Luke- 10 Months

Luke is 10 months old today! Here's what the little man has been up to:

• In the last few days we've moved from Luke napping twice a day to once. He seems a lot happier with this arrangement. Jack's nap has had to shift along with Luke's. Jack isn't as pleased about it, but we'll get there. 
• He still has 8 teeth although I can feel two coming in on the top.
• A new favorite trick is playing with cars and making a car engine sound.
• He's eating three times a day. He loves casseroles and Cheerios and tolerates apple sauce. Everything else is met with resistance. He's still nursing 5-6 times a day. 
• He loves books right now. He's especially taken with the That's Not My series of touchy feely books. Jack loved them too at this age. He's figuring out how to turn pages and will sit and listen to five or six books before moving on. He actually prefers to look at books by himself, at his own pace, but I'm a pushy reader mom. 
• Jack and John are his two favorite people. Jack gets the most attention, and John gets the most smiles. Mom is chopped liver.
• Luke is a risk taker. He loves climbing more than anything else he knows how to do. He loves to figure out how to get on top of tables in the playroom. 
• He thinks tickling and wrestling are pretty fun.
• His cutest trick is blowing raspberries on anyone's exposed skin. 

That's all I can think of right this minute about our littlest man. He's a happy baby who is a joy to have in our family. 

A Day with Thomas

Jack has a fondness for pretty much any machine that moves. Construction trucks. Trains. Cars. You get the idea. Armed with this knowledge, Grandma treated our family to a day with Thomas the train. Jack loved it! The 25 minute train ride was the highlight of the morning, but there was a lot of other fun stuff to do too. He insisted that I climb up the inflatable slide with him three times. It was actually pretty fun. There was also a story hour, petting zoo, meet and greet with Thomas characters, and a pretty extensive train gift shop.

Both boys were pretty excited about the train ride. Jack was excited for the obvious reason; he was actually on a real train. Luke gets excited about anything that excites Jack. Both boys had their noses pressed against the huge window most of the ride. 

As a mother of boys, I know there will be many more days like today. The fall foliage ride is definitely on my list of things to do in a couple of years when Luke is a little older. Life doesn't get much better than this. 

A Bibliophile

Jack has a love-hate relationship with the library. He loves to go pick out new books every couple of weeks, but he hates to return ones that have become favorites. Not too long ago it was Cowboy Small that even the mention of returning brought tears to the little man's eyes. He confessed his heartache to his most sympathetic confidant, Grandma, and before long he had his own cherished copy of Cowboy Small filling a spot on his bookshelf. 

Pride is a hard thing for me to admit. I have a hard time taking a compliment. I very rarely feel as if I did something just right. I like to blame good things happening to me on chance instead of admitting that perhaps I had a role in the outcome. 

Just this once, I am going to swallow that down and feel absolute pride in the fact that Jack loves books like he does. I did that. I fostered a love of stories in my little one. I created a boy who cannot go to sleep without a "couple of books" and who closes his eyes with several in his bed. It makes my heart happy to know that same boy looks through a couple of books before he ever gets out of bed in the morning. (Peeping Mom on the video monitor!) 

Lately, Jack has wanted to listen to the same story over and over again. Today it was I Love You, Stinky Face. I read it seven times this afternoon, and John read it at least once. Admittedly, this grows a bit tiresome. We have a bookshelf filled with other stories for Jack to choose from. Luckily, I had recently received a newsletter warning me of the importance of this, so I'll read about boys turning into one eyed monsters, smelly skunks, and meat eating dinosaurs until he's ready for me to stop. 

"Again!" The power of rereading
As your child's early literacy skills develop, it's important to allow him to choose which books he'd like to read when it's story time at home. It does sometimes get tiresome for you to read the same book over and over again. However, by doing so, you're helping your child to really think about and understand the book at hand and to make it his own in many ways. This rereading process is an important step in your child's literacy development, so go ahead and read Good Night Moon one more-or 20 more!-times.

I've always admired an embroidered pillow that my sister has at her house. It says, "Richer than you you can never be for I had a mother who read to me." It actually comes from a poem written in the early 1900s that I found in a children's literacy book early on in my teaching career. I've always loved it. 

The Reading Mom

by Stickland Gillian

I had a mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea.
Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth;
"Blackbirds" stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness lent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings-
Stories that stir with an upward touch.
Oh, that each mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I you can never be --
I had a Mother who read to me.

And so I'll continue to read to my boys, hoping that I can make them feel as rich as they've made me.

One That Got Away

With as many pictures as I take of the boys, I suppose it is inevitable that some get away. Meaning they are lost on my computer forever. When I was looking for something to post because I was getting Facebook chastised (you know who you are:-), I came across this one and decided I couldn't let it get away. 

Is Luke Big Enough Yet?

As I was wheeling the boys through the grocery store this morning, my mind drifted to the days when Luke was too little to ride in the racecar cart. Back in those days, Jack would longingly look at those racecars lined up and ready for shopping and inevitably the question, "Is Luke big enough yet?" would slip from his lips. I should have taken a picture on the first day that I felt Luke was big enough to ride in the racecar because you would have seen the giddy expressions on both boys' faces. But this photo will have to be enough to remind me of the days before Luke was big enough to ride in the racecar cart when both boys are big enough to do their owning shopping.