My Little ....... Reader?

There are a lot of words I could use to describe Luke, but I never dreamed that it would be "reader." But the last couple of weeks, he has been getting in the car and, (amazing) getting out his book to (yes) read. Ok, for many of you, this is just a normal routine for your kids. But for mine (his kindergarten teacher told me he'd be a person who would probably have to read on the treadmill), it is nothing short of a reading miracle. What's got him hooked? The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He's on book 2 and loves the potty humor and boyish antics of Greg Heffley. What to do when the five book series is over? I'm thinking Captain Underpants!

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Desperate Days Call for Desperate Measures

On a day when I had my children shovel 6 inches of snow off of our entire driveway...

(1 hour of energy burned)

and took them sledding on an enormous hill

the closest thing to a ski slope we have here in town....

(2 additional hours of energy burned)

And on a day when my boy is still bouncing around like silly putty at bedtime,

The couch becomes a landing pad for his crazy football-catching stunts.

No, I don't let him (or anyone) jump on the couch, not usually, (uh-uh!)

but since today,

we are on Snow Day #10...

daddy is out of town...

and momma desperately needs her boy to get a good night's sleep....

The couch will be ok.

(another hour of energy is burned.)

Good night!!!

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Lesson of the Day

There has been a continuous theme during Luke's elementary years so far......
The things that run through my mind every year?

"I wonder how bad the teacher thinks my parenting skills must be?!
"If they just knew how many books I've read and prayers I've said!"
"Oh gosh, what will he do next?"

The "moment of truth" happens from about 3:32 to 3:33, as I learn what excitement he brought the classroom on that particular day.

On Wednesday, he told me about their Lesson of the Day, synonyms. I had not really seen him this excited about actual classroom content before. He began explaining what synonyms are and how he had provided several examples of synonyms to the class. Ah, finally a proud parent moment. I listened intently as he told me his examples.....

Bottom - Butt
Toot - Fart
Poop - Turd

I should have seen this one coming. Truly. I am guessing the teacher has a sense of humor because I didn't get a note or phone call.

Other lesson of the day? Boys will be boys and God isn't finished with mine yet.

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Uh-Oh Hawk

You've heard of a mowhawk.

You've heard of a faux hawk.

but have you ever heard of an uh-oh hawk?

That is when mommy asks daddy to run baby boy by and get a quick haircut today please.

When mommy sees baby boy....

UH OH!!!!!

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Bed Head

The pictures are self-explanatory. The kid sleeps hard.

On a possibly related note, his teacher tactfully suggested to him today that he might want to jump on the trampoline in the morning before he came to school! (she was serious and wasn't being mean, just giving him some pretty sound advice as a mom of boys and teacher of 30 years.) I ADORE his teacher by the way, and that just cracked me up.

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Legos Gone Wild!

He's a madman I tell you!

Every since we returned from our 6 day stay in Cancun, Luke can think of nothing and I mean nothing but Legos. It's as though he's taking one long drag on his Lego cigarette. Ahhhhhh!

Saturday, while Tom and I unpacked, did laundry, cleared out the Thanksgiving decor, etc., Luke made Lego creations FROM 9 AM to 9 PM. Twelve hours of Legos. No breaks. No commercials. No kidding. The child didn't even want to eat. Yesterday was no different, although I did have to to force him get out of the house to visit Granny and Gran Carolyn. That was like extracting his toenails.Then yesterday evening, I began to find some strange items around the house.
A screwdriver. 3 tiny screws. And the remainder of this little basketball prism that lights up and twirls around on a base in his room. He uses it as a night light.Or should I say USED it as a night light.

Had you guessed what the Legomaniac had done? He had opened up the base (without asking mind you), taken out the spinning motor that is powered by electricity, built a Lego casing for it, and attached legos to the moving parts to attempt to make his Legos creations move.

Shortly after he started his project, I had to make him go to bed, but I have a feeling his newest Lego creation is purcolating in his brain even as he sleeps.

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Kindergarten Confessions

You may remember our struggles with Luke's FIRST Kindergarten year. We had roughs and tumbles and timeouts and even a trip or two to the Principal. I think I about used up all my tears and brain cells trying to figure out what to do with the child.

After much talking and reading and discussing and praying, Luke is now in superkindergarten, and he has an alias. He has transformed into a boy named "L.J." Before school started, we heard that his class was bursting full of Lukes, so he took it upon himself to find a different name. Luke James dubbed himself L.J.

It's been such a fantastic year so far that I may insist that he goes by L.J. every year. Now, to clarify, we haven't had parent teacher conferences yet... however, it feels better. It feels like he is NOW ready for kindergarten. There seems to be a peace and a certainty with Luke's situation that I was afraid wouldn't find me for years. It probably helps that Luke's teacher is an angel sent straight to her earthly classroom strictly for one little 6 year old stinkbug named L.J. She's beyond fantastic.

Anyway, the boy just cracks me up. I walked by his classroom this morning and observed some of L.J. and his classmates' art on the walls. The children were apparently supposed to draw a picture of what their family likes to do together.

Here is Kylie's creation. She and her family enjoy swimming in Grandma's pool.Annette and her family love to go to church. How sweet.

L.J.'s friend Wyatt has a family who enjoys boating. I love Maya's picture of her family playing tic tac toe.

and here is L.J.'s picture. Read the bottom of the page: "My family likes to have fun together. Here is a picture of us. We are on a trip on a pirate ship." There is even a cannon firing and I believe we are holding guns. I hope that is Tom up on the mast.

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Surrounded by Women

Well, not women yet, but girls and therefore,
a ton of
estrogen,
emotions
and lipstick.
How will such a
singular
testosterone bomb
fare around five (5)
female cousins and sisters
with no other boy
to speak of
in his immediate family?

Just bein' a momma
and wonderin'.

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War

There's a war going on in our house.

Look carefully.

Can you see it?

No, it's not mommy vs. Kami during piano practice

Can you feel the epic saga going on right under our noses?

Here, let me zoom in for you.It's a classic story of good vs. evil.

Of tragedy and courage. Of heroes and villians.It's the solider willing to die for his cause... never giving up hope, following the orders of his commander to the death. The stormtrooper um... stormtrooping over the smooth piano casing waiting for destiny to occur.
As Yoda and his protege look on.

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Testosterone X 6

A month after Luke's 6th birthday, we finally had his party!

You can see below why I called this post "Testosterone X 6."
Six 6-year old boys at Luke's 6th birthday party.

Luke wanted a Tech Deck birthday party. In case you don't know, Tech Decks are little fingerboard toys that kids can do tricks with.

The good thing about Tech Decks? No road rash!We set up a skatepark using his Tech Deck skateboard ramps. The boys had way more fun playing in the skatepark than I imagined they would. I thought it would be one of those things that lasts 5 minutes and then they start running like wild maniacs around the house. I guess beginning the party by giving each boy his own Tech Deck skateboard helped with that. (We blew up about 30 balloons and put Tech Decks in 6 of them. The boys had to bust open the balloons to find a Tech Deck skateboard. They loved this noise and chaos- Luke's idea!)

If you look carefully at the boy in the foreground, you can see his little Tech Deck skateboard flying through the air doing some cool trick. Luke found these grind rails on You Tube. I know, I can't believe that a then 5 year old could surf You Tube (with me watching over his shoulder!!!) and discover a tutorial on how to make a grind rail (what's a grind rail anyway???) using a wood block and a drawer pull from Home Depot.

But find it he did, so we made our trip to Home Depot and my ever so handy husband put drilled holes and put them together. We gave the boys sharpies and they spent about 15-20 minutes decorating their own grind rail to take home later.

It was amazing how totally cool they thought this was.

It's also amazing how cool they thought it was when the boy in the top right hand corner of the photo belched. See Luke laughing hysterically? Opening presents was great fun for Luke. After that, they did all begin running around like wild maniacs, but I didn't stop them.

After all, how often does my boy get to just revel in his testosterone?

Here is our sweaty and stinky boy getting his picture taken by his skateboarding birthday cake from Reasors after running around like a wild maniac.

After all that spitting, burping, running, crashing and burning, you can see on his sweet, little face that he still gets super excited about blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.

And that made this estrogen-laden momma very, very happy.

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I Heart Faces - Week 24 (BOYS!)

I really do heart this face, as ornery as it is.

Notice kool-aid mustache, sweaty hairline, and squinting left eye... focusing on intended target for his green water balloon.

What could be more boyish?

Check I Heart Faces website for more faces of ornery boys.

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Lukeified

The girls and I sometimes reflect on how different our lives would be if 5 1/2 years ago, a little boy had not entered our world, bursting upon the scene with grand gusto.

It seems apropos now, looking back, that he couldn't be born naturally, because he had gotten himself into quite a predicament: the cord wrapped around his neck. And that Tom and I had to be rushed off to the stark white surgical room to have him born by emergency C-section, The whole family waiting breathlessly for our wide-eyed boy to take his first gasp of air.

Since that moment, none of us have really caught our breaths; he keeps us going... moment to moment and day to day!

Here are some things we may not have around without him....

*An innumerable amount of hot wheels cars. Some without wheels, some crushed, some with Cheerios smashed inside of them. Some painted, some immaculate. Some named. Some in piles. Always wanting more.

*Trick tracks. Arranged in every formation known to man.

*Naked bottoms - stuck in our faces whenever possible. (what is this about?)

*Tech Dech skateboarding stuff - his latest love.

*Behavior Charts! - We were introduced to the lovely discipline by Luke's kindergarten teacher. Didn't even know they existed.

*Monster Trucks - he even has a monster truck video that he can watch and I laugh as he throws in the appropriate "yeeeeeeeeahhhh!"

*Daring stunts - on scooters, on the trampoline, into swimming pools, on bicycles (look at this one when he was 3 1/2), ... pushing the envelope. Always. Even in the kitchen! (see below)But the real reason I began this post in the first place was because of Luke's love for Legos. I call him a Legomaniac. Sometimes, his attention span seems impossible, but when it comes to Legos, he can sit there for HOURS, and not budge. This started when we went to Disney World two Octobers ago and Papa bought the kids a Lego set at the Lego store when we were shopping. Luke was hooked and has gotten progressively more demanding for more difficult sets. It's gotten to where the $20 and $30 sets just don't cut it. So, this Christmas, Nana, Papa and Grand Carolyn got him some biggies: The $100.00 sets. He spent a few, short days working on the Police Headquarters. When it was time for a dinner break, he would cry and say, "I can't eat because I can't get my mind off Legos!!!" But when he finished, he was so proud of his accomplishment. I was proud too - proud there were a few hours that he wasn't begging to play the Wii. Whew. Small victories. Anyway, he wanted me to take some pictures and post them on the blog for all the world to see.

Legos have had a pretty big influence on our family. Ellie is now in love with Legos, and the funny thing is my sister's girls, the three pretty princesses, well, they like Legos now too! And you may be able to catch them working a (gasp) Indiana Jones Lego set! All because of Luke.

We've all been Lukeified. And glad about it.

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Do You See What I See?

It is subtle. But definitely there.Here, look a little closer.
Can you see it? What if I zoom in?The only thing I can say is... that is pretty nice penmanship for writing on a bumpy pillow with a sharpie marker!In triplicate! (look back at first pic). And we have a pretty good idea of whodunit!

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More Luke

The boy is on a roll.

Remember in August when he stepped on a red ant hill on our trip to the bat cave? The ants crawled up his legs and bit him a couple times?

Then a couple weeks later, he was stung 5 times on the 2nd day of school by yellow jackets?

There seems to be something about the stinging, biting, sticking thing that has a strange attraction to him.... (but things happen in threes, they say, so this pattern is OVER!)

....we couldn't escape October without another incident. Tonight at soccer practice, he fell down (he does a lot of flipping and rolling on the ground) and he fell directly into a thick sticker burr patch. Luckily, Tom was at practice and ran right over to him where he was wailing on the ground. There were more than 15 sticker burrs jabbed into one hand and 5-7 on the other, (according to Tom who seriously NEVER exaggerates) and his shorts and socks were totally covered. Tom just stripped him out of his clothes right there while he cried pitifully. The sticker burrs were stuck in his skin all over, and when he pulled them out, many of the stickers just broke off and left a sticker in his skin that we had to extract later. Talk about miserable. Those things hurt and toughness was not exactly his theme tonight. He reeled over the disturbing incident for several hours. It even wore Tom out -he went to bed early.... and here I am blogging about it! I guess sleep is his therapy, while blogging is mine!

The poor kid ranked the pain of his 3 incidents for us. In order from least painful to most painful...

1) ant bites
2) sticker burrs
3) YELLOW JACKET STINGS!!!

One more Luke note:

On Tuesday, he came home and said he'd had a "rough day" at school. Only one out of five on his behavior chart, and by the way, Mom, I got one for pushing a friend out of line "because he was cutting in front of Ethan. I just had to make it right." Ok, pushing is not good, but at least it was not hitting or biting, and like a tiny superhero, he was righting the wrongs of the world.

So, on Wednesday, I picked him up from school and asked the teacher if today was a better day, since Luke had told me himself (so proud of him) about the day before and how it was not his best day ever.

Completely serious, she reported, "Oh yes, it was a much better day today. Luke did not body slam anyone today." So, I guess he didn't exactly tell me the entire truth about his little heroic episode yesterday. Apparently, he was the villain!

You moms of boys have to forgive me... I'm sure this stuff is old news to you.... but with my 2 oldest being girls, every day is a shocking and thrilling adventure. However, I wouldn't have it any other way!!! We are blessed beyond measure with this rough and tumble little boy.

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Flashback Friday

It seems appropriate, with all of my recent posts about Luke. This was taken in January of 2006, one day when my niece Lauren was spending some time at our house. Luke found a marker, I think it was called "Radical Red," and proceeded to change little, precious, dainty, Lauren into Spider Man. This was his explanation, at least.

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