Life With Luke: Week Five

I realize this post is very late. It is about Luke's 5th week of life and he is now 9 weeks old. I've got plenty to catch up on from the past month. I can't tell you how much I love being this sweet little boy's mommy, but it's definitely a full-time job and I have to choose wisely what I do with the free time I do have. I'll be using a lot of that time to get this blog up-to-date over the next day or two.

Day 29

On Monday of our fifth week with Luke, I decided to try taking him to Sears portrait studio to use a coupon I got in the mail. They take walk-ins, but unfortunately, Luke and I arrived at a time when they had an appointment so they couldn't take us. I made an appointment for the next day, but when I got home, the lighting in our bedroom seemed perfect for a little at-home photo shoot of my handsome little guy. The pictures came out pretty well:

We put this picture in the birth announcements we sent out later this week because we did not get the professional ones back in time.

Day 30

Before Luke was born, my dad (a HUGE Lakers fan) ordered a onesie for him. I'm pretty sure the main motivation behind this was to spite Jeff, who hates the Lakers. It arrived in the mail a few days after Luke was born along with a cheeky little note from Grandpa Lamb. Jeff laughed, but, a little too seriously, suggested we burn it. I will never understand how men can be so serious about sports rivalries. I managed to keep the onesie intact, but I knew Jeff would never let Luke wear it so it just sat on the desk for a few weeks. Finally, on this particular Tuesday morning, I decided I'd better at least put Luke in it long enough to snap a picture or two for memory's sake. Jeff wasn't home so I seized my chance:


I posted this picture on Facebook for my dad to see, but explaining in the caption that Jeff strongly disapproved wasn't enough for Jeff. He deleted it. The fate of the Lakers onesie? Given to our Lakers fan friends, whose baby girl is due in October. At least it went to a good home.

Luke and I went to our appointment at Sears Portrait Studio that day at noon. For the two or three hours prior to our session, Luke was wide awake, active, and "talking" up a storm. Of course, by picture time, he had worn himself out and the photographer barely managed to get any pictures of him with his eyes open. He did great though. Despite being posed, repositioned again and again and having his clothes changed, he didn't cry once and I got a some cute pictures out of it for free, thanks to my coupon. Unfortunately, even though my coupon gave us an 11x14, an 8x10, two 5x7's, and 4 wallets of one pose free of charge and freed us of any sitting fee, I wasn't allowed to walk away without spending a dime as I had hoped. I had to spend $19.99 on an 8x10 of an additional pose.

I ended up paying for an 8x10 of this picture even though I asked for the picture below. I would have said something, but I picked the pictures up two weeks after the session, the morning we moved to Flagstaff. The movers were at our house and I was a little distracted. Somehow, I didn't realize I had gotten the wrong picture until I was in the car on my way home and by then it didn't seem worth it to do anything about it. Oh well. No biggie.

I took these off of the Sears website - the reason for the Sears logo.

Sleepy boy

This is the adorable picture I got all of the free copies of. The 8x10 is currently hanging on our living room wall here in Flagstaff.

This grumpy little face cracks me up. Luke is actually generally a very happy baby. He almost never cries unless he has a wet diaper or he's hungry. Otherwise, he's a very contented little guy, but he furrows his brow a lot. Don't worry, in most cases, he's not frowning, he's just thinking really hard about something.

We had another little photo shoot when we got home...








That night, Jeff watched Luke while I went out alone for the very first time since he was born. I had never left the house without him. The purpose of this trip was to get groceries at Wal-Mart, but I thought I would take advantage of being baby free for the first time in a month and made a quick stop at Hello Yogurt for some frozen yogurt goodness first. As nice as it was to be by myself and free to do as I pleased, I missed Luke and couldn't wait to get home by the time I finished shopping.

To finish off the night, I helped Jeff edit his thesis (I could only help with grammar. I don't pretend to understand structural vibrations) and he made final changes and additions into the wee hours of the morning so he could turn in his first draft the next day. My favorite part was the sweet thanks Jeff gave me in the acknowledgments section.

Day 31

Jeff turned in this thesis. It was a joyous occasion. Even though he expected to make a few corrections before his defense, the vast majority of the work was done. We went to Goodwood for dinner to celebrate. Thanks again to Mom for the gift card that paid for it.

That night, for the first time, Jeff took Luke every other time he woke up during the night. Luke was exactly one month old and for that entire first month, I had been on my own at night. Jeff needed to get up early to work on this thesis each morning so he slept out on the couch where he would get plenty of sleep. But now that crunch time was over, he could help out at night. It was SO nice to have him tell me to go back to sleep once a night.

Day 32

I started back on our elliptical trainer each night when Luke was about 2 weeks old, but this night was my first time running outside again. It felt so great at first. I ran my old route to Neilson's Grove park and took a couple of laps around the park before heading home. Unfortunately, my runner's high was depleted a little when I realized that my milk coming back in posed a pretty serious problem. I fed Luke and pumped right before I left, but after about 40 minutes, the girls were very full again and it became impossible for me to take a deep breath. The inability to breath freely resulted in difficulty running, as you might imagine. I used to run for a little over an hour every day so I was pretty disappointed by this sad realization. Not all is lost, however. I can simply run for 40 minutes and then supplement that with our elliptical, which does not create the same restrictions, for any additional time. It's not ideal, but it will do.

That night, we picked up Luke's finished plate from Color Me Mine and Jeff took this cute picture:


Day 33

According to my Facebook counter, this was Jeff's and my 700th day of marriage. Awesome. And it turned out to be a pretty awesome day, indeed. I woke up to this cute scene...

It was the morning after Jeff's second night taking a night shift with Luke and he wasn't quite used to it yet. He got up with Luke at 4am and I found them this way at 6am.

That morning, Jeff and I made a trip to Verizon in the morning to get our new phones and phone numbers. We have been living the high life paying only $12/month to be on Jeff's family's plan for the first two years of our marriage, but with Steven home from his mission, we got the boot. Oh well, we had a good run. The free phones were pretty hideous so we went with the cheapest ($20) non-free phones they had and we love them. They even have that little slide out keyboard. So fancy. Of course, we still don't have texting, but the keyboard is good for quick new contact entry, right? The store didn't have our phones in stock the first time we went in so we had to go back later that afternoon to pick them up. Those two trips along with the rest of the places we went that day added up to a full day of outings for little Luke.

After our first trip to Verizon, we went to Kohl's to get picture frames for the pictures of Luke, which we ordered and picked up from Walgreen's that afternoon. Then, we went to TCBY for delicious vanilla yogurt in waffle cones.


In the late afternoon, we drove into Provo Canyon to Vivian park for a picnic. Luke seemed to enjoy being out in the fresh air and sunlight. Of course, this is contingent upon the fact that it is not direct sunlight. After living in our little basement cave, Luke is not a fan of the bright sun. But lying on his little blanket in the shade, he was happy as a clam.

Jeff always offers whatever he is eating to Luke. This sandwich was no exception.

Otter sighting! There is a little river that runs through the park and we spotted a little otter swimming around in there. I had never seen an otter outside of Sea World and I certainly never expected my first wild otter sighting to be in Utah!

This milk was still a little cold from being in the cooler when we fed it to Luke, but he was a trooper and didn't complain.

Burp.

Luke has been holding his head up at least for a few seconds at a time virtually from birth.

Look at this happy Buddha baby! This looks nothing like Luke and it cracks me up. He looks like he just got his wisdom teeth out or like he's a squirrel with his cheeks full of nuts.

Check out those super long eyelashes.

As a perfect ending to our 700th day of marriage, Jeff and I snuggled up under his quillow on the couch for a movie and a nap (just like we used to do every Sunday while we were dating). Luke slept in his swing the entire time like the sweet little angel he is.

Day 34

On Saturday morning, Jeff was playing with Luke in our bedroom when he laughed for the first time. I was so sad I missed it, but so happy that Jeff got to be there for it. We sure love this little boy.

One satisfied little boy with a full tummy. He often makes this face after he eats.