I don’t remember how that happened. Can someone explain?
Packing away grown out clothes and starting to plan his first birthday party has made me emotional. He’s still such a baby to us and we find ourselves struggling to not see him as a little delicate newborn anymore. As we struggle to come to terms with it all, he is having the time of his life experimenting new things and has had a few firsts this month.
Boy oh boy! He’s all boy!
Oh Lucas Wayne, where do I start? Since the beginning he has been such a happy and high spirited baby. His birth was rough (as in the pain), but he was here so quick, very true to his personality. He was a breeze as a newborn. Food and dry diapers is all it took. So it seemed. He did great nursing and we had no issue with his latch. I feed all my babies on demand and it has worked well for us every time. He was so good at eating but we noticed a pattern when he was about a week old. It felt like he was spitting up, all the time. Come to find out about a week after that when we took him to our chiropractor, turns out he has reflux. My other babies never experienced this so it was new to me and scared me to say the least. Because of this, he had trouble gaining weight. He usually hung out around the 5th to 8th percentile for his weight. Another thing I had never experienced with either of my babies. So, this lead to some challenging times, which included sleep. I guess we can say it came in waves, some days he sleep all night long and some days he was up every hour of the night. When we think about it, Lucas has been the most challenging baby we’ve had. But his love is so rewarding and filling that I can’t compare it to any other. Like I said, we still see him as a tiny little baby that needs us around the clock. That’s starting to change.
All that to say, Lucas was a hard baby. He went out with a bang!
Lucas at nine months is B U S Y.
No one can contain this big boy. He is on the go. Although he is not crawling yet, he sure can get places! We leave him on the floor most of the time for freedom because he gets tired of being held when there’s much to do. From brother and sister running around like maniacs, toys laying around and nursery rhymes on the TV (always!) there is not much we need to do to entertain him. He has attempted the movement of crawling a few times here and there, but he doesn’t seem to want to commit just yet. As soon as we get home, he lays on the floor and explores the living room floor rolling around all over. He can roll better than my breakfast egg and chorizo burrito. We constantly have to pick him up and move him back to the safe zone. It’s so funny how he can get his head stuck just about anywhere. I don’t know how he does it. He’s got a pretty big melon.
WHAT’S NEW?
• Eye Contact. This boy loves to make eye contact with just about anyone that will look. As soon as someone’s eyes hit his, it’s all grins! And what’s dangerous, is that he’s got the dreamy eyes! Lock up your daughters!
• Well, bath time is a close second. Since he’s sturdier now I can bathe him in the kitchen sink. First time we tried it, I ended up sopping wet. And he loved it when I yelled NO, every time he splashed.
• Rolling. Like I said, homeboy can roll! Everywhere. Is there a sport that includes speed rolling? Because he would dominate! Like get a scholarship and go pro kinda roll.
• We’ve got a boy that says, “muh-muh,” and “pa-pah.”
• Rowdy dude! He loves to bang his toys around, or anything really. If it makes a terribly loud and obnoxious noise, he’s all for it.
• Adrenaline. We realized when one of Brandon's friends swung Lucas in his car seat (at 3 months) as if he was on a roller-coaster, that Lucas is an adrenaline junkie! Throw him up, spin him around, bounce him on the bed, he loves it all and wants MORE and MORE!
• Sippy cups! Is it too early to start training? He loves the sippy cup! When did you train on the sippy?
• Moana. Well we cant get away from it. Noah and Sky were all about Moana when it came out and that's all that Lucas watches in the car. How many times can you sing "How Far I'll Go" before going crazy?
• His man hair. His hair is so incredibly soft! Sky loves to just float her hand right over the top and mama likes to run fingers through it like 792 times a day.
• He is convinced he can feed himself with a fork and doesn't need anyone's help.
• He loves to be naked! So this makes changing diapers so easy.
• Lucas is in size 3 diapers and 9-12 month clothes.
This boy's got an appetite. We introduced table foods at 7 months. And he looked at us with the “why have you been keeping this from me?” look. We cannot get away with eating without him anymore. When we get ready for dinner in the evenings, he knows what’s up. As soon as we sit down to eat, he will yell as loud as he possible can so we can pick him up and bring him to the table with us. He will try to eat just about anything he sees on our plate. He only has the two bottom teeth so we try to mash up everything as best we can for him but he also does a great job at gumming his food too. Some of the stuff he has really taken a liking to are, mashed potatoes, green beans, cheese, rice, beans, eggs, pancakes, hot dogs, pasta, grilled cheese and he even loves turkey pot pie.
S L E E P
We co-slept from birth to about 2 months and then kept Lucas in our room in the Jonathan Adler Rock ‘n Play and the Graco Dream Glider until he turned 8 months. His sleeping kind of came in waves. He had a season that he slept all night without waking for a bottle and some nights that we were up with him every hour and had to rock him back to sleep. Those nights were extremely exhausting! Because of the reflux and the come and go habits, we were scared to crib train him. We finally decided to pull the plug and go for it at 8 months. We were absolutely terrified! The first night, we put him down with minimal issues and he slept all night. It was all in our head. Since then, he has been sleeping like a dream! He will occasionally wake for a bottle and go back down but most nights, we put him down from 7-8 and won’t hear a peep from him until we wake him at 6:30. It’s so amazing! *Praise hands.
P L A Y
What can I get my hands on? Ooh, what's that? I wanna touch that! I swear it's what he’s always thinking. He loves anything that makes noise or lights up. He especially likes Noah’s galactic light up gun and Brandon’s a fan of that. When brother and sister sit around in Noah’s room, we can lay Lucas down and leave them all to play for an hour. Sky is really good about making sure he has a toy in hand and Noah is great at keeping him safe. It’s so nice to be able to rely on the big kids to play with him and take a breather while they interact.
He's also The cutest sight to see is when he lays on his belly looking up and sister comes right up to him (all up in his grill) and they just stare at one another for a minute.
L U C A S - W A Y N E
Lucas Wayne, your desire to do everything independently amazes us and make us so proud, but also scares us to death sometimes. I think you will be that boy jumping off the roof of the house because you are convinced you are superhuman and unbreakable. My boy, you are mighty. Boy, you are strong. When you get a hold of something, it’s like a fight to the end to get you to let go. Those baby muscle are powerful. Some say you may have a temper when things don’t go your way, but I think you are determined like your daddy and you will do great things. You have no limits besides the ones your set for yourself and I’m extremely excited to see where you will go and what you will do. You have a great example in your daddy of having no limits.
I love your patience for your sister. She can be absolutely overwhelming, but you accept her with an open heart and a toothy smile every time. Even when she goes stage 5 clinger on you. *She’s just preparing you for what you should avoid when you start dating. Don’t worry.
I love the admiration you have for your brother. I love how you search for him constantly. The little smirk you get when he jumps off the couch or does a silly dance. I know he cannot wait until you can play race cars with him and just have someone to be a total dude with. Your bond will be amazing, I know it. And dangerous.
All in all Luke, you have come to complete our family. We are so thankful for you and excited to see what comes our way.
9 month PHOTO DUMP
