Luke....

I know it has been a while since I posted about Luke. Perhaps you thought he was no longer getting into mischief. You would be mistaken. In fact, this winter he is going stir crazy and his active little mind and body are having a hard time being stuck at home all the time with his pregnant, tired mama.

 Nearly every day for the past two weeks, he has begged to go back to "Sesame Street Park" at Sea World. When I tell him we don't have the time or money to go right now, he says, "I have money!" and dumps out his piggy bank and fills his pockets with coins. 

He has more cash than I do.

It's sad to keep letting him down, poor kid. I WISH we were going to Sea World. He also begs to go to the park and the swimming pool all the time. Well the parks are all iced over and taking the kids swimming (i.e. following them around making sure they don't drown in a muggy, loud indoor pool) isn't happening either. I can't wait until our back yard thaws out!!

 He discovered Madelyn's Play-Doh last Sunday, and when we were all watching Sherlock, he snuck into my room with a brand new teal container of it and used a screwdriver and pair of tweezers to shove it down into my humidifier.

 See that headset? Luke sucked on the end of the mic last week and ruined it--the FOURTH TIME he has done this. Mark was not happy about yet another electronic casualty.

 Luke's been learning to use scissors in preschool and so I find stuff that he's chopped up all the time now. I caught him trying to cut the tag off his shirt all by himself.

 We find his guns everywhere....

 He still can't resist messing with the baby wipes (which we still need because he still occasionally takes a poop in his nighttime Pull-Up even though he knows better).

 When I was cleaning out his closet, I thought it was finally safe to bring these pop-up books back down from their hiding place. He didn't even see me put them in the bookshelf but he discovered them within hours and of course it WASN'T actually safe to trust him with them yet...

 I was decorating for Valentine's Day last week and the bin also had some Easter eggs--he was not satisfied until he had opened every single one of them and spread them all over the floor.

He has to trash his room at least 2-3 times a day. (If you clean it up, he'll just dump everything out again. Tidiness is against his moral principles.). This mess isn't even that bad--it can and has been ten times worse but we just cleared out a lot of his toys into storage. And it's early in the day, so there's potential for further damage.

I thought we were past the chewing phase? Guess not.

 

 He is way off his sleeping schedule and has been staying up past midnight the past few days and then taking long naps in the afternoon. I know it's a problem but sometimes it's hard to fight the sleep battle. He still wants to be really close to me when he falls asleep (on top of me, basically, sometimes with his arms wrapped around my neck). It's sweet but it does get old when he comes into my bed a few times a night to do it. He is too big and heavy and since I'm up peeing every few hours anyway, I feel like I am never ever going to get a full night's sleep again, ever.

Since he's been tired, he's also been a cranky fuss-pot. He's usually very even keeled, but apparently he's picked up on some Drama Queen tactics from his sister and has been throwing a lot of tantrums lately. Crossing his arms and saying "HUMPH!", scowling, screaming, stomping off and slamming doors, hurling stuff across the room. Sigh. 

He freaks out if you go anywhere without him (even if it's just to take out the trash) and wails, "You missed me!!!" He still wants to be there every time someone gets out of the shower so that he can push down on the little button that makes water come out of the faucet and fill a cup with the water. If he finds out that you got out of the shower and he was not there to do this, you will PAY. You will also pay if you drive into the garage without letting him run out from the house and hop in the front seat with you. And if he hears the kitchen timer go off but doesn't get to push the stop button, he will throw the timer across the room and writhe on the floor and cry.

4-year olds can be psycho.

 Yesterday was a doozy. He told Mark: "Don't look in my yellow thing." (The secret compartment on his trike.) Turns out he he had my garlic press in there. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Smashing the marshyewwos." Smashing the marshmallows. Awesome.

Then when he was taking a bath before church, he kept getting out, running into my bedroom with his towel, dripping everywhere, and then running back into his bathroom and BLOOSHHHH creating tidal waves all over the sides of the tub. The whole floor was flooded.

THEN during church, he had to give a talk in Primary (he refuses to say anything into the microphone but they keep insisting that he give talks and prayers). Mark and I were in the back, and Luke was sitting on the front row facing all the kids. While he was waiting for his turn, he was sprawling out over the chairs and being the wiggly kid that he is. Next thing I know, he has his head poked through the little square hole in the back of the chair, and when I went up to help him give his talk, yup..........his head was stuck.

All the teachers had a good hearty laugh and I turned bright red but it was really quite funny. I got him dislodged eventually and then he buried his face while I gave his talk (he did help hold the pictures) and he did say, "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." so I guess that's progress. LOL.

 This morning....

 Our poor, beleaguered cat. Look at the expression on his face. Luke has detected a "dirty paw" again. He won't leave the dang cat alone. Lately he has decided that it's fun to pick him up. He gets in trouble every day for bugging him.

 He's really proficient with his trikes now (he has two that he rides through the house) and I'm pretty sure he ran over Tiger's tail the other day. On accident. (I hope.) His fur color does blend in with the floor and makes him hard to see...

 His latest pastime is watching YouTube videos of Pacman, funny cats, the Mother Goose Club, and all sorts of random stuff. He's just like his dad and feels the need to be entertained every second of the day.

He just put these sticky notes on his face. Nice mutton chops, son.

......

Either he's going to be a great and eager helper when his baby sister comes along, or everything will descend into Even More Chaos. Heaven help me when May comes along.