The Landry Family Odyssey: 17 Months!

Our gentle baby is easing us into the toddler stage. There are moments now where I see the little kid that is emerging but still many more moments where he remains our snuggly baby.

There are lots of cute and fun things to share about Luke this month!

Likes
- He loves to go outside and will be by the door with his shoes at the mention of the word. He likes to swing, be pushed around in the little fire truck or on his "bike" and he's figuring out how to get up our slide. He loves the ducks still and walks over yelling "Ey Duh!" and now insists on helping carry and dump their scraps.

Vigorous pushing from brother Jack

- He loves Ms. Larita his infant teacher who spends part of her day in his new toddler room. Stop the presses but this mama's boy actually cried to leave Ms. Larita one day recently and REACHED OUT OF MY ARMS TO GO BACK TO HER. My pride was hurt but for Ms. Larita, who has so abundantly loved my baby, I can take it! We are in the ridiculously sweet situation of a 4 child classroom with 2 rotating teachers who are awesome. I know Luke loves having a space where everything is age appropriate and fun and not a constant whir of "no", "not that", "No, Luke", "No!" like our house can sometimes feel!

Big boy off to school

- He still loves his mama's milk now referred to as "mah mih" which is his quicker way of saying mama milk but which also cutely sounds like he's personalizing his supply.

Celebrating with Tante Sara at her shower, the only boy allowed!

- He still loves to sleep and is that rare toddler still happily taking two daily naps at 17 months.

- His blankie. We had 3 versions but somehow lost one. That leaves one home blankie and one school blankie. This has obvious challenges.When Luke got a 24 hour stomach bug and threw up all over his blankie we tried to offer replacements and he just gave us these quiet and insistent head shakes. He wasn't a happy camper until reunited with clean blankie several hours later.

What's New and Notable
- Luke says "Mine!" loudly. My hypothesis is not that he picked this up from anyone else but that he divined the necessary word to compete in his world. Jack and Cora often take things from him (usually because they are trying to keep him safe) but he's learning to speak up. Since he's still our baby, we still find the "mine" shrieks cute.

- Lots of new words: "down," "knock-knock," "hot!" (which he says both for food and the weather), "boy", "no," "more", and "all done!" The last two he both signs and says loudly, along with "wawa!" to help keep us informed of where he's at in his mealtime. He calls himself "babble" for baby and that's one of those babyisms that we promote and say right back to him. For Jack, I remember we said "nummy" for "another" bc we thought it sounded so cute when he said it. And we still call oatmeal "yum-yum" around here.

- Jacob worked hard to teach Luke "I love you." This past weekend Luke called out "I lub-ew" unprompted as I was walking out of his room. Heart melting moment for mommy :) He also blows kisses when you prompt him to say goodbye.

Daddy Attack or Attack Daddy?

- Luke is a head shaker. Whenever there is something suggested he doesn't like, he just vigorously and (usually) silently shakes his head. It's really cute! I actually was mimicking him to Jacob and pulled something in my neck that hurt for days...