Singin' in the rain

To say it was unseasonably warm today is an understatement. It was near 60. And rainy. After dinner Luca wanted to put something in the recycle and I told him it was still at the curb because it hadn't been brought up to the house yet. So he asked Josh to go outside. Since it was not raining at the time, Josh took him. And Luca played in some of the puddles. When they came back inside Luca wanted to go out in the backyard and play some more. Since it was, you know, nearly 60* outside, we said why not and he and Josh went out.

He had so very much fun. There is a low spot on the patio that collects water and it had spread from about one side of it to the other. So he splashed and jumped and splashed some more.

Oh that grin!

By the time they came inside both Luca and Josh needed entirely new outfits they were soaked through. But oh he had fun. =)

Shoveling

Our driveway doesn't get much sun during the day, so even a small dusting of snow won't melt unless it gets warm enough. It is much more likely to freeze into a solid sheet of ice. Which, now that I think about it, since I found my ice skates might not be so awful... Anyway, Luca has been itching to use his new shovel, so with the whole inch of snow that fell the other day actually sticking to the driveway, we decided it was a good time to go outside. We bundled Luca up (finally got to wear his new-to-him snow boots!) and he and Josh went outside to shovel. Jude and I went outside to act as paparazzi.

He got the hang of it very quickly and was quite helpful. Until he got into the mulch and kept shoveling. Even though it was (at least by my standards) super cold, Luca refused to come in until the job was done. So I had to get a shovel and help the job go faster. He's such a good little helper =)

22 months

I'd like to start by saying my baby is going to be 2 years old in two short months. Holy Cow. This time last year I already had a theme and menu and decorating ideas and invitations. The furthest I've made it in planning so far is that I'm pretty sure we're having a party. Ah well, life.

On to new things!

He's stringing words together more often, and using them to react to his surroundings. For instance, he saw Jude licking the dirty silverware in the dishwasher (thank you Kody for teaching him that) and Luca said "Jude no."

Jude wishes he could say "Luca no."

He has also reached that wonderful, wonderful age where he'll go do things for me without questioning. "Give this to Daddy," "Feed your puppy," "Put this in the trash," and off he goes. Lazy me loves it. =)
He loves building with Duplos and has gotten quite good at it. He builds tall things and puts them on the window sill for the neighbors to see. He is especially talented at un-building things. If Josh or I make something impressive we have to take a picture or show it off quickly, because once Luca has it he amends it. Even more amusing, he usually dumps the entire basket of Duplos right off. And then puts the basket on his head and runs around the house. No joke. It's hilarious.

We've turned the downstairs into a giant play room and he loves it down there. I wish it were warmer, but then again there are very few times I don't wish it was warmer... He could stay down there all morning and then usually asks Josh to go downstairs when he gets home from work. Plus, with so many toys down there and our new storage unit, it no longer looks like a toy store exploded in our living room, which is hugely awesome.
Probably the biggest news this month, Luca no longer uses a Nuk. When we got back from vacation he had a head cold that left him very congested and basically unable to breath through his nose. Add a plug in his mouth and he just wasn't sleeping. So we went cold turkey and I just unceremoniously got rid of them. For a couple of days he asked for it before going to bed, but we just said no and that was pretty much the end of it. By the end of the first week he wasn't asking for them anymore. Also, he is down to just an afternoon nap. Unlike last time we tried it, he stretched out that nap to make up for missing the morning one, so we're all happy about it.

Also, Happy Birthday Josh! =)

Stuck his spoon in the frosting to sneak a taste of Daddy's birthday cake.

Taking Bunny for a ride

Luca got this stuffed bunny for his birthday from my kindergarten teacher. (Isn't that something! Mrs. Simpson rocks.) Recently he's gotten very attached to it, bringing it around the house to do things with him. He sits on the sofa while Luca eats snack, comes to the table for lunch, this morning it went on errands with us and came home and sat on the potty chair. Naturally, when Luca wanted to go fast, Bunny needed to come along too. And he was so happy about it =)

Also, it's funny the way he says "bunny." He used to make the "y" sound as "ee," but about a month ago switched to pronouncing it "yuh." Don't know why, but it meant Daddy went from "da-ee" to "da-yuh" and Bunny is now "bun-yuh." It's funny.

In other news, my college roomie's mom gave me a flower when I graduated from undergrad. (That feels weird to say, "graduated undergrad") It had been in her family for years and was blooming when she gave it to me. I had directions to put it outside in the summer, bring it in during the winter, and it would bloom every other year. That was 2006. When those blooms died, I continued to get nice long leaves, but never another flower. It survived 5 moves and is the only plant that is still alive from my college days. (I used to have a bunch. All named.) Then, a Christmas miracle...

Blooms! Big beautiful ones! And since I took this picture another one has opened. Plus the littler stem looks like it's going to turn into flowers too. Nothing for 6 years, then this. It is awesome =)

Little Helper

There has been a lot of fixing going on around home recently. From the dryer needing a new belt to light switches buzzing and a need for a new outlet, Josh, my dad and their power tools have been busy. Luca learned the word "fix" and now uses it when he sees Josh with a screwdriver. So, because Luca was so blessed/spoiled at Christmas, our current toy storage wasn't cutting it anymore. We bought a cube storage and some baskets and Luca was kind enough to help...

by running off with the screwdriver. That's the best kind of help, right? But he did actually lend a hand, putting in the dowels and hammering them in. And he steadied the screwdriver while Josh turned it. My little handy-man in training!

Cheese!

Vacation

I should start by saying this is probably going to be super image heavy... sorry.

I was so nervous/excited about our vacation. It would be my first time traveling out of the country (not counting Canada), there were layovers both ways, I'm not a huge fan of flying, wasn't sure how little one would do with the eating and sleeping being different, not to mention doing a lot more in a week than we normally do. But it was going to be a whole week in the sun and on beaches and expected to be in the 80's. Plus there was a heat index. I forgot when it got warm enough there was a heat index.

So we started off at 5am to make it to the airport. We were all enormously benefited by the fact that Dad does so much traveling for work that we all got Premiere service from the airline, not waiting in long lines, several upgrades, good stuff. And Luca seemed mostly entertained by the adventure and did well waiting.

Reading with Dad on the plane

The first two flights were full (the first one kept saying that people needed to put things under their seat instead of in the overhead because if any more bags had to go under the plane people would have to get off due to weight restrictions. Yikes). But kid was happy bouncing between Josh and I and my parents in the row in front of us.

And during our hour layover he found the moving walkway...

One... two... three... jump! Around and around and around.

On the second flight we actually got him to sleep. And he was nice enough to cuddle in such a way that he wasn't bothering the other guy in the row and I got to play my game boy. =)

We made it to the Cayman Airport relatively on time, found the car rental place, managed to shove 2 scuba bags, 6 suitcases and 4 back pack carry-ons plus the 7 of us all in the car and headed to the resort. They drive on the other side of the road and there are a total of 7 (I think) stop lights on the island, the rest are round abouts. Dad asked us to every once in a while remind him to be on the left side of the road. When we got to the place it was too dark to see anything very well, so a quick trip to the grocery and some unpacking rounded out the day.

The middle of the first floor was our room. So very very close to the beach. Amazing.

During the week we were there Dad and Alan dove at least twice a day and we spent so much time on the beach. Luca would walk down to it and just sit down on the edge of the water and play. I thought to bring a bucket and shovel, Mom found a volleyball and a little angry bird guy on the beach, and he had a blast.

We also managed to see some of the sights and do a little shopping. We went to Georgetown which is where the cruise ships come to port so there were A Lot of jewelry stores. Tiny bit of history there too. They have lizard statues like Chicago had cows and KC had bears several years ago. We of course took a picture with it.

Thank you robopod for the group picture =)

One of the highlights for everyone was swimming with the Sting Rays. All of the pictures of that are on the underwater cameras, though, so I don't have any to put up. But it was awesome. They are technically wild in that they are free to leave the sand bar, but they know that people come to feed them so they don't usually stay gone for long. There are rules that you can only be on the sand bar for an hour and you can only bring a pound of food, so the rays have learned and travel from boat to boat to boat, looking for something to eat. Local lore says that if you kiss one you get seven years of good luck. I totally kissed one and Luca gave one a high five. That's got to be good for a least a couple years of good luck. =)

We also went to a turtle wildlife encounter where we got to pick up and hold turtles and watch them get fed (they look just like Hungry Hippos) and Luca totally chased a lizard.

A gorgeous beach where Alex and Josh snorkeled and Luca slept in a tent on the beach.

I mean, beautiful...

A petting zoo/Pirate cave. They had bunnies and goats and chickens and lizards and birds and pigs and peacocks and all sorts of random animals. Luca loved the bunnies best. The guy had coins and a cannonball that were found in the cave, and Mom and Josh went back into the cave with flashlights and saw bats. I was, of course, safely above ground instead.

The boys went kayaking in the water around the resort

The blowholes and Lovers' Wall

I think Josh took this. Incredible timing!

We went to Hell. Seriously. It's a city there.

Looking at the Hell rocks

Saw Santa at the mall and played in the fountains

The boys also went on a brewery tour and to a car museum, naturally. ;)

I'm also sure you're wondering if all the time spent on the quiet book was well spent. It was! He played with the book a couple times on the plane and most every evening in the condo. Yay!

Bananas in the fish bowl, eh?

Our last day we only had time to eat breakfast and pack everything up. We were of course bummed to be leaving, it was so beautiful! And it didn't help knowing we were going back to temperatures in the teens...

We all had a wonderful time!

Bye Caymans!

21 months

This is a hard one to write. I feel like the major developmental milestones are further apart now, so there's not a long list of changes each month anymore. That being said, here's some new stuff.

We tried to see Santa a week ago. What I mean to say is that we went to see Santa, I held Luca while he looked at Santa and smiled at Santa, and as soon as I moved him lapward, he started screaming. But Santa was very nice and gave him a little stuffed penguin. Once I was again holding him Luca (through tears) told him bye. Now he picks up that penguin and says "ho ho ho." At first I thought he thought that's what penguins say, but if you ask him he does a version of that tickle laugh that penguins do, so he just remembers it was from Santa.
When he was last weighed he came in at 24 lbs, been hovering around the 10-12 percentile for a while, I think.

Cheesing, eating lunch with an ice cream scoop

He has started putting together two word phrases, "up mama," "bath daddad," "more crack." (He calls crackers "crack" and obviously I'm not correcting him.) He is using "real" words a lot more and babbling a lot less. Which is frustrating for me because I know he's trying to tell me something, he'll stare at me and repeat the same word again and again, but I have no idea what he's saying.
He loves "Itsy bitsy Spider" but always starts at "down came the rain" and mostly just does that one line a lot. And he's so sweet, we rock for a little bit before he goes to sleep, and sometimes I sing and sometimes I don't. If I'm not singing and Luca wants me to he starts singing while his sweet little head is laying on my shoulder. When I get to the end of a song and stop, if he wants and encore he'll start singing again. I just love it. Currently the rotation is Silent Night, Away in a Manger, and of course The Gambler by fun.
My mom found a keyboard in the basement that my Grandpa gave us years and years ago and thought Luca might enjoy it. Oh my goodness, we're getting this kid piano lessons as soon as it's appropriate. He spreads his hands out on the keys and uses his thumb and pinky at the same time and alternating and gets the black keys too and just looks like he knows what he's doing. Plus sometimes he sings while he plays.

We are very excited for Christmas, I have no idea what Luca is going to do. We opened a gift from his god parents early, and he took the present to the rug, sat down and opened it, then put the tissue paper back in the now empty bag and put it back under the tree. He hasn't bothered any of the other presents under the tree. When we tell him he can keep opening he's either going to get overwhelmed or go crazy and start opening everyone elses. We'll see!

As an aside, Luca is currently in the bath. We have a basket full of those foam letters that stick to the sides of the bathtub when they're wet. Luca picked out three letters, W, T and F. Ha.