3 Months Old

I can't believe my little baby Luke is already 3 months old.  That seems so crazy to me, and it makes me wish I could slow time down a bit.

On the other hand, I love interacting with him, and all the grins and coos he gives, and other vocalizations that are so cute.  He started laughing a few days ago, not quite a giggle yet, but a more explosive laugh- a ha-ha, like he doesn't quite know what is happening to him.  It cracks me up.  He smiles a lot at Gabe when he comes close.  Gabe imitates me and in his sweet, high little voice says "Hi baby Luke" over and over and pets Luke's head.  He will sometimes try to stick Luke's binky in his mouth, or share his toys with Luke.  He knows how to work all the buttons and switches on Luke's swing and bouncer chair.

Luke holds his head up on his own and likes to be held upright, not so much cradled, unless is going to sleep.  He still sleeps fairly well, although lately it has been not quite as great because of the teething.  Bleh.  The poor kid and his swollen gums.  I can still feel a corner of a tooth popping out, but it hasn't changed much from last week, so I wonder how long it is going to last. 

Bottles aren't his favorite things, but Luke takes them pretty well.  He also seems to like his binky more than Gabe did.  He doesn't want it all the time, but he likes it when he is starting to get bored, hungry, tired, or having aching gums.

I love my little Luke!  I'm so in love with him, just like I was with Gabe- it's really true, more kids doesn't mean dividing up your love, it means more of it to go around!

Teeth!

It makes me want to cry that my almost- 3 month old is cutting teeth.  This didn't happen with Gabe until he was almost 6 months old.

It is also weird to me that my 2 year old has 20 teeth.  And has for a while.  I guess I have toothy kids. 

Wah.

2 1/2 Months Old

I have been meaning to post about Luke; funny how my days just seem more packed with "stuff" and I don't get as many chances to blog as I used to.

Luke is such a great addition to our family.  He is so mellow.  Gabe adores him, and Luke is so tolerant of all the hugs and kisses he gives him.  I love Luke's smiles.  They are so radiant, and sometimes he just scrunches up his little nose while he grins and coos and it is about the cutest thing.  I love when babies start smiling socially.  That has probably been going on for 3-4 weeks. 

Like Gabe, Luke loves to be held and doesn't seem to like (actually hates) tummy time, so I'm trying to figure out what to do about that.  He has spent a fair amount of time in the front pack when we go on walks, and it cracks me up that he falls asleep in less than a minute after being put in the baby pack.  However, if I put him in and we stay around the house (i.e. no constant walking, just doing chores or something), he starts whining and squirming.

He sleeps pretty well; he takes a couple of naps during the day, anywhere from 45 min to 2 hours at a time.  At night it depends.  Some nights he will sleep about a 4- 5 hour stretch, and some nights he will sleep 6 or 7 hours in a row.  It just depends.  I try to be pretty consistent in the bedtime routine, so I really have no idea what makes him sleep longer sometimes.

Luke has plugged tear ducts like Gabe did.  It's not really a problem, but his eyes sometimes get goopy, and it predisposes him toward eye infections.  Fortunately, we keep antibiotic eye drops on hand, so we can take care of it quickly. 

We finally got out the baby swing and Luke seems to like it.  So does Gabe, unfortunately, so we are doing our best to teach him how to act around the swing when the baby is in it- i.e. leaving it alone.  Luke likes being in the swing best when I am very near him, and he can watch what I am doing.  It is my favorite place to put him while I clean, cook, or fold laundry because he is high enough that he can pretty much see everything, and he is happier and I can get more done.

Happy Birthday #2 Gabriel!

We had a fun little celebration for Gabe's 2nd birthday this week (we had one a week or so ago with my family in CA as well, but I wasn't really prepared to do a party while we were on vacation).  We didn't do anything particularly exciting in the afternoon, other than Gabe got to eat goldfish crackers in the living room while he watched some clips from 40 Years of Sunny Days (best of Sesame Street).  In the evening, we met BJ's parents for dinner at Cracker Barrel and had a nice visit, then we all came back to our place and watched Gabe open his presents.  I guess we all chose well, because once he figured out that opening presents got him new toys, he was jumping up and down and squealing with each one.  He is crazy about vehicles of any kind, so he loved his tricycle, cars, and train set that he got.  Since he is always standing up and making his cars go across the entertainment center, we thought it would be good to get him a little table and chairs that were just his size.  He loved it.  Kind of a lot of big-ish gifts this year, but he was ready for some big-boy toys, and all our kids will benefit from this stuff, I guess.  Anyway, I think BJ and I had at least as much fun as Gabriel watching him unwrap all his stuff.  We had planned it for quite a while and we were pretty excited!



Gabe just cracks me up.  When I give him a stern look after he does something slightly naughty, he tells me to be "bappy"- which is funny since we tell him to be happy when he is throwing a tantrum (or have timeout).  I can't help laughing.  Lately his favorite word to say is "no" (welcome to the twos)- even when he doesn't actually want to decline something.  So he will say no first, then what he really means.  Example: "Gabe, it's lunch-time.  Do you want to eat a sandwich?" "NO! Sess..." (Sess= Yes)  "Do you want a drink of milk?" "NO! Guk..."  "Can I have a kiss?" "NO!..."- he gives me a kiss.

Gabe wants to know what everything is.  He brings me an object and says "uhtsiss?" until I tell him what the object is named, then he repeats it several times.  He has names for most things he comes in contact with.  They don't always sound much like their real name, but he sure tries!  He has been really fascinated with letters of the alphabet, and of his own motivation has learned the letters X, O, F, B, T, V, and Y, and identifies them correctly almost all the time.  We often hear him singing or humming the tune of the ABC song/ Twinkle Twinkle Little Star- occasionally singing a phrase, then going back to humming.  Recently, we wondered if he knew the words to any other songs that we often sing him, so we made up a little game where we sing a song, omitting the last word of a phrase, to see if he would sing the word- and most of the time he does!  It was so fun because after doing that for a while, he started singing even more words of the songs along with us.

Gabe continues to love on Luke.  He rocks the baby in the baby seat, he pats his head and tummy, puts a pacifier in his mouth (sometimes after tasting it himself), sings the baby songs (usually Baby Beluga- we're not sure, but he may think Baby Beluga is Luke), and occasionally tries to share his toys with Luke.  For a while he was calling Luke "Eeeee", then "Lllll", then it was "Doot", and now it is "Guke".  Gabriel still refers to himself as "iyel"- sounds like the last part of his name. 

The changes I notice in Gabriel's development seem to be coming more and more quickly.  Sometimes I feel like time is passing way too fast.  Then again, it's fun to see what comes next.  I look forward to what the next year brings.

We're back!

This month (um, I mean June- last month!) has kind of just whizzed on by!  Here are some pictures from the last month.  We had a few significant events I should probably mention:

On June 6th, we blessed Luke.  My parents were able to fly down and most of BJ's family were able to be present, which was great.

We embarked on a 12.5 hour (each way) road trip to meet my family at Yosemite National Park.  My parents and siblings still at home were there, as well as Marissa and Richard, who live about 2 hours away from Yosemite.  This was our first real road trip with the boys, and they did great.  I really couldn't have asked them to do any better.  Gabe was obviously sick of his carseat on the way back, so there were a few minor meltdowns, but he did way better than I expected, and I guess that means we may have more road trips in our future.  We did some fun things while in California, including: descending 165 feet down a spiral staircase down one of California's deepest limestone caves (we didn't go all the way to the bottom though- it was over 400 feet deep), doing a 1/4 mile zip line at 40+ miles per hour, hiking and sightseeing in Yosemite, hiking through Big Trees State Park with the biggest trees I have ever seen, having a little early birthday party for Gabriel, and lots of swimming, tennis, ping pong and visiting.  I love my family!  It was nice to have everyone together (of course we missed my brother Tayler, who is serving a mission in Australia)- it seems like it is getting harder and harder for us all to be together.

Anyway, here are the pictures: