This past year has flown by so fast! It doesn't seem possible that our baby boy Luke is one year old already! Today! I can't hardly believe it! He's such a fun, high maintenance little guy and we love him so much!!! Happy Birthday Louie-pooey!
Luke has been such a fun little man to watch learn and grow. He's smart and stubborn. He knows what he wants and will throw the biggest fits to get it. He'll throw the biggest fits anyway just for fun (at least that's what we've concluded). Sometimes there is just no calming down the Lu! He's a good boy but he definitely has his moments that frustrate this mamma. He has started to throw his head backwards while we are trying to calm him down. I keep telling him he needs to stop that naughty little trick before he throws himself right out of our arms and gets hurt! He especially does it when we're not fast enough at getting him his milk in the middle of the night, well, really at any time of the day. If he would drink it cold we would have no problem but waiting that extra forty seconds makes him madder than mad! Impatient little fart!!
Luke LOVES attention! As long as someone is giving him attention he is fine. The minute you walk away he starts a tantrum and follows crying hysterically until you pick him up. He can make a mess of his cute little face in no time flat! Once he's picked up, like a switch, the tears, snot and slobber are turned off. He's such a stinker!!
Luke loves teasing his big brother Tyke. They play so well together. It melts my heart to watch them interact. They love each other so much. Tyke is always so concerned about Luke and his happiness. Luke is always all smiles when Tyke is around. Luke drives Tyke crazy sometimes, like when we're grocery shopping. Luke will poke and prod and pull Tyke's hair. Tyke slaps at him and yells, "Don't pull my hair! Louie-pooey!!" That just feeds Luke's little teasing personality and he keeps at it. He's a tease!
This morning, on Luke's first birthday, Tyke was so cute when I told him that today was Luke's actual birthday (feels like we've been celebrating all weekend, in fact, longer than that. Since I told Tyke we were planning a party for Luke's birthday he has been excited and running around the house exclaiming happy birthday!). I told Tyke what today was and his face lit right up! He hopped out of bed and ran to Luke and exclaimed, "Happy Birfday Louie-Pooey! We det your toys out!" And he quickly gathered up all of Luke's new toys from his birthday party the day before and threw them into the crib with Luke. It made my whole day!
Luke has started biting! He doesn't bite too hard, yet. It's more of a nibble. That I know of his Daddy is the only who has been bitten hard. Luke still only has eight teeth but I swear he has a few more on the way with as miserable as he's been lately. His gums look swollen to me where his canine teeth will be. I'd like to say I'm positive they'll be coming in any day now, but I'm always wrong when it comes to stuff like that. We've been giving him Motrin as a last resort when we can't calm him down and that seems to cheer him right up! Little guy also likes pulling hair, a lot, and hitting. If I don't have my hair pulled back into a ponytail you can bet he will be yanking on it as hard as he can. He loves it! As for hitting, he thinks he's being funny and playing when he winds up and smacks you on the face with both hands...hard. He's a tough little stinker! We have started slapping his hands back when he does this, not hard at all, and all he does is laughs at us as if to mock us.
Nothing phases Luke when it comes to disciplining him. We get after him all the time to leave the plugs, outlets, blinds, fire place (He always ends up with black hands from this. There is going to be some MAJOR disciplining when it comes winter time and we use the fireplace. We always fence it off but I'm afraid this determined little Lu will bypass our best efforts) and entertainment center doors alone. He grunts at us and then keeps doing what he's doing. We slap his hand and nothing, we slap his hand a little harder and nothing, and so and so forth. It doesn't phase him at all! Sometimes if we yell at him really loud, "NO! NO!" it will get his attention and he'll pucker up and cry but then he goes right back to doing what he shouldn't be doing. Stubborn I tell ya!
This little guy is into everything!! He's a snoop and we have to make sure to close all doors and keep things picked up. He doesn't miss a thing and pretty much everything goes straight into his mouth. The second we open the fridge or freezer doors, Luke is right there and climbing in. He likes to empty the bottom shelf of the fridge before I can even grab what it was I was going after. He's fast! Super fast! I can't even exaggerate how fast he is. He has decided that crawling is too slow but he's not quite ready to walk either so he has invented the "crab" crawl and literally runs on his hands and feet to get where he's going. He's obsessed with plugs and is always trying to unplug stuff and stick it into his mouth. This is a big no-no but he has yet to catch on. He thinks it's a game.
Luke is now pulling himself up to everything he possibly can. He has great balance and hardly ever falls unless he wants to. He pulls himself up to the walls, the couch and even us. One time he nearly pulled my pajama bottoms down pulling on them so hard to stand up. Luke started walking along the couches on 9/13/15. That's pretty much all of the walking he does. We have started working with him a little bit on walking but he's just not to that stage in life yet. He enjoys his toy that he can walk behind and push. He gets so excited that he goes too fast and it flips right out from under him causing him to crash. He thinks it's hilarious and jumps right back up with our help and takes off running again. As for the walker toy, the kind that we put him in, he absolutely hates that! He freaks out every time we put him in it. He has finally figured out how to move the thing around and move forward and backward but it's always in a fit of rage that he does so. We can't get him out of there fast enough! It works out great for Tyke. It's his new favorite toy to play in, he calls it his car. He shows more interest in it now than he did when he was Luke's age. Silly boys!
Luke has started getting fussy about what he will and won't eat. He pretty much refuses to eat baby food now unless it's in the food pouch form. He will pull his left hand up and block his mouth with every single bite. It makes the biggest messes and drives me crazy! We have been offering him more and more "adult" foods and he has like them all. He's a bit stubborn at first to try but once we give up and he's in control he eats most of it and throws a good portion of it on the floor too. He really likes to feed himself with his hands and makes the biggest messes! He's fun to watch! So far the only couple of things he hasn't liked are pancakes and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies which I was really surprised. Luke has discovered that he LOVES chocolate and is always begging me for a chocolate chip or an M&M. He loves apple fritter donuts, just like his Daddy and brother. He loves grilled cheese sandwiches, cheese quesadillas, pot pie, ground hamburger, and noodles. Luke is just like his Daddy and brother too in the milk department. He LOVES chocolate milk! Luckily he will still drink it plain too. We moved him off of formula and onto cows milk about a week ago. We ran out of formula and didn't see a point in buying more just for one week. The wallets are thankful for that! He adjusted well. The first couple of days were a little rough but he's great with it now! If it doesn't have chocolate in it then it had better be warmed up otherwise he will have nothing to do with and throw it at us. On September 23rd Luke drank through a straw for the first time ever! Chad and I were both shocked because we have never practiced with him or even tried before and he drank through it like a pro. Of course that was a small straw in an apple juice box. We tried getting him to drink through a regular straw and he either couldn't or wouldn't, he just sat and chewed on the straw until it was no longer usable.
Luke is still not sleeping through the night, sigh. He has gotten better and we have been trying really hard to have more of a bedtime routine. I think it has helped a little bit. Luke won't go to sleep without being rocked for a good twenty minutes now. He has been spoiled! I don't mind it one bit but some nights it would be nice if we could just put him in his crib and walk away like we used to. Luke is getting up one to two times a night now instead of three. There have been two nights though where he didn't think sleep was necessary and kept us up all but 1 1/2-2 hours! It made for a long day at work the following days. There have also been a couple of nights when he has woken up around 4 a.m. wide awake and ready to play. We're exhausted! We'll sleep while he plays and when we wake up for the day he is snoozing. Silly boy!
With all of Luke's funny little actions, being high maintenance and all, I sometimes think that his little self is wiser and older than a one year old. There's just something about him. He's always been a little more ahead of the game than a baby should be. We're excited to watch him grow and see where he leads to.
Our big boy has grown so much and so fast that I keep joking that he and Tyke will be sharing the same sized clothes soon. I may not be exaggerating. Our twelve month old is wearing anywhere from 18 month to 24 month/2t shirts now! He's wearing 12 month jeans, which are a little on the big size but the 9 month size is too little. He is in size 4 diapers and size 4 shoes. His arches seem high to me so we have a hard getting shoes on and keeping them on. With that problem he doesn't really wear shoes too often. He just doesn't need them yet.
We love our Bubba-Lu so much! One year down and many, many, many more to go buddy! Happy 1st Birthday to our favorite little Louie-pooey! We love you!
