Category Archives: Luke

>It’s Not That He is Jealous, It’s Just That He Doesn’t Want Luke on Your Lap

>Today after dinner we were all playing with this cool shake-up car. Dave and Jack were at one end of the hallway and Luke and I were at the other. We took turns shaking up the car and watching it go, then sending it back to each other. New batteries really turned things up a notch with that car. At one point, it went careening down the stairs, shook itself up on the way, hit the landing and took off again. Hilarity ensued.

And then Luke sat on my lap. And from across the room there was this ungodly yell. A roar almost. It came out of a one year old that was crawling like the wind, at speeds never before clocked in our living room. And that one year old was coming straight at us. He climbed right up Luke’s body, over his head and onto my lap where he started pushing Luke as far away has he could. Which wasn’t far, because Jack has short arms, and Luke wasn’t going anywhere, so there was lots of yelling, pushing, and laughing. Luke and I were shaking with laughter. When I got my breath I said, “Jack never struck me as the jealous type.” And Dave said, “It’s not that he’s jealous. He just doesn’t want Luke on your lap.”

All this took place under wafts of pumpkin cake aroma. I took a picture, but why bother getting it off my camera, when it looks exactly like this?

>361 Days Later

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From halloween

361 days after Jack’s birth, he slept from 7:30 pm until 7:00. Yea Jack! It was Jacktastic. And the best part is that I slept for 8.5 hours of the 11.5 that Jack was sleeping. I woke up all groggy and disoriented like I had slept for a week. I have found that Jack falls asleep without a problem and stays in bed longer if he has a minimum of 3 pacifiers. One for his mouth and one for each hand. He was even happy to pose for a photo before bedtime. (Note the novelty buck toothed pacifier. I only break that out when I can’t find three others.)

In other news, Luke was reading to me this evening and he got stuck on the word “up”. As in, “The sun is up.”

L: What’s this word?
M: Sound it out
L: Yup?
M: What is the phonics animal for U? Urkle Umbrellafish says what? (He likes me to not remember the animal name on the first two tries.)
L: No! Not Urkle! I don’t remember the animal but U says “Yuh.” So it’s either Yup or Yoop. The sun is yup. The sun is yoop.

I know I am supposed to have him sound it out, then suggest he guess based on the picture, then only correct him if he asks for help, but instead I started laughing. I laughed until I was crying, and thankfully so did he. Then he blamed the whole thing on me, and said I told him the wrong sound.

>Then and Now: Pumpkin Patch

>I don’t know what it is about my photography skills. I have relatively photogenic children who love to smile for the camera – but I cannot get a good, smiling picture in a pumpkin patch to save my life.

Baby Luke:

From halloween

Baby Jack:

From misc

At least I got one smile here:

From misc

>Pre/Post Mad Men Musings

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Welcome to the, “I’m Back! And I’m going to start posting again! And using a lot of extra punctuation, (mainly parenthess!) post!”

I told Dave that I sort of feel as if I have been a zombie for the last month and I am finally back to being myself again. (ie: Toast as a side dish.) This weekend I was cleaning closets and organizing rooms and crossing things off my to do list – and this is a to do list that is so old and neglected that it has stuff on it from early September. (Sorry Katie – I never bought that baptism gift!) (Dave pointed out that I stopped looking at my to do list right around the time my blog output completely dropped off to hardly anything.) I don’t know if it was beginning of school stress, end of Bean’s life stress, or the changing seasons, but I have shed my zombie inclinations, just in time for Halloween! (Braaaains!)

Speaking of Bean, Dave and I were at a party on Friday and I was overheard saying, “Oh, plans for tomorrow? I am taking the boys to get a flu shot and then we are picking up the dog’s ashes.”

Another mom said, “Um, you might want to throw in a trip to the ice cream store or something.”

Good advice. We had a nice weekend, and the weather was perfect for a little backyard ceremony.

In other news: Jack is looking like he wants to start walking. Perfect timing because the memory on my camera is full and I can’t find the card thingy. (When Luke was about to start walking there was a smudge on my camera (birthday cake from his party) and I freaked out and ran to the camera store. They dipped a Q tip in windex and wiped off the lens.)

Moving on… ***Mad Men Spoiler*** Who watches? And do we think Don is the father of Betty’s baby? I think not. Thoughts? Just six short months until next season.

>Sunday Miscellaneous

>* Jack has been flirting with a full on wave goodbye for a while now, but Saturday night he waved goodbye over and over to that cute baby in the mirror. And it almost sounded like he said good-bye too
* Luke loves school. Loves it. His big complaint now is that his days go by to quickly. He and I danced at the Fall Festival and it was really fun.
* Luke – smiled without an upper lip in his school picture and also still does not like swimming lessons
* Jack- likes to hide behind the curtains until I say, “Where’s my baby?!” And then he crawls out laughing
* Luke – doing well with our new manners game
* Jack – now throwing minor tantrums (only when he doesn’t get what he wants)

>MetaMegan’s Mangled "Me Time"

>Luke has swimming lessons on Thursdays, and the pick up time is between 5:45 and 6:00 at the pool, which is very close to my office. Since I finish work at 5:00, that means 45 whole minutes of glorious “me time” between work and pick up. I declared Thursday to be Megan Day! I dressed nicely because on Thursdays I have to drive! I brought the paper to read while I sipped a latte somewhere between Whole Foods and Barnes and Noble after leisurely strolling the magazine and fiction section! Thursdays, how I have looked forward to you, lo these many weeks since I signed Luke up for swimming lessons. How I imagined what I could be doing instead of hovering around the lesson that first week. How I wished I was more organized the second week when I was speeding to pick Luke up after we had stupidly scheduled his parent-teacher conference at the school at the end of the day, forgetting he would be across town at lessons.

Maybe it was a case of too much anticipation? Maybe 45 minutes isn’t really that much time? Especially because 10 of those minutes were spent talking to my boss, not realizing it was already 5:00 pm? And 10 minutes were spent finding a parking space at Whole Foods, and 10 minutes were spent purchasing peanut butter at Whole Foods so I can make lunches this evening. And 5 minutes were spent waiting for my latte. So yeah, I browsed for 2 minutes, spent 3 minutes in line debating just chucking the book and running for the door. I made up excuses in my mind for not being there when the lesson ended. Like, “I couldn’t find a parking space!” (Eerily, that came true.) Alas, when I arrived at the Y, Luke was lounging on the couch watching TV. He managed to slide one eye in my direction to glare at me reproachfully for not being the first parent there, all the while keeping the other eye glued to Nickelodeon.

And then we left, and he immediately and completely melted down into a pile of crying, screaming, hungry goo. I brought him a plum for a snack. That made things worse.

But! The day was saved! Because if are coming down from a relaxing three minutes of me time, and you have a screaming child in the car who needs a snack, and you have recently purchased some peanut butter… I think you can see where this is going. I loaded up a spoon full of peanut butter to take the edge off his hunger meltdown, while simultaneously gluing his mouth shut for the rest of the drive home.

Megan Day was saved.

>Don’t Say I Didn’t Warn You

>Luke was having a play date with Elsa last week, and Luke was playing with one toy while Elsa played with another. Jack got in Elsa’s way, and she said, “No! Jack! No!” The altercation appeared to be over a toy, and I grabbed Jack and moved him away while Luke said over his shoulder, “Yeah. He pinches. And bites.”

>Picture Day

>Picture Day. Tomorrow is picture day. And I hate to use gender stereotypes, but I can’t help but complain that I have sons, and yet I am not spared the battle over the picture day ensemble. Once, since school started, I put Luke on the bus in a collared shirt. He got off (yes, we still meet the bus at the school) wearing the collar turned under. I also bought him the coolest retro 80s shirt with neon boomboxes on it for $2.49 at Target Boutique. He has refused to wear it. I think you can see where this is going. I want him to wear a collared shirt for picture day, he disagrees. Dave gave him the option of a collared shirt or the boombox shirt. He chose the bookbox shirt.

Also, he started smiling like this:
Let’s just say I don’t regret ordering the cheapest photo package.

>Soccer Mom

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From Soccer

Luke started soccer on Saturday and I have to say, we make great soccer parents. (Pause to pat self on back.) By the end of the game Dave knew all the kid’s names and I had signed up to bring snacks. In an homage to Peggy Hill, I even wore a cashmere sweater. (Linking to synopsis that leaves off the important part about Peggy not fitting in at soccer games in her flannel shirts and needing to borrow a cashmere twin set.)

Oh, yeah, and Luke had a great time! He couldn’t sleep the night before because he was so excited so I told him to count to a hundred as many times as it took to fall asleep. I maybe should have suggested that he not do it out loud because we were watching Persepolis and it was very distracting. (He did it 3 times before he yelled out that it wasn’t working. I suggested he count backwards from 100 to 0 and I didn’t hear another peep.)

The league is great because they have a 25 minute practice and then a 25 minute game on Saturdays, no practice during the week, there are no goalies and they don’t keep score. Or I should say, the don’t officially keep score. Luke and I are really into counting (see above) so we’d call the game something along the lines of 10 to nothing. With Luke scoring 4 of the goals.

Here he is about to score the first one:

From Soccer

So it was really fun, and I have now experienced the trifecta of things that make you feel like a mom: baby playing with tupperware, packing school lunches, and cheering at your child’s sporting event.

Jack had fun too:

From Soccer