When did we get a dog?

Having grown up with an incredible dog, Hercules, and now my brother's dog, Jake, I am used to having a friend when I ate. Herk was quick to appear whenever he heard someone in the kitchen. He wanted to see if he could get a free meal.

Lately, Lucas has been doing the same thing. On Sunday I was cutting watermelon. I turned around and lo and behold, Lucas had come into the kitchen and was standing next to me, looking for a handout. He is so quiet, I didn't realize he was there. With the dogs you at least had some warning-whether it be from their nails on the floor or their tags. It gave me a good laugh. At least I didn't make him sit and give me paw to get some fresh melon:)

He managed to get blackberries, french bread sticks and pretzels off of me this weekend in addition to the watermelon-you can say a lot of things about my son but you can't say that he doesn't like to eat!

Getting stuff done

Last week we had a lot going on-I had things to do right after work two nights which meant Marc was on Lucas duty, we had bath nights, we had shopping and then I need to pack Lucas and I up to travel to Buffalo. Busy, busy, busy. But I knew most of it would get done, at least the important things would. So laundry would have to wait until I got back-big deal.

This week is starting off just a crazy as last week-I had an allergist appointment last night (after having cats for 33 years, I guess I am allergic to them now) and picked Lucas up late. Marc was late coming home from work but one of us needed to get my prescription from the drug store. Plus we had bath night, needed to start on the laundry piling up and Marc's bathroom really needed to be put back together. And yes, everything needed to be done last night. There was no way we would get it all done if we tried to do it as a family. I sent Marc out to the store and I started on the rest of it.

We have an unusual ritual in our house-Marc and I both give Lucas a bath. I am fine doing it by myself (and always do when I am in Buffalo) but Marc for some reason doesn't think it can be done. We were fine-Lucas had a great time, played and laughed and tried to get me wet. No big deal. The next task was to get the bathroom back in working order. While Lucas and I were in Buffalo, Marc painted his bathroom. It isn't very big and he did a really good job, but it still needed to be cleaned. I set Lucas up with some toys in the family room, called him every few minutes and got to work washing the walls. It took all of 15 minutes.

When Marc got home 75 minutes later, he could not believe the I got all that done. He kept asking, where was Lucas? Playing in the family room. Why does he find it hard to imagine you can actually get work done while having to keep an eye on the little one? I drag out my tupperware and pots for Lucas whenever I need to be in the kitchen for a long time. He loves it-he just goes back and forth between the kitchen and family room. I am not sure if Marc thinks that we need to be engaged with Lucas all the time-clearly he doesn't get as much done as I do when left alone with Lucas. Lucas needs to start figuring things out on his own, like what to play with. If you show him something, that generally keeps him entertained for a while, and it doesn't need to be the TV.

The rest of the week is going to be just as crazy-need to go grocery shopping, need to get to Target, need to get a bunch of things to take with us to Buffalo when we go next weekend again. Maybe I can leave Marc at home and Lucas and I will tear through these errands . . .

Spelling, drums, hugs and distractions

I have never been a great verbal speller-I hated spelling bees in school, although I love to edit publications and often catch the mistakes. Lately we, Marc and I, have had to do a lot of spelling because Lucas is learning more and more words. Elmo is a banned word in our house (if spoken it will mean cries and shouts for MELMO, pointing to the TV) and we have to watch saying Milk and Banana as well. If either of those words are said, Lucas runs to the fridge and tries to open it. I think it is better if we just have a white board and write the word not to be spoken-I would be much more comfortable with that.

Last night we went to Home Depot to get paint for Marc's bathroom and gardening stuff. I thought it would be a nice change for Lucas-I imagine he is getting tired of the Giant Eagle, Target, Babies R Us circuit of shopping. What kid doesn't get excited about grills, lawn movers and paint? He was really good and the paint lady gave us a bunch of paint stirrers. Of course we gave one to Lucas. He LOVED it-kept saying "Stick" and spend a good 15 minutes hitting the bars of the shopping cart while we looked for flower seeds. At one point he got two stirrers and boy, did he go to town. Everyone kept saying he must be a future drummer. He did have pretty good coordination with them. Once we got into the car, then the real fun began. nothing was safe from getting hit. Luckily, once we got home, Lucas didn't go after Jeff with the stirrers-they passed each other and I thought for sure Jeff was going to get hit in the head. I guess Lucas didn't need to smack him-he had already hit Jeff with a spoon earlier.

Lucas and his buddy Brian have a new ritual at the end of the day. Brian will go up to Lucas and give him a big hug good bye. It is the cutest thing I have seen. I am not sure if Lucas really likes it but Brian will come from whatever he was doing, try to turn Lucas so they are facing each other and then Brian will put his arms around Lucas and put his head on Lucas' chest-just melts my heart! Finn, another friend tried to do the same thing to Lucas two days ago.

Another new trick the Lucas does when I pick him up is to get Mia (one of my favorites) to distract me so I can't put Lucas' jacket on. It has happened the past few days. I come in, find Lucas and Mia magically appears. Because she is a sweet little girl, I always talk to her, comment on her outfit, ask if she has had a good day. At this point, Lucas has taken off someplace else in the room and tries to hide so I can't get his jacket on and get him home. How do they come up with these things? They aren't even verbal yet!!!!!!

19 months and one black eye

Lucas got his first black eye on Saturday. He had crawled into a laundry basket and then fell forward, hitting his head on a table. He got a small cut and soon it started to swell and bruise. He didn't cry much, a cuddle and kiss from me seemed to do the trick. He did sit still for a few minutes so I could put some ice on it. Now it is a smear of blue and purple above his eye.

And he turned 19 months on Friday. Here are his latest adventures and tricks:
1. He likes to try to open the fridge door. He likes to point at what he wants when he is luck enough to get in there.
2. He loves to be outside, though I think he is afraid of sticks on the ground.
3. He can walk up the steps on his own, holding onto the railing.
4. He LOVES Elmo. He doesn't even want to sit through all of Sesame Street-he wants us to forward to "Melmo" as he calls him.
5. It looks like he is starting on his next set of molars.
6. He hates to be dropped off at daycare and hates to be picked up. One day he even tried to blend in with the group as they were leaving to play in the AP room.
7. He knows all the parts of your face and likes to point to them.
8. He actually combined two words the other night-of course I can't recall what they were now.
9. He likes to look out the front window of my car-he can't see well out of the side one because I have a sun visor up.
10. He likes to say Hi and Bye to everyone-going grocery shopping can be a good laugh.
11. He didn't want to hold my hand the other day. We were leaving a store and I had gotten him out of the buggy to walk outside. I reached for his hand and he didn't take mine:(
12. He thinks it is a fun game to run around our kitchen table when you are trying to get him for something. He will stand behind a chair and look at you, smiling and laughing.
13. He loves to feed himself with a spoon-he gets really mad if he can't do it.
14. He is getting really good at throwing a ball!