Iowa Boy for a Week

Long overdue....I've been meaning to write about our little Luke's time at Gramma and Grampa's house for over a week.  Gramma has an awesome blog and already posted the day-by-day here, here ,here, here and here (LOTS of pictures!).  So I won't cover the same stuff.  But I did want to highlight a few things that stand out to me:

1.  I admit that I hate leaving Luke.  Even when it's with his Daddy when I want to run to the grocery store or Target without the little wiggle-worm.  Maybe it's the first-born thing.  Probably it's just me though.  I want to be with him, make sure he's happy. It's not that I don't think anyone else can take care of him or make him happy - it's something else....I can't really verbalize it.  But after leaving him with mom and dad I saw exactly how happy he was without me!  I mean, I know he's always been fine without me - it's just ME that hasn't been.  So after hearing how great he was (and seeing pictures) I think I got over that feeling I always get when I leave him.  Now only if we had more babysitters around!!

2.  He slept like a CHAMP in the pack-n-play.  Seriously, that kid likes to make me a liar.  I can recount several sleepless and horrid nights when we were traveling with Luke while he was a baby and he would not sleep more than an hour at a time in the pack-n-play.  Bellingham, Michigan, a visit to our friends in Wisconsin....every single time we'd say "maybe he'll do better, he's a little older" and every.single.time it was awful.  So when mom said that she was keeping Luke and not Amber (she's got the money baby room outfitted with the girls' crib) I was not excited.  I warned her.  I told Amber to be ready for Luke to stay at her house starting the 2nd night.  But that little stinker slept through the night or was up just once and went right back down, every night.  I am thrilled with this because now we can rest a little easier (literally!) when we travel.  He also took stellar naps ON THE FLOOR with the TV ON.  What the???

3.  He loves his cousins.  Amber and I didn't get a chance to grow up living close to our cousins like Mike did. We've often said it would have been so different if we had cousins to play with all the time when we were little. It makes me a little sad to know that Maddie and Maci and Luke won't get the chance to go to the same school or have the same friends or play with each other on the weekends.  But they all sure do love each other and I think it just means that we have to work extra hard at making sure they stay that way as they grow up.

4.  Boyfriend loves him some space....he literally walked in circles, from room to room, the whole day.  It's like he was in heaven with no baby gates and no sharp corners to bump and fall in to.  He was exhausted at the end of the day from so much walking (makes me wonder what it would be like to put a pedometer on him...hmmm....).  Anyway, I can't wait until the day when we have a bigger house that Bubby can have free reign in.

5.  We have a happy kid.  It makes my heart smile to know this.  He jabbers and talks and smiles, and plays shy and peek-a-boo.  He hides behind things and likes to break into a jog when he's excited.  And he did all of this regardless of having his mama and dad around.  That makes me feel like we're doing something right.

Thanks Gramma, Grampa, Auntie A, Maddie and Maci for making Luke's trip so awesome!