Toddler love

When I was pregnant with Lucas, I signed up for emails from a website about the baby's development.  After Lucas was born, they continue to send emails about baby milestones and now we are on to the toddler emails.  (How did my baby turn into a toddler?!?!)  Last week the email was about "7 Signs Your Child Loves You."  I read a few of the sentences, but then I started thinking about how Lucas shows love. 

How OUR toddler shows us he loves us:
- Pulling on my hand and saying, "Come. Come." when he has something he wants to share with me. 
- When I wake him up in the morning, he climbs into my arms and always gives me a tight squeeze.  Then I smother him with kisses. 
- When he is upset, his first instinct is that mommy and/or daddy can fix it.
- When I pick him up from daycare and he runs to the door and exlcaims, "Mommy here!"  He does this for Brent, too, and it is absolutely one of the best highlights of the day. 
- Or the days at daycare that he looks at his friends and says, "No, my mommy."  (Because another two year old might steal me...!)
- He equates love with the strength of his hugs; he squeezes really hard when I tell him I love him.
- The way he looks at me when I read him a book... like he is the luckiest kid in the world that his mommy is reading to him. 

We are so blessed to have him love US.

The growing weed:

Wounds

Last week was a woundful (I think I just made up that word) week for our little man.  On Monday, he got bit at daycare.  On Tuesday, he jumped off a chair and landed on his head which resulted in a big goose egg.  On Wednesday, he had a big scratch on his cheek when I picked him up.  It turns out he was holding hands with his friend, Ava, and he walked right into a shelf.  He's already distracted by pretty girls at the young age of two!  Here is the shiner a few days later. 

It's in that brown/green stage now, but I know this is only the beginning.  Boys seem to attract scratches, bumps and bruises.  We just hope the injuries stay this simple.  And daycare did offer to wrap him in bubble wrap... I think I'll save that for when he starts playing tackle football, or gets his driver's license! 

I love that, for now, mommy's kisses fix most owies.

Weekend get-a-way and Valentine's

We had a get-a-way with friends last weekend.  With scheduling for four families, it just happened to land on Valentine's weekend.  It was a fun treat.  We rented a house in the Galena Territories that we found on http://www.vrbo.com/.  The outdoor photos are obviously not from February! 

This one IS from February!  I don't know how well you can see it, but this is a snow angel.  Six of the eight of us jumped out of the hot tub and made a snow angel in our bathing suits.  The yard was scattered with angels.  No one suffered any frost bite, but I wouldn't encourage children to do it.  :) 

The company was great, the house was beautiful and the fireplace & hot tub were welcoming; I hope we can do it again. 

I'm not sure how I managed to do it, but I also kept Lucas from opening his "school" Valentine's until Sunday afternoon.  He was so excited to look at the cards and wanted every.single.piece.of.candy.  I would read the card and then he would repeat his friend's names with this sheepish smile. 

Playa Del Carmen adventures

Although a lot of the time on our trip was spent relaxing and soaking up the sun, we did have some other adventures.

 

Me on the zipline.

Rappeling into a cave.

Mayan Ruins at Tulum.

Iguana hunting for a mate.

We took this ferry to Cozumel.  It was a rough ride and we were surrounded by people with motion sickness.  Thankfully, none of us got that sick. 

Trista making sure the boat was not going to capsize on our snorkeling trip.

Greg climbed a coconut tree.

Trista and Ben met Spiderman!

The yummy Japanese restaurant. 

The boys having a sake shot.  Sake is a Japanese alcohol made from rice. 

Recent conversations with Lucas

[Brent is putting honey on a biscuit.]
Lucas: Honey!
Brent: Do you know where honey comes from?
Lucas: Bees!

[Brent and I exchange looks of awe and astonishment.  This is the first time in months the honey bottle has been out of the cupboard.  How does he know that?!?!]

Me: How do you know that bees make honey?
Lucas: Papa.

A follow-up phone call confirms that Papa and Lucas watched a tv show about bees making honey. Boy, he was really paying attention – that was three weeks ago!

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If one of us coughs, Lucas imitates it. If we sneeze, he imitates. Driving yesterday, there was a sneeze. This is what followed:

Lucas: aa-choo!
Me: Oh, bless you! Do you have the sneezes?
Lucas: aa-choo! Key-nex peeze.

[Remember, these are fake sneezes. But I looked for a Kleenex and couldn’t find anything in the truck, not even a napkin.]

Me: Sorry, bud, I can’t find a Kleenex.
Lucas: AA-CHOO! KEY-NEX PEEZE!

Then, there was some whining and I remembered the diapers wipes, so I gave him one of those. Ah, the smile of a child - you would have thought he won a lifetime supply of suckers as he wiped away the imaginary boogers.

Another snow day!