Category: Lucas

Lucas has been sick for a couple of days now — fever, snot, cough, and holding his ears on and off. He’s been getting worse instead of better, and fearing ear infections or other bacterial infections, I made an appointment with the on-call ped today.

Even though he has not previously had any problems with going to the doctor, as soon as we told him that’s where we were going, he started to fuss. “No doctor, no doctor!” he cried as we tried to put on his coat and shoes.

“Okay,” I told him to settle him, cringing at the idea of a 30-minute drive downtown with a howling toddler, “we’ll just go look at some flowers. Would you like to go look at the flowers?” Thankfully, this appeared to be a much better idea than going to the doctor. And, knowing we would be swinging down Queen Elizabeth past Dows Lake just as the tulip beds were reaching full bloom, there would in fact be lots of flowers to admire on the way. To the doctor.

I should have known that on a perfectly sunny April morning, odds were better than good that Queen Elizabeth would be closed, and it was. I thought maybe the cows and the other bits of minutaie we’d admired on the way into town would have sufficed, but Lucas has a longer memory that I would have given him credit for. We were in and out of the ped’s office in about six minutes — no ear infection, clear lungs, just a wickedly bad cold — and on our way out Lucas looked at me and said, “Where are the flowers?”

I looked around and considered for a minute. I had a long to-do list in my head that did not include walking around the Glebe looking at the flowers. I didn’t even have my camera with me — for shame! But, it was a gorgeous morning. And the flowers were pretty. And, most importantly, a little walk around the block would both allow me to keep my word and make Lucas happy. The to-do list could wait.

As we set off around the block, I was still a little preoccupied. Ugh, I thought, did I choose the longest block in the Glebe? Could I get away with just walking a couple dozen meters and then turning around? But the sun was warm and the air was fresh, and as we stopped to admire magnolia petals and fading daffodils and interesting-looking stones, I found myself relaxing and enjoying the walk.

Lucas is normally a “me do it” kind of toddler, quite impatient with the idea of being held back by anything, so it might have been the fact that he was feeling unwell or just the moment that made him hold so tightly to my hand as we walked. I realized, as we inspected some particularly fascinating berries growing on a shrub, that in that moment I was perfectly content. Yes, I still had an otherwise miserably sick toddler on my hands, and I still had a lot of other crap to take care of during the rest of the day, and now it would take me just a little bit longer to get it all done.

But, in that sunny amble that took the best part of half an hour, my two-year-old son reminded me of the kernel of truth in the hoariest of clichés — you really do have to remember to stop and smell look at the flowers sometimes.

Thanks, Lucas.

My dear darling Lucas,

You are TWO today! Two years old! My goodness, was it not just last week that you arrived, late and large, to join our family? (And of course, on the other hand, have you not always been with us? How quiet our lives must have been before we had three boys contributing to the cacaphony!)

You, my son, are a delightful child. Smart, sweet and loving, you charm all who know you. You are also stubborn, strong-willed, jealous and territorial. Did I mention stubborn? Not to mention the fact that you’re a bit of a brute, regularly taking on your big brothers and coming out the victor. I’ve stopped protecting you from them and now expend my efforts protecting them from you!

You love to draw and to colour. You astonish me by actually colouring on, if not within the lines of, the images in your favourite Sesame Street colouring book. We no longer put stray papers in the recycling bin but keep them handy for your daily colouring exploits, and I’ve given up on putting the crayons away after each use and simply leave them near the table where you can help yourself. The other day, you turned over a blank page to find the original notice from the big boys’ school and my mouth dropped open in wonder as you started calling out various letters of the alphabet as you scribbled over the text. Not even two yet and you realize the difference between text and images!

Also at not-quite-two, you can count beyond 10, make a pretty good stab at the ABCs and mimic just about any song. I love to listen to you sing yourself to sleep with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Yet, brilliant as you obviously are, you stubbornly refuse to regularly differentiate between your two older brothers. They continue to be the two-headed brother creature with interchangeable names.

You’re a moderately good sleeper, waking occasionally in the night and asking to snuggle into bed with your Daddy, who is far more a sucker than me. You’ve just come through a patch of resisting going to sleep at bed time, but I suffer no delusion that you won’t soon be standing in your crib again, flipping the light switch on and off to get our attention. No bedtime would be complete without a cuddle from Mommy and your precious “blankey and soo”.

My dear Lucas, you are so very two. Terrible twos indeed! But your old mother is getting crafty in her dotage: I’ve learned to ask permission before taking the banana out of the peel before I hand it to you or (god forbid) snapping the cookie in half. I’ve learned that you’ll accept a swap for whatever treasure you’ve acquired (permanent markers and tiny bits of Lego come to mind) without a fight, but you’ll scream blue murder if I simply try to take them away from you. I’ve learned that you may in fact be just barely two, but you think you are the equal of your older brothers and fully entitled to participate in any and all mischief into which they might get.

You love Sesame Street, the Muppets, the Wonderpets, Bob the Builder, Thomas trains and Lego — especially the tiniest not-safe-for-toddlers pieces of Lego. You will play contentedly for long stretches of time, lining up action figures or trains on the edge of a table, and you love to sit on the floor with me passing a train or car or even a ball back and forth. You love books, and while you will occasionally entertain yourself with one, you much prefer to have them read to you. Tristan’s lap is just the right size to accommodate you, but even Simon will give a good stab at narrating the pictures in a book to “read” to you.

You are not particularly fond of strangers, and it amazes me that the third child in any family could be the most shy one. You have a most endearing way of nodding your head solemnly when I ask you something, and an equally adorable way of laughing out a shouted “Yes!!” when you are particularly excited.

Despite your shyness with strangers, you have an entertainer’s love of the spotlight. When you notice you have your family’s attention, you are quite the ham. Your favourite trick lately is to shake your arms with wide eyes to the boys’ laughing exhortation of “show us your muscles!” You are endlessly patient with your brothers’ requests to have you repeat just about anything they can think of: “Lucas, say ‘Mario Brothers.’ Say ‘Luigi’! Say ‘pumpernickel’!” You never seem to tire of this, nor do they.

Sweet Lucas, you are more delightful by the day. Challenging though your capricious moods and vexing needs may be, you more than make up for them with the joy you bring to every moment of our days. Happy birthday, my little one. You are loved.

These are the things I want to remember about life with 20-month old Lucas. I write them here because they are ephermal, because they’ll disappear in the blink of an eye or the beat of a heart and I won’t even notice they’re gone, and someday I’ll be sad that I didn’t capture them a little bit better.

I want to remember how he says “Yeah!” with such enthusiasm when you ask him a question, like “Do you want to wear your Bob the Builder jammies tonight?” and he says it so that you cannot mistake the exclamation mark at the end.

I want to remember how he grabs me around the neck and squeezes hard when I pick him up, often crushing his face into mine in a sweetly aggressive sort of mashed-up kiss, as if he has just a little bit too much love for an ordinary hug and kiss to express.

I want to remember how even though he is perfectly capable of saying “Nimon” he calls both of his brothers “Tittan”. He started out calling them “Ninon” and “Ninnan”; now, they are the two-headed brother monster with one name.

I want to remember how he begs for whatever bit of tasty treat you’ve got not unlike a labrador puppy might, by standing as close to you as he can making obvious eye contact with you, all the while encouraging you to share with a musical “Mmm hmmm! Mmm hmmm!”

I want to remember how he must be just like his big brothers in all things, and how he loves to draw when they draw and play with lego when they play with lego. I really don’t think it’s occured to him that they are any older or any different than he is.

I want to remember how he loves certain videos and how he asks for them by ‘name’. Bob the Builder is of course “Bob!” (always with the audible exclamation mark) and Blues Clues is “Puppy!” The Muppets episode with Mark Hamill is less easy to convey; he gargles in the fashion of Angus McGonagle, the Argyle Gargoyle who gargles Gershwin. I’ll need to get the new Flip video camera out for that one, I think.

I want to remember how he loves for us to sing “Old Macdonald” in the car, and how when we pause to allow him to name an animal, he says “Cow!” each and every time, over and over again. (And yes, the exclamation mark is audible on that one, too. I think like any new skill that gets acquired by a toddler, he’s busy incorporating the exclamation into his repetoire through fierce and constant repetition.)

I want to remember how hard it is not to laugh when he is vexed and falls to the floor in a disappointed heap, not exactly throwing a tantrum but utterly exasperated by being denied the whimsy of his desire.

I want to remember his good ear for mimicry, and how he can repeat several words in a sing-song of sounds even though he’s only stringing together a word or two at a time. He will stack up a couple of blocks and then look at me and say, “Don’t you do it!” daring me not to knock over his tower the way he knocks down the ones I build for him. And he is pitch-perfect in capturing my tone as he climbs up onto the table and then scolds himself: “Git DOWN!”

I want to remember the way he chortles with glee and relief when we say it’s time for “Blankey and Soo” the bedtime duo. “Banky Sooooooo” he repeats.

I want to remember the way he looks solemnly into my eyes each night as I tell him the story of his day, agreeing with “Mmm hmm” to the key points, around his mouthful of soother.

I want to remember how utterly beautiful, and exasperating, and exhausting, and fulfilling it can be to parent the ball of curious and relentless and lovingly adorable energy that is Lucas at 20 months. It’s so hard to believe some days that it won’t be like this forever, that it might not be like this next month…

I’ve taken to calling Lucas “Sir Edmund Hillary” because there is nothing that he won’t try to climb. Why? Because it’s there.

I’ve gotten quite laissez-faire about chasing him off the stairs. I don’t rush to take him off the kitchen table any more. (But I do keep the kitchen chairs stacked on the opposite side of the kitchen from the table to discourage him just a bit.) And I’ve completely given up on trying to dissuade him from his “climb onto the end table, over the arm of the couch, crawl or lurch the length of the couch and then roll off the other arm” loop that he’ll happily run five or six times in succession.

We were at the playground yesterday, and he gave me quite the piece of his mind when I pulled him off the ladder (at a height of about five feet) on the big-kids’ play structure. He’s fearless, and relentless. It’s a terrifying combination in a third child!!

But man is he smart! Of course, I’m completely unbiased, but he seems to understand an uncanny amount of instruction for a 16-month old. He will get his own shoes or diaper if you ask him to, and although he hates to be interrupted from his adventures for a diaper change, he will settle down if I explain to him that it will only take a moment for a diaper change and then he can continue playing.

I don’t remember the other boys being so obsessively persistent. He has actually whacked me with a book as I type fiercely on the computer, trying to get something done, when he has decided it’s time for me to read the Busy Little Spider RIGHT NOW. (He’s also tried to push me away from the sink while I was washing dishes and has reached over to pull the camera away from my face. The boy knows his own mind!

My favourite thing about Lucas right now, though, is how he loves his toys. He will sit and play quite happily with any kind of action figure, but he loves Bob the Builder the best. He’s discovered Simon’s superhero figures, though, and it’s rather adorable to hear him say “Ba-Man” and “Spi-Man”. (He doesn’t, mind you, say Tristan or Simon yet, but he’s got his superheros down cold.

And let me tell you, there’s going to be hell to pay if that child says Wolverine before he says Mommy!