April Fun

The beginning of April Frederic had to go to Texas for work for a few days. Instead of exhausting myself driving Luc to and from my parents twice a day, we stayed over at my parents' house. Luckily, Luc was breaking his habit of waking up at 3/4am and was sleeping until about 5am.

We figured out he wasn't really hungry in the middle of the night after he got through his growth spurt and was actually just used to me picking him up and snuggling. Now Frederic goes into his room when he wakes up. Luc lays right back down and falls back asleep for at least another hour. When I go in there, most times, he starts a tantrum for me to pick him up and cuddle with him. I created this bad habit. Luckily, we're starting to break it. Now that Luc is through his first molar teething, isn't waking to eat for his growth spurt, and is eating more at night like a real 'dinner', we decided to cut the bottle out completely, cold turkey, and replace it with a different kind of sippy cup than what he uses now for water during the day.
Like most other things, Luc transitions himself out of these phases when he's ready. And the morning bottle is starting to loose its excitement too. When I open the fridge in the mornings lately to get his bottle out, he's actually pointing to real food to eat instead (pears, yogurt, my cereal on the weekends). So we started giving him some milk in his new cup with real breakfast food. I know Luc and I will miss our cuddle time in the morning while he eats, but it's time to move on. After the bottle is completely gone, there's no more Baby Luc. He'll be 100% Toddler.

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Back to staying at Grandma & Grandpa's. Luc loved hanging out with them in the evenings. We got hit with a spring heat wave those days (80-90 degrees), and Grandma needed to water the grass seeds. I changed Luc into his swimwear so he could have fun with the hose.

Luc holding the hose for Grandma

Luc thinks it's lot of fun to sit himself on the steps.

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The next weekend, Aunt Nathalie, Logan, Kendall and Taylor came to visit. Luc loved hanging out with his cousins! He especially loved Kendall. Kendall loves Luc too. He was like her personal, real-life baby doll. She enjoyed hand feeding him crackers while on the metro home from the National Zoo. At dinner, she fed him corn and watermelon from the fork. Luc took everything from her without protesting. I think she needs to come live with us so Luc will eat some veggies. The same things given to him from anybody else, he didn't take. Apparently everything from Kendall tastes better.

"Here, Luc, have some Chex mix!"

We went to the National Zoo in D.C. on Saturday. Most of the animals were sleeping or chilling inside since it was pretty warm. But we still got to see some animals.

Sunday, we did an Easter Egg hunt in the back yard and let the kids dig through their goodies. They played outside for a long time afterward until dinner was ready.

That egg hunt was exhausting.

And Monday, Frederic took off work to spend the last day with everyone. The kids got to spend the whole day outside playing and went to the playground too.

Best Buddies

Luc for sure still loves to be around people. He's a lot easier and happier. -He even eats better too!

I took advantage of Luc's interest in his cousins' sippy cups to cut out the bottle at home completely. I bought Playtex brand cups (too add to our collection of a million different types of sippy cups) that have a little spout/hard nipple. I also bought them in clear so Luc could see it had milk in it, not water (which was a problem with his other cup) and we could see how much he ate instead of guessing by feel. Frederic wasn't so excited to cut the bottle out cold turkey. But knowing Luc, I knew this was the way to go. And thank you Kendall, again. The first few mornings and nights he got the new cup instead of his bottle, I would tell Luc, "Look you have a sippy cup just like Kendall!" The first time I said it, he smiled (he had seen her the day before) and started to drink. In the mornings, Luc no longer gets just a bottle of milk for pre-breakfast (real breakfast comes later at Grandma's). I bought these Nurtigrain bars for kids, Earth's Best brand. They were a lot smaller than I thought they would be and most of the time Luc wants more when he's finished. But I give him that with some milk in his new cup while Dada gets ready. He hasn't yet asked or looked for his bottle.


New words: Two, More (He tries so hard to make the 'r' sound, it's just too cute to see him stretch his lil mouth open).

Such a Boy

Luc is such a boy. There's no denying that.
Luc is in love with cars and trucks. His favorite page on his First 100 Words book are the automobiles. He'll repeatedly point to the tractor trailer, then the fire truck, then the tractor, then the car-with a vroom.
Whenever Luc sees a car, whether in motion or not, he says 'vroom'. If a car passes by, he'll literally stop in his tracks and watch it pass.

Like most boys, and men, they like being taken care of. Of course with Luc, there's a lot of that anyways because he's so young. But he also like when you put ointment on a cut on his leg (even after it's all healed and gone). One day, after a bath, I put lotion on his legs because they looked dry. Now he'll go to my nightstand, point to my lotion and point to his legs. Even if they're not dry, just to be taken care of.

And who can forget about a man and his slippers...

16 Months, Washington D.C., Easter

 16 Months

Luc's first bottom molar poked through around St. Patty's Day. A week and a half later the second bottom molar cut through. That brings it to a total of 12 teeth in Luc's lil mouth. The first bottom molar was a killer. Lots of hours of lost sleep in the Hairson house. But the second one came in unnoticed.

Luc now loves to:
-blow kisses
-climb on the couch
-tries to put his socks or a shoe on his own foot, and hat on his head
-New game: Ring Around the Rosy
-New words: Shoes, Cheese, Chick (for chicken nugget)
-Answers: What does an owl say? with "Whoo Whoo"
  Also knows the answer for horse, cow, bird.
-Every time something falls or he falls or bumps into something, a "boom" follows.
-loves to crawl through and play in his tunnel (not bad for $5 at the child consignment shop!)


Luc no longer has 4 bottles in a day. We've cut out two milk servings during the day so that he'll eat more solid foods. Problem is, he's constantly hungry. I feel like all I do is feed this boy to refuel his energy. Now we need to transition the morning and night bottles into sippy cups. dun dun dunnn His Ped wants me to feed him a breakfast when he wakes in the morning. Problem is, he wakes up at 3, 4, 5am and if he has a bottle, he'll fall back asleep for awhile. If I wake him up enough to eat real food and sit in his high chair, we'll be up for good.
The High Chair-- Luc now fights sitting down in it to eat his food. He's much rather run around and keep playing while grabbing bite size pieces of whatever.

Luc is recognizing colors and shapes on places other than his puzzle boards. He will also try to say 'two', which sounds the same as when he says 'shoe', when someone is counting.
 Luc has also suckered Grandma into walks almost everyday beside it being windy and cold. Now that she has a comfy, nifty stroller of her own, Luc will go over and grab his shoes, then his hat and coat and bring them over to Grandma to tell her he wants to go outside.

I've fallen in love with Leslie Patricelli's books. The illustrations are cute and simple, and they're written so true to real life. When reading them out loud, we can always find a silly, fun way to make it sound more silly and be interactive. Luc loves Huggy Kissy and Potty. He associates the toilets in the house with the potty in the book. I'm really hoping he'll get the point more and more and when he's ready to be potty trained, it'll go smoothly. When there is something Luc is not supposed to put in his mouth (Yummy Yucky book) he'll stick out his tongue wide, stroke it with his hand and make a 'ehhh' sound. Although, he's still not obeying the crayons are yucky rule.

We rub our tummy for 'Yummy'.

Luc sticks out his tongue and touches it, saying 'ehhh', for yucky.

Washington D.C.

The day before Easter, we took Luc to D.C. with Uncle Dave. We wanted to see the Cherry Blossoms but because of Ole Winter stickin around, the cold weather has pushed back the blossoms' openings another week or two. It was still fun to walk around. We visited some monuments along the way, including the new MLK memorial. We then took a long walk to Chinatown to have lunch at a yummy Thai restaurant where Luc made friends with the lady waitresses. He even gave them High Fives.

Luc was really excited to ride on the Metro. Every time the door closed, he said 'boom.' And as soon as the metro started moving, he would rock back and forth in his stroller.

Luc saying, Boom, with the pacifier in his mouth. 

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was a chill day. The clouds and rain didn't make it very vibrant. Since Luc is still so little, the Easter Bunny didn't go crazy with his basket this year. He got some cool Sesame Street socks, a mini slinky, and a flash ball. The slinky and ball were super exciting all day long. We went to Great Aunt Alice and Uncle Bill's for dinner. Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle Dave, and Great Grandma were there too. Luc then got a big, blue bunny stuffed animal from Uncle Bill and Aunt Alice, and Duplo and Easter books from Grandma and Grandpa. Luc also got to touch and watch Uncle Bill's baby turtle. That was really exciting too.

Whoa! This Slinky-thing is soo cool!

We're looking forward to Aunt Nathalie, Logan, Taylor, and Kendall to come in two weeks to do Luc's first Easter Egg hunt (or pick up, since they won't really be hidden).