Catch Me If You Can!

Luke's speed is gradually increasing. He's still strangely attracted to cords, so as soon as we turn around, he's off to find the closest one. The leg-arm coordination required for true crawling is also emerging. There's a lot less flopping and rolling and a lot more putting one knee forward and then the next.

Luke also wants to feed himself. However, this results in food everywhere! We normally vacuum 20 or so Cheerios after every meal. I'm beginning to think it would be best just to bathe him after every feeding rather than try to wipe him down with a washcloth.

While Luke is enjoying his newfound mobility, he still prefers to be in the upright, walking position. He's becoming more adept at turning himself around while going back and forth between the couch and ottoman. Occasionally, we'll see him try out a few steps while holding onto the couch. If we take his hands, he's off and practically running! Once he gets this all figured out, we're going to be on the move constantly!

Happy Easter!

Luke spent the day visiting with family and playing in the nursery at church. The night before, he had his first experience with dying Easter eggs! Aunt Sarah came down to participate in this grand adventure. Luke wasn't too sure what to think, but he did want to touch the egg. This was also daddy's first time dying eggs! Unfortunately, daddy's first egg fell to the floor and cracked. He was a good sport and later created the egg most decorated with stickers! Luke pooped out after his first egg and went to bed.

Crawler

Luke is (crudely) crawling now. He has little difficulty getting around a room. It takes him a few minutes, involves rolling, turning, inching, and flopping, but he eventually gets to what he's aiming for. Unfortunately, he usually is going for something we'd prefer he not. He really wants to taste my shoes.

Melissa and I continue to act like fools to encourage him. Nosy neighbors might have noticed the entire Miller family crawling around the house. Maybe that's why no one tries to talk to us...

Luke has started consuming Cheerios regularly. He has determined that he'd rather eat them than any fruits or veggies, and lets us know with a fussy face. It looks like he just kissed a lemon. The nice thing about it is Luke will feed himself for a few minutes, or at least try to, which gives us a chance to eat or make our own meal. One drawback is there seems to be Cheerios everywhere now...

He has learned to enjoy drumming. Unfortunately, he thinks everything is a drum. For example, he managed to crawl to our heating vent and tried to use it as a drum. He got a nice puncture wound from that one.

He likes the cats. He wants to grab them, and then rip clumps of their hair out. Oddly enough, our cats run from him.

He is very aware of Melissa and me now. He will hear noises we make and alertly look around to try to find the source. I've had times where he will just barely catch a glimpse of me walking past a door and he bursts into a smile. It's hilarious.

Screaming and Sleeping

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for our family. I caught the Polynesian Death Plague, and promptly gave it to Melissa, so we've been going through Kleenex boxes like candy. Good times.

Luke has fortunately been immune to the cold so far. We're not sure if we got it from him or somewhere else, but he hasn't shown symptoms nearly as severe as ours.

He's, of course, still growing like a weed. He's eating an estimated 20 ounces of solid food a day, and still gulping down 20-28 ounces of milk. Naturally, this consumption is clearly visible on the other end. Basically every diaper contains some "number two".

I decided to let Luke type a line on this week's blog, so here you go:

aasssssssssssssaazx

A little on the vulgar side, but we'll assume he doesnt know what he's doing yet.

Luke likes to scream regularly now. He thinks it's just another form of talking. He's got some pretty strong lungs on him. He'd make a good singer or swimmer.

He thinks people are the most interesting thing around, but he's definitely fascinated with anything and everything. Any strange sounds that we take for granted has his full attention. He's pretty obsessed with my computer power cord at the moment.

He sleeps very well. He will crash around 6:30-7 and usually sleep straight to 5:30-6 the next morning. Melissa and I are still stubborn and will try to stay up until past midnight, but our squirmy little alarm clock is always right on schedule.

More of a Toddler Than a Baby

Yesterday when I got home from work, Luke was playing on the floor. He was in the crawling position on his hands with his stomach down, facing the other way. He heard me taking my coat off, so he turned his head and saw me. He then rotated 180 degrees on his spot almost immediately.

Luke's new mobility has been slowly progressive, but it's been more visible lately. It's not uncommon for us to turn our video monitor off with him facing one direction in the crib, then turning it in a couple minutes later to find him in a completely different position. We finally lowered his crib depth a bit to make sure he doesn't pull himself out.

While not crawling yet, he's certainly close. He usually gets frustrated and gives up, but once he figures it out we think he'll never stop moving. He's so close to moving around that I finally hit the "baby-proofing" stage of parenthood. I'm going to have to seriously lock all the cabinets, cover the outlets, get a new coffee table, etc.

Luke's favorite toy is his electronic musical instrument toy. This garage-sale bargain makes noise whenever he pushes keyboard keys or random buttons. Luke hasn't really figured out how to "push" a button; it's more like smashing. Regardless, the toy is making plenty of noise and lights, and he loves it.

Luke is eating enough food to fuel his ludicrous growth. His transition to solids is complete, and he's eating 3+ meals a day as solids. He still takes 6-8 ounces of milk with a meal as well.

Feeding a baby solids is hilarious. I thought Luke would show us which foods he likes and dislikes, because he made faces of confusion and disgust when we started feeding him solids. We figured he'd just didn't like the food we tried (rice). However, we soon learned that he makes that face with EVERY solid food. That first look is priceless, though. "What the heck are you feeding me?"

Surprisingly, Luke almost immediately took to spoon feeding. I expected it to be a painstaking and slow learning curve. However, it only took a couple feedings for him to have his mouth wide open and ready for the next spoonful of food.

It does get messy sometimes, but usually not. Granted, we're feeding him, and I'm sure things get a lot more interesting when he starts feeding himself. Still, it's nice that we can get through a meal with him in just ten minutes or so, without him being a total mess in the end.

He's a lot more talkative, but his vocabulary is still mostly incoherent. Dada and Mama are common, but he'll say it while looking at anything from me to the cat to his dirty diaper. We've started to try to teach him sign language, but I usually find he gets too distracted to pay attention to me.

Luke's greatest progress is at night. Due to the solid foods, we now have him sleeping a fantastic 10-12 hours straight. He stirs in the night only rarely, and usually we can let him settle down on his own. We used to have to feed him at 11:00 , but we've cut that out so his last feeding is at 6-7. It basically means we have our evenings free again!

Still no teeth. His hair is very blonde and very long; it looks like we've had his hair cut, but we haven't. He's six months old and we're transitioning him into 9-12 month clothing. I'm predicting 6'6".

Just a Teaspoon of Sweet Potatoes Makes Luke Grunt

Not quite as catchy as Mary Poppins. It's true, though, Luke grunted during his entire course of sweet potatoes. However, this is the first meal he's actually eaten anything significant that I fed him (of course he eats everything Melissa feeds him).

Spoon feeding has become easier in general. Usually he grasps for the spoon, and you have to decoy him with a second spoon to get anything in his mouth. Tonight's feeding, however, he just inhaled whenever I got the spoon within an inch of his mouth and the food vanished. He must have been hungry.

Daily he becomes more human-like. Or I guess I should say adult-like, as he technically is a human (he's only 1/8 alien). What I'm trying to say is his behavior is more humanlike.

He has games he likes now. For example, I blow on his face and he blinks and laughs. He likes it when Missy tickles him with her hair. He likes to dance (with our help of course).

He's much more interactive with all of his toys now. He's also very self-entertaining, which is not only convenient, but amazing to watch. He also has about 239048209348 toys thanks to the recent holidays. Thanks everyone... I think... Singing toys put me closer to the edge. The Leap Frog haunts my dreams. I'm taking a 10 minute break from typing. Fetal position.

He also tries to eat everything. This includes food, toys, blankets, carpet, his arm, my arm, the cat, etc. It's fun watching him discover new foods. There's a clear expression on his face that says something like, "What the heck did you just put in my mouth?" While he thinks everything non-food is something to eat, he believes food itself is something to wear instead.

Okay, I had to talk about it somewhere. Solid food poop is completely disgusting. I tried to think of a joke to talk about it more, but it really is disgusting.

He's decided on a new sleeping position. He likes sleeping on his stomach. This is an interesting development. You see, he likes to suckle his bed sheets. So this means that from our perspective (camera on top of the crib) our baby is face down on the sheets all the time. We try to adjust him occasionally so we know he's breathing, but we've started giving up. He also tries to turn his head with a pacifier in his mouth, which results in no pacifier and all three of us awake. We'd unswaddle him, but he still hasn't learned how to not try to gouge his own eyes out when not swaddled. One of these days we'll probably just have to bite the bullet.

His hair is growing, but according to my mom it's coming in even. He's still quite blonde and brown eyed. His eyes continue to generate massive amounts of gunk; we're not sure if that will ever end. Supposedly it can last for up to a year. Maybe it's a blessing, because if he was any cuter I'd probably squeeze him too hard when I hug him.

Luke also likes to eat brains and designed a death ray blaster. That must be the 1/8 alien in him. He prefers his brains scrambled, which is why I don't let him get too close to Melissa.

Aunt Sarah Comes to Visit

Luke had a chance to visit with his Aunt Sarah today. He thinks that she is fascinating to look at. He also decided that it would be best to communicate with her by sticking out his tongue and blowing spit bubbles as hard as he could.