Our sweet little baby Luke is 2. With everyday that passes he brings more and more joy into our hearts and lives. What's he been up to you ask? What HASN'T he been up to! He has been up to everything. It's absolutely crazy to see how much he's changed from his 1 year birthday. First, let's start off by saying he is a boy tried and true. He is all about trucks, balls and playing rough. Sad to say, he's even got the battle wounds to prove it. He's chipped several of his front teeth and had stitches on his chin. All within this past year!
He absolutely loves Thomas the Train and Disney's cars right now. We play an episode almost every morning. He likes to hang out at Barnes N' Noble and play with their train set. Now we have our very own train set at home thanks to Grammy and Grampa that keeps him busy:).. We've taught him how to put a DVD in the player and start it up.
He's actually talking now and conversing. Everyday he says a new word and he loves to repeat everything we say. It can be really funny sometimes to hear some of the words he copies. We've also caught ourselves in whoopsy moments sometimes:). It cracks me up the most when I hear Dave hollering down to me from upstairs and then I'll hear Luke doing the same, yelling to me using my first name instead of Mommy.
When we pray before meals he bows his head and closes his eyes while sneaking some food as we're praying. It cracks me up every time.
He is obsessed with Daddy now. Everything he see's Daddy doing he wants to do. He's outside most the day working alongside Dave, trying to use his measuring tape and tools to help build.We'll occasionally stop by the fire station to visit Dave and Luke already knows the route and hollers Daddy as soon as he see's the station. With any passing fire truck or sounds of sirens Luke hollers Daddy! {As if Daddy owns every fire truck in town}. If it wasn't for reading Dr. James Dobson's, Bringing Up Boys, this obsession with Daddy may have been a little harder for me to handle. Dobson explains in one of his chapters that once the boys reach 18 months of age or sometimes sooner they start to gravitate towards the person that most resembles them.
Luke loves playing with big kids. In fact, if we're at the park he follows them around like a lost puppy, getting all up in their personal space. I've been pretty impressed to see how much these kids are willing to interact with him. Hmm, maybe that's why Luke prefers this over playing with kids his age. He doesn't have to share with the big kids they just give him what he wants. Little stinker! Speaking of sharing, that's something we're teaching and he's getting better at. It was a difficult thing to teach at first. The opportunities to do so are in public and that's when I prefer not to make a scene. Grammy G bought us Llama Llama Time to Share and that's actually been helpful. He knows the word share and says it now. So he can't play dumb anymore. We just get up and leave if he can't share or we take the toy away.
Luke is now in a big boy bed and the transition was effortless. He was so proud to be getting big boy truck sheets. The first night he slept perpendicular on the bed and above the sheets. He looked so tiny all curled up on the big twin bed that it made me cry! He slept through the night and when he woke up he stayed in bed calling out for us to come get him. The next couple of days he learned how to tuck himself under the sheets and snuggle. It's been a few months and he still continues to remain in bed until we get him out. It's nice to see our discipline is paying off and he is a pretty obedient toddler {for the most part}. There have been a couple of times after we've tucked him in he'll be playing in bed and we'll be watching him on the video monitor. We'll see him get out of bed and then we turn the speaker on and tell him, in a stern voice, to get back in bed. We can see him jump with freight and run back to bed. We laugh so hard.
Within this year Luke also got to ride on his first airplane, bus and train when we went to North Carolina to meet cousin Ethan for the first time. Luke loved every moment of it. Too bad flights our so expensive otherwise we would do that more often. Those are his three obsessions and he got to ride on all of them in one day.
We love watching Luke play and use his already vivid imagination. He plays so nicely by himself. I'll sneak into the playroom or watch him on the video monitor just before he sleeps or wakes up and see him playing with his toys making noises, sounds and then actually conversing with them. One time he was pretending that his stuffed puppy dog was falling off the bed and he would yell, "Oh no!" and then would pull him up to safety. We noticed he also likes to line up all his toys in neat little rows.
We've given Luke some chores that he enjoys and takes ownership with. He feeds our dog, Rufus morning and evening, he helps Mommy with laundry, he takes his dirty clothes to the laundry room and he picks up his toys and puts them away at the end of the day. I was a proud Mommy when I picked him up from Sunday school the other week and they told me Luke did well and even helped put the toys away!
We do see that Luke is stubborn like his Mommy and Daddy. That was a given since we both have the trait. He is most stubborn when it comes to lunch and dinner time. He loves breakfast and we never have any trouble with him eating his food then. However, with lunch and dinner, it can be a battle to get him to eat what we're eating sometimes. I refuse to be one of those parents that cooks him something different. I just don't have the time or energy or money to do so. So we have found out real quickly that if we 'reward' him with dessert for afterwards he'll gobble up his food! I chuckle because he actually prefers for me to put the dessert on his tray while he's eating his dinner so he can see what he's going to get after he eats his food.
Luke also likes to pick out his clothes for the day. He has his favorites shirts; two Lightning McQueen, Thomas the Train, one with with a Moose, Fire Truck and Dump Truck. When I enter his room in the morning sometimes he'll already be telling me which of those shirts he wants to wear! He's been really good about excepting if one of his shirt requests is dirty and in the wash, whew!
Luke has found his love of a good foot, head and back scratch/massage and demands it {just like his Mommy does with his Daddy, hee hee}at night time when I tuck him in. I think it's kind of cute so I give in to the demands:). He also likes our night time routine which I pray we will still be able to juggle even when his sister arrives. He gets both me and his Daddy {when Dave isn't working of course}. We read him a book, pray with him and sing him a song or two. His favorites are 'The B-I-B-L-E' and 'Jesus Loves Me'. He'll request these songs by exclaiming either 'Bible' or 'Yes'! We've even taught him both songs with hand motions and he'll try doing most of them. Too bad every time we try and get the video out to record he stops.
Luke, we love you so much. Your belly laughs, giggles, silliness, thoughtfulness (by waving hi and bye to others or giving hugs and kissses) and affection our infectious to us and others around us. Mommy and Daddy miss you so much when we're apart from you. We both sneak into your room after you're asleep and just stare and kiss you over and over again. We just can't get enough. We are proud of you not by anything you do but because you are our son and we love you.
Here are some pictures of 2 year old Luke. Luke used to be so good at taking pictures, it was effortless. Now, he's difficult and refuses to smile. It's so hard to get a smiley picture! He is a very happy boy, just not when we take pictures:)
