22 months

2 more months and our baby will be 2 years old! No longer a baby at all! Though he was certainly quite cute, I'm really not missing the baby years because the older Lucas gets, the more fun and expressive and wonderful he is! We really enjoy seeing him grow up into such a loving, silly, thoughtful, active, intelligent and adorable kid! When Lucas was 18 months old I stopped doing the monthly "state-of-the-baby" blog updates and instead moved on to bimonthly- wrongly thinking that he wouldn't be changing as quickly as he got older.
Here's the latest in LucasLand:

For one, he's singing- and mostly in tune! His repertoire includes the ABC song (his very first song), Old McDonald, Row Row Row Your Boat, Twinkle Twinkle (he sings it "tickle tickle little star"), and Seven Bridges Road by the Eagles :). And, not only does he sing the ABCs, he can sing it in the voice a horse would use (the singing kind of horse), the way a duck sings it, and, of course, the way a tiger would sing it (assuming the tiger knew the whole alphabet; I'm pretty sure they only know the letter Arrrrrrr!).





He also has become quite agile and at 20 months climbed the ladder to our loft. At 21 months he began climbing on jungle gyms and wobbly playground ladders. There's very little that can be safely put out of reach of his little hands these days. Luckily, he's been good about rules like not climbing on tables. :).

He has mastered a very accurate Cookie Monster impression, using the blue monster's voice and crazy mouth-cramming style whenever he gets little bite-size crackers and cookies (called Cook-ohs in LucasLanguage). Afterwards he smiles at us as his audience- quite the showman!

Lucas' vocabulary is growing so quickly that I wonder where he learns some of his new words. He's also talking about his morning experiences with Dada when he comes home from work- his speech is no longer limited to labeling objects. It's so cool! He's not yet articulate enough for strangers to understand him, but that is quickly improving. Another cool language/cognitive thing: Lucas loves applejuice and thinks that everyone should have their own personal bottle of it- even inanimate things apparently... when we were admiring our lawnmower out back one day, Lucas noticed the gas can, pointed at it, and asked, "Lawnmower applejuice?". Yes, Lucas, that's exactly right! :). Not only that, he'll drink anything, including vegetable juice, if we call it apple juice. We are going to keep up with that for as long as it takes for him to catch on!

As far as growth, we think Lucas is about to catch up a little bit with his peers since his eating has increased to quantities so huge that we get raised eyebrows at restaurants when we tell waitstaff that the loaded plate they're holding belongs in front of the baby. He's outgrown his 9-12 month size clothing and is now solidly in the 12-18 month category.

Favorites:
FOOD: mac n cheese, breakfast tacos, bacon, apples, cinnamon yogurt, pizza, fancy cheeses like aged raw milk cheddar and those with french names (!), nectarines, and pesto pasta.

TOYS: anything that has a motor in real life, water toys, ride-on toys, puzzles, Elmo things, play-dough, sidewalk chalk, and anything that has opening doors.

ACTIVITIES: being outdoors, dancing and singing, walking with Annie (while he's in the wagon), visiting with Sufyan, looking at and talking to wildlife or neighborhood cats, playing chase, and hide and seek.