birthday boy

a larger than life lucas








my little lucas is 5 today. and i can hardly believe it.




to kick-off this momentous occasion, here's a quick sketch of the phenomenon that is, lucas.




lucas a.k.a. lukey, lukey-luke, luke, baby lucas, and goo




before lucas had acquired much language, he would attempt to order chicken nuggets at any and all drive-thru windows using a long series of jabber. it usually worked.




ever since we can recall, lucas has had a passion for animals. anything having to do with animals. anything resembling or picturing an animal. he once tried to get me to buy a bag of wood chips because he thought the wood grain pictured on the package looked like zebra print.
he also argued with me once over whether or not a bird in a book was a penguin or a puffin, you would think that i could have won that one, having the ability to read and all, but he was somehow infinitely more persuasive.




lucas has offended numerous people by screaming "ouch!" when they tried to sing him a song. consequently, i'm fairly sure he can have a job as an american idol judge if the zoology profession doesn't pan out.




lucas is one of my favorite people to watch "the office" with. we like to re-enact our favorite scenes. we also enjoy "so you think you can dance" re-runs and might be found copying the choreography.




lucas pretty much has the ultimate sweet tooth. shunning nearly everything savory except for french fries and chicken nuggets. he won't eat goldfish, chips or popcorn, even though his brothers would happily make a meal of those three things. he will, however, eat his weight in fruit newtons, cookies, fruit snacks, graham crackers and raisin bread. we're doing a "new foods" program, but we have our work cut out for us.




if you ever come across lucas, you might realize that he has a magical power. it is the ability to make you hug and or kiss him whether you are that sort of person or not. i used to think it only worked on ragain and i and our moms...but then i noticed it happening to everyone who interacted with him. his tutors, o.t., my friends, and the twins' teachers and aides. mostly, if he smiles at you, you're gonna need to hug (and maybe kiss) him. my advice: don't fight it.




happy birthday, to a little boy who makes me and my heart smile every single day. love you, lukey.

monday (pants optional)

my three sweets watching the swedish chef

our monday went a little like this.

the twins went to school with heavily gelled hair and limited complaint. lucas has a bit of a cold, so we canceled his therapy session and let him (and his nose) run around in pajamas until late morning. even when under the weather, lucas is pretty easy to get along with. he's even easier to get along with while watching PBS kids, or in his estimation, "suicide kids".

somewhere in between "the cat in the hat knows a lot about that" and "dinosaur train", ragain and i managed to pack up all the rest of the Christmas remnants into the storage boxes. if we can get any credit for having done that before february, i would like to collect that now.

we ran some errands. we got our sick little man a giant root beer. we made it just in time to pick up isaac and jacob from their minimum day at school.

after some shuffling, and ragain leaving for work, all 3 boys and i met up with my mom to go to the park. usually, isaac and jacob would have therapy right after school, but we have a new tutoring schedule that frees up our monday afternoons. hurray.

we drove to one of our favorite parks and the boys ran around like wild animals. all of the sudden, lucas called out from the top of one of the play structures... he was peeing. all over. and, i do mean, everywhere. i was stunned. my mom was stunned. lucas looked kind of surprised, himself. then, he was like, ew. and, let's just take these pants off. i scrambled up the play structure and tried to pull him over to the car. now, he's mad. he doesn't want to leave. he just wants to frolic around with no pants on.

of course, i have no spare clothes. in fact, ragain and i just bragged about how lucas never has had many "accidents". note: bragging might = chumps.

my makeshift solution: his sweatshirt becomes booster seat cover. pants, underwear, socks and shoes go into an empty bag. wipes substitute as full shower. cotton re-usable bag becomes loincloth. bribes include phone apps and fruit snacks. after my lesson in resourcefulness, i sat in the car staring out at my other two boys still playing and feeling sort of dazed.

after the twins are semi-exhausted, we make a quick milkshake run to mcdonald's and i consider trying to pretend that there's nothing weird about my half-naked child in the backseat. considering it gives me a headache.

back home. we conquer homework after an hour and a half of diligence. it is somehow time to get ready for bed. we do some reading. we watch the swedish chef on youtube. (it only gets funnier.) clip nails. take vitamins. brush teeth. compromise on bedtime story. answer a million questions about bedtime story. prayers, water and chapstick.

i let lucas watch NOVA as a visual nightcap while i take a timeout in my room. and during my timeout, he put himself to bed. and i missed it. that final sweet moment of the day. so, i kiss his forehead and settle in next to his sniffly little body, wearing mismatched pajamas and his bright green crocs.

"the cape" is over. and i'm looking forward to tomorrow. good night.

welcome 2011 and happy birthday, k!

me, k , and our pal, jeff on walk day 2010

i don't know about you, but 2011 seems like it has the potential to be awesome. i hope i won't have jinxed it just by saying that. here are some things that lead me to believe that this is my kind of year...

1. the first week of january, i cleaned out my closet. you can't fully appreciate that without having seen my closet, but have you ever had something explode in a microwave? yep. pretty close.

2. we already filed our taxes.

3. i finally watched "inception" and "eat, pray, love".

4. i got unlimited text. does that explain why i might be texting you all the time for no good reason? partly.

5. i've taken all 3 boys to the grocery store by myself, twice! once in the dark! and i remembered my reusable bags both times! **note: i didn't lose anyone. nobody ran more than an arm's length from me. i was not suckered into buying any dvd's. this is PROGRESS.**

6. i made one colossal Sunday dinner consisting of 2 roasted chickens, mashed potatoes, rolls, and steamed zucchini. bonus: 2 pumpkin pies for dessert. (i imagine you clapping at this point.)

7. my mom, the tutors, and i took the boys to chuck e. cheese for the school fundraiser night. it went remarkably smoothly. i only had to sternly reprimand one child...and it wasn't my child. the boys and i all played air hockey (my favorite!) and i think we might need to get our own table (yes!). thank you, mom and tutors!

8. i feel luckier and more grateful for the people in my life.

9. january is the birthmonth for some of my favorite people: my mom, my aunt sharon, my sweet lucas (5! next week!) and also, my dear friend, k. which brings me to...

10. TODAY IS K'S BIRTHDAY!!! k doesn't like pda. but she does like my blog. k, you are the best kind of friend. i think 2011 is your year, too! love you!

here comes the sun

one of jacob's more straightforward spelling assignments





we're midway through the week before thanksgiving. the twins have minimum days all week this week because of parent-teacher conferences.



can i be honest? the thought of sitting down with the teachers and the boys is slightly terrifying to me. i feel disproportionately anxious about it. mostly, when i have to go to the school, i feel like a raw nerve. i feel exposed and emotional... easily hurt or angered. i feel like the teachers are always about to deliver bad news, the other parents are going to judge our family or say something insensitive, the other kids in the class are going to ask us a lot of questions about why the boys do the things that they do.



and it will hurt. all of it.



and i will react badly. and say something harsh. or, sometimes worse, i won't say anything. and it will get the best of me. and i won't enjoy spending time with my boys at their school. and marvel at their progress. enjoy their expanding independence. or mirror their enjoyment.



it seems like after all this time in the mainstream classrooms, i should feel a little more at ease, but i still feel like a visitor. like we're just pretending to belong there. and that feels like a huge weakness. and i have to overcome it because it is a luxury that i cannot afford.



so, in the spirit of thanksgiving, i will say that i am thankful that everything changes. that while all these past days i have been a coward, crying in my car after someone says something lame to me--- my boys have been going to their classes and smiling at their teachers, aides and classmates. and i can learn to smile, too. and risk the hurts. because everything changes. and tomorrow, there might be fewer hurts and the sting of those hurts might be less and less until it doesn't even register a flinch.

tricks or treats

in keeping with our grand halloween traditions of dreaming big and then, procrastinating, i give you halloween 2010

months ago, isaac told us that he wanted to be killer moth from the lego batman wii game. i had to give him some serious points for creativity and a willingness to appear completely random. he also mentioned that he wanted to look like a lego minifigure... our visions might have diverged a little on this point, but we attempted a compromise.

meanwhile, jacob gave us a sketch of a skeleton costume, complete with hood and cape. fully aware that there are a million skeleton costumes in the world, i decided that i would still make one completely from scratch (enter grand domesticity delusion). i clung to that idea until we were less than a week from halloween and i still hadn't produced a costume and jacob had seen one at target and stood in front of it, saying rapturously, "it looks just like him." we conceded and bought him the costume, but replaced the ugly rubber mask with a paper mache skull.

lucas couldn't seem to care less about costumes in general, and had given us no real idea what he might want to be. for several weeks, we insisted that we were going to make him an orca costume. we sketched it. we debated its finer points. we acquired some felt. we gave up with 2 days to spare. (sorry, lucas!) the little man seemed more than happy with his storebought costume and adhesive moustache (parental guilt mildly dulled).

isaac as lego killer moth: at most doors, he was addressed as "alien" at which point
he would say, "i'm killer moth, and i'm here to throw in."

jacob as a semi-spooky skeleton. his grin was meant to make him seem friendlier, but from a distance and in most photos. the teeth look like stitches-- like his mouth is sewn closed. the spookiness was further enhanced by his deep and scratchy sounding "trick or treat".

lucas as mario. he surprised us by repeatedly posing with one arm and leg up (a la mario) and keeping his sticky moustache on. like many moustache devotees, he actually seemed preoccupied with straightening, smoothing and grooming it.

in spite of the multiple revisions and costume delays, our halloween was pretty awesome. all three boys loved trick or treating. they were pretty reliable about saying "thank you" and "happy halloween". and, as a bonus, they haven't inquired once about where their halloween candy disappeared to...

warm-ups

couple of things.



first, it's october. wow.



second, the walk was last weekend(!).



third, i haven't started making any of the halloween costumes.



fourth, i think you might know what the rest of my october is going to look like...

schmonday

i'll post later this week about how k and i were on the radio this morning. did you miss it? it was (kind of, but not really) awesome.

what i really want to note is that during bedtime prayers tonight, isaac asked for a blessing on dad and a blessing that "we will never have homework again".

can he get an amen?