We are Alive!

I promise we are alive!   I haven't blogged in over a month.   I usually commit about 15 minutes per weekend to do so and a couple of evenings during the week, but I have really been slacking.   I am blaming the lack of blogging time on many things: being out of town for several weekends, having weekend guests, working, raising a toddler and working on rental property projects.  I wouldn't change a thing though.  Instead of trying to catch up on all of those weekends we missed, I think I will just do a quick recap of what Luke's been up to lately.   I cannot believe he is already 20 months old! It seems like it was only a few months ago that we were celebrating his first birthday and important milestones like walking and talking.   Now, he is a little boy!

Luke takes a jump shot.

Luke and cousin, Traber, playing ring around the rosie.

Our little fearless boy has surprisingly become more careful (and almost fearful) at certain things--which I really should not complain about.  I bet I have used the words "be careful" at least 20 times per day over the past 9 months with Luke, so it should be setting in now.  

• We have taken him to a splash park a couple of times and, instead of playing in the water, he wants mommy to hold him.  
• We took him to our neighborhood pool when my family was in town.  Most of his cousins, uncles and daddy were having fun in the pool, while mommy held him as we watched.  We tried several times to try to get him used to the water while we were there, but we finally decided it may be better to ease him into it.  It probably made the other pool visitors have a more enjoyable time as well, as Luke screamed and cried, "No....No!" while he was in the water.  Many onlookers appeared very concerned that we were "forcing" Luke into the water when he didn't want to be.
• We took him to an inflatable jumpy place with some of his friends from our church community group.  While the other kids laughed and jumped, Luke screamed and cried, "Mommy, No!"  After about an hour and a half of being there though, he finally warmed up to it and started to really enjoy it.

I've been wondering, who is this child and what has he done with my Luke.   Now, I really should not complain or even question this behavior, because this is stellar considering where we have come from.  There have been hundreds of times that my heart has skipped beats due to Luke's fearless behavior.  But, I have to say that the fearlessness has not completely gone away--it still shows up in other activities.  For example, a couple of weeks ago at a park, Luke insisted on playing on the big kid playscape.  He proceeded to climb to the top of the playscape, and then tried to scoot off the edge where larger kids use the pole to slide down.   He was literally going to just hop down from the top, which happened to be about 8 feet off the ground.  Of course, I was right behind him and I had to explain to him why that was not a good idea.  That ended in an arching of his back and crying--this kid is very determined!

We recently decided to help Luke face one of his fears (of water), by filling up his little pool in our backyard and letting him play in that.  We figured it would be a great start.   He loved going to our neighborhood pool last year, so we're hoping he just needs to warm up to it again this season.

Hmmm..I guess it's kind of like an outdoor bath..it could be fun.

The water splashes just as well as my bath water!

OK...maybe I'll get in.

This is so much fun!

I think he is starting to get used to it.   Our plan is to try our neighborhood pool again this weekend.  We'll see how things go.   In the meantime, Drew and I are going to enjoy the new, more careful Luke when he decides to go into that mode.  But, I am still going to stay on my toes.  He can switch back to fearless Luke in a blink of an eye!

In case you want to see some recent pictures of what we have been up to, you can visit our picasa web albums.  Although I will warn you--we have slacked just as much at taking photos as we have at blogging.  Here is a link to our May album: May 2011