  Man, this parenting thing is hard!

Jack still hasn't had to realize that some people want to hurt other people.  At least with his fire disaster interests, he's mostly learning about natural disasters and unfortunate accidents.  With his knowledge of 9/11, he knows that two planes crashed into the World Trade Centers, but he's never even asked why the planes crashed.  I think he just assumes it was an accident.

I love to learn about real events too, so he comes about his interests honestly, but I also want to protect his innocence for as long as I can.

What a piece of work this kid is.  In his first 12 days of Kindergarten, we've heard all of the below:

• "I'm a super reader."  "How do you know?" I ask. "Because my nose is buried in my book."
• After drinking chocolate milk on the first day, we told Jack he should drink only white milk since chocolate milk has a lot of sugar.  We only had to say it once and Jack has been clearly instructing the milk-passer-outers that he'll be having no more of that chocolate milk :) I love that he's health conscious for his own sake.
• He nonchalantly comments that one of the rules is to love your teachers, but "I mean I already do" :)
• When asked to draw something about his family, he drew the twin towers on fire.  (Chin drops to my lap.) But no, no Mom do not be concerned, see, remember that was what happened on your first day of college, so, see that was something about my family...
• On that note, he also was asked to draw what was in his heart.  While thankfully, I don't think he shared this drawing with the class, his heart had the Titanic, the twin towers, and the 2009 Australian brush fires, because those were all sad things and that was what was in his heart.  Just imagine the looks on Jacob's and my faces when he recounted that part of his day!?!
• He's always happy to share what he had for lunch or snack, in detail.  He's eating the school lunch provided by Revolution Foods. We are generally pleased with the healthier fare offered at his school, though, I still stand by my controversial stance that goldfish, animal crackers, graham crackers, etc. really serve no healthful purpose as a children's snack.  I love that Jack's school has parents signing up for the daily morning snack and has specifically asked for these to be healthy and, ideally, fruits/veggies.
• He pulled out his class snack calendar and was able to read almost every student's name based on probably having seem them written in his class, his knowledge of first letter sounds, and, because he's obviously gotten to know all of these new friends.  This last piece makes me happy.
• He's staying two days for an extra hour for soccer and it made me smile to see him running around in the gym at 4:45 today with such a happy look on his face :)

I love this one-of-a-kind rascal.