Hurricane Luke

Luke, Luke, Luke.  We sure love that adorable little guy.  But boy does he keep us on our toes these days.  I thought it would be a bit tricky having a toddler around with so many bigger kids, and it turns out I was right.  We can always tell when someone leaves a pencil out - Luke draws on the tile.  When someone leaves a marker out, Luke draws on himself.  And sometimes eats the tip.  The kids are learning to put their books away, because guess who looooooves to tear pages and/or covers?  We're all trying to lessen Luke's temptation to get up on to the table by keeping the chairs pushed in and the table cleared off.  Because Luke also loooooooves to climb these days.  Need proof?

  

Ben and I engaged Luke in an epic battle that lasted for months.  You see, we have this lovely set of stairs that goes down from the living room into the basement (where the kids' rooms, the playroom, and the office are).  We knew he needed to learn to go down the stairs safely, so we kept working with him until he got it.  And then, we couldn't keep him from going down the stairs.  He was going down there all the time.  And the office is just off of the bottom landing, with no door protecting it.  Watch out for Hurricane Luke.

Our first (admittedly feeble) solution to keeping Luke from going down the stairs was a pile of sofa cushions.

He pushed those down in about 2 seconds.

Next we tried moving the whole couch over from the living room, blocking off the stairs.  It doesn't look weird, does it?  I think Luke was annoyed with us.

Until he realized that he was small enough to fit in the gap between the bottom of the couch and the banister.

Darn.

Foiled again.

How about the coffee table?  It has a flat side, so it won't leave a gap.  Problem solved.

Except that it was on a slick surface (the tile) and it's not very heavy, so Luke easily pulled it away from the banister.

The only logical option at this point was to add furniture (in this case, a lovely wooden bench my parents gave us when we got married), making it into a full-blown baby barricade.

But then it got to be a bit ridiculous.  After all, 5 of us need to be able to get up and down the stairs at various times of the day.

So we decided to change our approach and block off the office itself.  Two big, heavy bins ought to do the trick.  And they did.  Until Luke worked up the courage (after a week or two) to just climb over the bins.

So for the next few months, we stopped trying to play offense, and worked on our defensive game, doing disaster relief whenever Hurricane Luke carved a path of destruction through the office.

When we had all we could handle of that, we got a baby gate.  And Luke hasn't managed to break it down yet.

But it's only a matter of time before he figures it out.

Recently I was upstairs and thought that Luke was probably downstairs alone.  I called for him a few times, hoping he might come upstairs for some company.  I was surprised when he called back to me instead.  Our conversation went something like this.

"Luuuuuke?  Where aaaaaaaare youuuuuu?"

"Mumble mumble squeal giggle."

"Luuuuukeeeeeey?  I heeeeeear youuuuu!"

"Giggle shriek mumble grunt."

"Luuuuuuke come upstaaaaaaairs."

"Shriek mumble mumble squeal."

And after a minute or two, guess who made his way upstairs?  It was the cutest thing ever, and I was so glad The Bigs were around to witness it, because they got a kick out of it too and we all still laugh about it.

Which leads me to the next question. What about soeech? The only word I'll give him credit for saying dependably is "uh-oh," but if you ask the kids, they'll swear they've heard him say "bye," "hi," and "ow."

Luke isn't shy about diving in when he wants something.  If you look closely at this picture, you can see that his face, especially eyelashes, are powdery from tipping the container of Puffs up to try to get every last crumb out.  I believe he found the container in my diaper bag and helped himself.  He also opens zip-top bags, lip balm containers, DVD cases, my mascara, and plastic water bottles (ask Ben about the time Luke soaked Ben's lap).  

I've mentioned before that Luke is able to work the lever door knobs in our house.  The scary thing is that this includes the front door.  Here he opened the front door on his own and he's waving to Eliza, who is playing in the front yard.  So now we add Keep the Front Door Dead-Bolted At All Times to our list of Things To Do To Keep Luke Alive.

Luke's been dancing for a little while now, but it's still fun to watch him.  Here's a little video I made in the car recently.

Have I ever mentioned here how fun it is that Luke is a big boy?  And by big I mean bulky.  It's kind of awesome.  He is thicker and heavier than our other kids, and he's growing at an impressive rate.  At his 12-month check-up he was in the 67th percentile for weight, but at his 15-month check-up he was in the 80th.  And for height, he moved up from the 75th percentile to the 87th.  We all love our Chunky Monkey.