ally-cat

03-19-12

~12lbs, ~24.5in

I think I’m kinda in love with my daughter. My little Cuddles is 3 months old now. We are already noticing differences between her Lucas. for one thing, Lucas would sleep anywhere in his bouncer, but she only really sleeps in a quiet room in bed. when she’s awake, she doesn’t like being left alone. she’ll make little unhappy, bored cries until she can see us again. when lying down in the bouncer or car seat, she will pull her head up away from it. she seems to try to hold her bottle when we are feeding her, with a curled fist on each side of it. I noticed in Lucas’s 3month blog it mentioned him drooling a lot. She does drool some, but not what I would call a lot. She likes to suck on her fingers/fist. She has been doing the kicking thing over this past month, so I got out the kickin’ coaster. unfortunately the music function is broken, so it only glides. i love how she smiles when she sees me when i come in to get her out of the crib, and i love “talking” back and forth with her. In Tenn this week, there was one night where Mom and I couldn’t get her to go to bed until after 11pm, and then she slept 9 hours until 8am the next morning, but unfortunately there haven’t been any repeat all-nighters like that yet.  I finally got the birth announcements out in the mail this week. This is the first time we’ve “told” Paul’s Mom about Arianna by way of her receiving one, but she didn’t call or anything. I’m only half surprised.

On Tuesday, Lucas’s actual birthday, Mom and I took him (and Arianna) to the GA aquarium. I love going to the aquarium and Lucas really loved it, too. When you first walk in, there is a short tunnel with a wall of fish up against the glass on each side. At first Lucas was scared of them up close until I put my hand on the glass and showed him it was okay to touch it. He told me he wanted to see alligators, so our first stop was the cold water section. The two alligators they had were albino and so white that the lights reflecting off them and the glass almost made them glow. We crawled into a bubble in one of the tanks, and Lucas got scared again when he realized there was a big fish right in front of his face, but after that, none of the other fish bothered him. He wasn’t much interested in the whales – I think because they swam too high and far back from the front of the tank, but he loved the penguins and wanted to see the otters twice. Another request of his was to see the jellies. We read that the reason they sting is that they have thousands off teensy barbs on their tentacles. Lucas was still able to recall this fact two days later when people asked him about the aquarium. The touch pools were fun for him, although he kept trying to splash the water like a water table. The Frogs exhibit was on tour at the aquarium, so we went up and saw all the frogs. He told me he loves frogs.

Sunday we had a get together party at the house with our friends for Lucas’s birthday. We had a bunch of our friends over and Paul made burgers on the grill. Lucas did, too, thanks to Lauren’s birthday gift of aLittle Tikes grill. Lucas had picked out Disney Cars for his birthday theme. He’s never seen the movies yet since we haven’t let him watch movies yet, but he knew they were cars and that’s all it takes with him. He had a Cars pinata that uses pull strings rather than a bat to open. Each kid took a turn pulling a couple of strings until the M&Ms packs fell out. All his presents were a huge hit. Everyone did better than I would have picking stuff out for him. I think the best part was the cake. He was so cute when everyone was singing to him. He seemed to think it was really great. I’m so glad all my friends could make it – I had so much fun, too!

Tomorrow, for his actual birthday, Mom and I are taking him to the Georgia Aquarium. I was lying in bed with him tonight telling him about our field trip to the aquarium. I asked him if he knew what an aquarium was and he said it was where animals lived. I said yes, it was where all the animals that live in the water are. I started telling him some animals that he would see. After each one he’d say “what else is at the ‘quarium?” and I’d say “umm, sea turtles.” This went on until I ran out of animals and told him we’d just have to see. He decided to come up with some of his own. He said he was going to give me more “choices.” He said, “hmm. hmm” and was really thinking about it, and then said “frogs.” It excited me that he really thought about it and came up with another animal that lives in the water. Then he thought about it some more, and said, “ducks.” I’m soo excited to take him to the aquarium tomorrow!!

DSC05665, a photo by Paul Beechner on Flickr.

April 2, 2012

Lucas has become a little storyteller. Here are some he’s told me the past couple of days (I need to video tape them to get his intonation while he does it. It is very ‘then this happens and then this happens’):

“I’m going in the microwave. And cook myself. And be hot.”

“the door broke and blew open and lucas came in and door slam the fan and broke the fan. it’s gonna do that.”

“The dump truck scoops up Mommy and drives her and dumps her on the roof. The dump truck scoops up the dirt and dumps it on mommy’s head and the dirt falls on her head and down her face and in her eyes.”

He also likes to make his toys talk to each other. They do stuff like go swimming, take naps, and go to time out for hitting. He tucks his stuffed toys into his bed for naptime and diapers them on the changing table. He does imaginative play like the time he told me the bouncer frame was a car and he got in it and used a toy key chain thingy as the key to start and drive the car.

Today Lucas and I played baseball together. I semi got him to hold the bat correctly (as in keeping it in front of him instead of over his shoulder behind his back) and most importantly to watch the ball and not me. He can even hit it some of the time which thrilled us both. It is so so cute to see him so excited.

He is officially a 3-year-old now in my mind. Not because of a date that hasn’t happened yet, but because now everything you say, he responds with, “why?”

He is a pro at the iPad now and has been for a few months ever since he commandeered it from Paul. He knows how to type in the 4 number password to turn it on, go to the folder with his games, select a game, change options in his games, etc. His favorites are Angry Birds, an app that plays cartoon music videos of kid songs/nursery rhymes, and a game of shapes/colors that you can do different things with.

He is in his second week of taking School Skills and Sports Class at Gymboree. They are drop-off classes (yay) Tues-Thurs. I’m not entirely sure what he does in them, but they seem to sit at a table and learn stuff like shapes, read a book, have a snack, have play time, etc. The sports one they have a coach come in and do different sports.

No where on the potty training still. We don’t even try. I have no energy or patience for it.

Or anything these days actually. Lucas has become very needy since Arianna was born. He no longer will do anything off by himself. Instead he wants my attention All. The. Time. I do think I have gotten closer to him, though, since she was born because mostly Paul takes care of Arianna while I take care of Lucas. So now I’m doing all the stuff Paul used to do like bath and bed time. Doing 100% of the Lucas stuff instead of 50% of it has allowed me to get closer with him. I love that when I first get up in the mornings, he comes racing at me, throws himself in my arms, gives me a big hug, and says, “Mommy, I love you!”