Luke's Luscious Locks

Luke has some seriously unfortunate old-man hair. Which Kenny loves and refuses to let me cut. To try to help him come to his senses, I have started doing some fun hairdos at night to draw attention to how ridiculous it is. 

Stay tuned for more manipulation of the comb-over.

We're Not at Mere Mere's Anymore...

Poor Luke and his makeshift playmat.

Five Months

At his five-month mark, Luke is around the respectable weight of sixteen and a half pounds, placing him at about the 40th percentile (a sad fall from his off-the-charts beginning, but much better than his five-week measurements at around the 25th), and is nice and long at 26 3/4 inches and the 90th percentile. With proper incentive he can roll over both directions, although he still favors from back to front and has to be reminded how to roll from front to back. We've had strangers comment on his excellent hand-eye coordination (his most practiced move being to his mouth), but he seems to only recently have noticed what his hands look like and enjoys twirling them around in front of his face. Luke loves his toes and enjoys pulling his feet all the way to his mouth to suck on his big toe. He is still a menace in church--one week I heard a nice lady lean over to her neighbor and exclaim "aw, there's that little boy who spit up all over his grandma last week!"--and his bodily functions are still so loud that a member making a comment in Sunday school stopped mid-sentence and turned around to look and laugh a few weeks ago. To make matters worse, he has now started to imitate us by laughing whenever he makes a particularly loud toot.

Luke is a very social little guy, who usually smiles at strangers but has recently started to cry at the sight of certain individuals with no apparent rhyme or reason. He does, however, seem to really like other babies and kids. He had the chance to interact with another baby about his size at the ward Halloween party who Luke was very interested in, but who started to cry after Luke shrieked at her three or four times.

He is the main source of our entertainment both day and (still, unfortunately) night!

Happy Halloween

from the family of food mascots.

Play with me!

Luke is so happy to have someone other than his mother to look at. 

Why nothing ever gets done...

this is what I see everyday. 

All grown up...

I thought I would do this monthly update on time.

Luke began his fourth month of life with a long road trip from Alabama to our new home in Houston, making Luke a very well-traveled little baby who has visited nine states in his short little life, ten if you include the time he and I spent in Colorado on a layover. On our way through Louisiana we stopped and visited the beautiful state capital building and saw where Huey Long was shot. Some of the staff we met thought Luke was just the cutest thing they had ever seen.

Luke keeps getting more active every day and has started to show unfortunate symptoms of boredom.  He has become very frustrated with his little immobile body but has learned some body signals to help us understand what it is that he wants, i.e. arching his back to be picked up and leaning forwards when he wants us to stand. He is extremely curious and is always looking around, and now has enough hand-eye coordination to try to grab whatever it is he sees (his new favorites being faces, hair, and glasses).

And if nothing else suffices, Luke will talk.
And talk.
And wiggle.
And screech.
And talk some more.

In fact, everything Luke does is loud. His bowel movements have become the stuff of legends in relief society, since he always picks the quietest moments to grunt and do his thing. The first week we attended a kind lady I hadn't met yet walked up after the meeting, smiled sweetly and exclaimed, "My your baby sure is loud!"

Luke loves his bath time and has recently learned how to splash, flailing all four of his limbs until he has enough water in his face. He also loves being outdoors, and will calm down instantly if I take him out onto our balcony or out for a walk. He is showing a preference for music, and will listen quietly when I play the piano or when his daddy sings. Luke enjoys being read to and talked to and tickled and doesn't seem to mind loud noises or bright lights or quick movements. He doesn't like being put down for a nap or swaddled, but flails too much in his sleep to graduate from it yet, and now refuses to take a binky at all. He still isn't sleeping through the night (and has, in fact, regressed in that department) and has included his father in the nightly wakings by kicking him in the face or tooting loudly in his general direction while nursing. But on the whole Luke is just a smiley, happy, wiggly little guy.