1. This was the month of "I-uh-won't-to." Translation "I don't want to." Used liberally. Tante Sara, you're in trouble.
2. Luke's karaoke sessions have changed from solely Twinkle Twinkle to "ABCDEFG" and Row Row Your Boat.
3. We now have 3 children with opinions in the car. Jack and Cora are serious about listening to "their story" (a book on CD) and now Luke yells "Listen-Song!" and "1moresongmommy" at every pause. Thankfully it doesn't matter what type of song.
4. Luke has learned how to yell. He saw a bowl of apple slices in the car that I had brought for Jack's after school snack and even though I repeatedly explained that they weren't for him he repeatedly yelled, "ONE...AP...PLE...MOM...MY!"
5. It is so interesting to see his personality emerge and to try to guess where it will lead us. The Jack and Cora we know today definitely were showing up at this age (him: intense and focused interests and her: wide swings of emotions). Luke is still very cute and very sweet a lot but he is also opinionated, independent, and determined as well.
6. Our new nighttime routine consists of him sitting in his little toddler armchair and me leaning my back against it and reading our 3 nightly books. I ask "Do you want to read in Mommy chair or Yu-Yu chair?" and he always says "Yu-yu chair"
7. We often call him Yu-Yu which is the shortened-by-Luke version of our other nickname for him: Looty-loo.
8. He can now tell me about his day. "Luke, what did you do at school today?" Luke: "Play Toya." "Play Momica" "Play Tuten" - this is Toya his teacher, Monica the center director, and Houston his main classmate.
9. Luke's class continues to be tiny with Houston, about 6 months older than Luke and "Charm Baby" as Luke calls her who seems like just a baby at 13 months. Everyone at the center knows Luke and I'm so lucky to have such a caring extended family there.
10. Luke's current favorite books are: My World (I've fallen in love with this lesser known Margaret Wise Brown book), Mama's Milk, and Karen Katz lift-the-flap books.
11. I'm still proudly nursing a toddler and while I get how it could seem odd if you've never done it, you also don't know what you are missing. Nursing a young baby is such a labor of love and blood, sweat, and tears at times. Nursing a toddler is such a beautiful chapter. For a few minutes, a few times a day, we both slow down. He calms down and gets re-centered. I calm down (thank you oxytocin) and get to connect with my baby in my arms. Luke has been tickled to death by the book Mama's Milk, one that was in my LLL library. On the cover there is a mama cat nursing her kittens and Luke says "Kitty cat drink mama milk" and laughs :) Then he usually says "Lukey drink mama milk." I highly recommend the book - anything to normalize breastfeeding!
12. Luke now says "Big poopy" when he poops. If it's super uncomfortable he'll also say "Change!" but otherwise he hates having his diaper changed.
13. He's peed on the potty 3 times, more than a month ago. We have a little potty in the bathroom but aren't pushing it.
14. His appetite is huge and we've discovered a love for pasta and noodle dishes.
15. He still swipes his plate/bowl off his high chair when he's done, so we have to be quick. Oatmeal, pasta, ice cream, none of these things are fun when they splatter.
16. One method for coming downstairs we named "hiney scoot" and now Luke frequently is heard descending the stairs saying "Hiney-SCOOT" with a cute little squeak.
17. He just started calling Jacob Daddy-Waddy though it sounds more like "DAH-dee-WAH-dee"
18. He got to turn forward in his carseat and we're all happier!
19. Jack now sometimes gets Luke out of his crib in the morning and so we sometimes get visited by Luke rather than having to get out of bed to go get him. So far this is only positive.
20. Luke loves Cora's friend Cate :) A lightbulb went off that Luke might always be a fan of Cora's friends :)
21. Luke says tons of words but you have to work to distinguish some of them. I love a baby voice and totally encourage baby speak!
22. We love this blonder-each day baby!
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| Good job Mommy, you took just 2 pictures this month :( |
