Christmas

Luca's first Christmas was great from start to finish. In the morning, we woke to find evidence of Santa's visit - a wooden sled under the tree. After taking the little marshmallow for a spin, we headed over to the Marsdens' for a cup of Christmas coffee. Then we spent a relaxing rest of the day at Papa and Gigi's. We missed those we didn't get to celebrate with in person, and hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Christmas Eve

White Christmas

We are fresh home from a pre-Christmas holiday in Park City - and looking at the U.S. weather map, we're lucky to have made it home. In fact, Omi was nearly stranded in Salt Lake City but last we heard was headed home thanks to her winning ways and a kind-hearted customer service agent.

Our Luca brought his Minnesota hardiness to the mountains and seems to have grown a few degrees cuter during our vacation. He found the house to be well-equipped for babies (thanks Dodsons & Racciattis!) and no doubt left some drool behind on a new favorite toy.





While we were gone, a snow elf named Chris stopped by and cleared our sidewalk and walkway of the several inches of snow that accumulated while we were away. Luca's first Christmas is sure to be a white one, and though he's still too little to take notice, we're looking forward to Santa's first visit.

Luca, meet Cereal

Our cool customer had his first experience with food-from-a-spoon this weekend.



In other exciting news, T is almost done with finals and will soon on be on winter break. Gigi has been spending some quality time with Luca in the meanwhile, helping us through this busy stretch and bonding with the little man.

To get in the holiday spirit we saw A Christmas Carol with the Hegstroms. As T says, it was totally awesome. What is not so awesome? A forecasted high tomorrow of NEGATIVE 2.

Luca Claus

Winter has arrived, and with it, the pretty white stuff. With our holiday spirit in tow we went down to Java Jack's, the local coffee shop which doubles as a seasonal purveyor of Christmas trees, and picked out Luca's first tree. He seems to enjoy decorating almost as much as his mother does.

Luca at 5 Months

Since before he was born, we've known that Luca has some strong legs. My ribs knew it when I was pregnant with him, the doctor knew it when he tested him out at the first appointment, and we see it everyday when he stands (with a little help) on the thighs of glory. Now that he's rounding the 5-month corner, he's found a new use for his strong legs: jumping in the jumperoo.



Don't be fooled by Luca's cooperative on-command jump. For the past month he hasn't been so obliging in the middle of the night, and has been waking frequently. We've put the blame on teething, and tonight T felt the sharp edge of a tooth poking through. While the situation isn't ideal for anyone, I enjoy an unexpected benefit of collective sleeplessness: naps on the couch with Luca.

A Very Backer Weekend

Luca hit the babysitter lottery this weekend, getting to spend Friday night with Ryan and Lindsay Backer & friends, and Saturday night with Laura Backer. R & L were gracious and game enough to add Luca into the mix even though they had visitors in town...and by visitors, I mean a family of four. Thanks, Backers!!

On Saturday night, we celebrated Auntie Sara officially becoming a doctor. In honor of the occasion there was a fantastic grown-up party where we got to talk to Sara & Kris more than the last several visits combined. And I still have Kris' bluegrass rendition of "Sara, You're a Real Doctor Now" running through my head.

We hope everyone has a lovely Thanksgiving holiday!

Elf Yourself

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

What do you call a 26-foot 11.5-inch teenager?

Charting Luca's Growth:

Size at birth	21 inches tall	8 lbs 12.8 oz
Size at four months	26.5 inches tall	16 lbs 14 oz
Monthly growth	1.375 in/m	2.02 lbs/m
Projected size in 18 yrs	26-ft 11.5 in	453 lbs

Charting Luca's Identity Crisis:
(what follows is a list of the random nicknames that our poor son hears almost daily)
L.T.
Friendo
Lumpo
The Lump
Anders Stinkerton Lee
Preshy Presh Presh
The Smidge
Button
Wiggles Mcgee
Bubbs
Pumpkin
Hamburger
Nerfburger
Plumperton
Nut Nut
Taco Stu
Johnny Napsacks

First snow

Luca at 4 Months

Luca has grown so much and has nearly doubled in weight since he was born four months ago. Today he weighed in at 16 lbs 14 oz and measured 26 1/2 inches tall. With those stats, it's no wonder that he's starting to feel less like a tiny baby and more like little boy.

He's also blossoming developmentally, with the big news of the week being that he is rolling over. Notably, he is rolling from his back to his stomach and getting both hands free to do a push-up-and-look-around move. According to Omi, the internet, and the doctor, this is the harder way to roll and puts Luca into the "advanced" category. This video is from a step or two ago in his rolling evolution, but you'll get the idea.

He's a little bit country...

Happy Halloween! Luca is enjoying his first holiday, black cats and cowboy hats and all.

NBA: New Baby Association

On Thursday night Luca got to go to his first NBA game. Too bad it was the Wolves instead of the Mavs, but the smidge still K-loved it.

The other event of the weekend was a two-fold celebration of Erica's birthday, with pedicures & beer in the afternoon and cake & kids & more beer at Casa Marsden in the evening.

One of our co-celebrators asked the million dollar question: who does the baby look like? We're sure that he's cuter than either of us were, though T suspects that's the advantage of digital photography and that he was in fact the cutest baby ever.

New Tricks

This weekend Luca met his Aunt Alecia and Uncle Mark for the first time while they were visiting from New York City. If we had remembered our camera, you would look below to see adorable pictures of Luca making googlie eyes at them. Since we were remiss and have no photographic evidence, we are instead offering these pictures of Luca performing his newest tricks: sitting up (with assistance) and turning regular toys into chew toys.

Ben's Birthday

This weekend we celebrated the one and only Benjamin Casey's first birthday. Luca had a ball with his Minneapolis cousins, and Ben had the time of his life with the chocolate cake. In both of our families there are far more girls than boys, so it's no surprise that these two little chaps are treated like princes.

Luca at 3 months

The bambino just rounded the 3-month corner! He's up to some new tricks and logged a lot of firsts this week, which we spent out in California. He took his first plane ride, visited the ocean, attended a wedding, went to his first concert in the park, met his Grandpa David, and was introduced to some great friends. You'd think he'd be worn out, and it seems like he might be because he's starting to make a habit out of sleeping in excess of 9 uninterrupted hours per night. We know, we know...it's not going to last. But it's not stopping us from enjoying the sleep.

In addition to his new sleeping skills, Luca is adding some other talents to his resume. He is developing his neck strength and is close to sitting up. For now, we interpret his sticking his head out as a desire to sit up, so we help him the rest of the way. His hand movements are getting more and more coordinated, and he loves to jam his whole hand in his mouth and talk around it. And he's been kicking his legs up and doing his best to roll over.

We'll have to wait several more months to know what color Luca's eyes will end up being. They seem to change almost daily - sometimes we're sure they're turning brown, but the next moment they'll look blue or even a little green. His hair is pulling a chameleon act as well, going from brown to golden and making a stop at reddish along the way.

Luca shows off his serious side with a major scowl, but the best development of late is how much he is smiling. He's even come close to laughing a couple of times. He can be a flirt and smiles like crazy for ladies, though he also pulls the cutest shy act by smiling and then rubbing his face into your shoulder.

It might sound ridiculous, but we are so proud of him. He's such a good baby and he makes life even more fun for us than it was before. We often forget that he's a baby because he feels like such a natural addition, like an mini partner-in-crime for T & me.

Fall News

Along with the start of a new season, there are some changes afoot around here - some big, some small. To start with the big, happy news, Papa & Gigi made it official and were married in California on September 12th.


Here at home, we can't quite believe how the small, daily changes add up over the course of weeks and months. Looking through our videos of Luca's life thus far, we're struck by how much the smidge has changed.

Luca at 1 week:


Luca last week:


And to file under "inconsequential and hopefully temporary," as a reward for the successful completion of his summer internship I bought T a Wii. Truth be told, I didn't think it would get that much attention in our house since we get so much entertainment from Luca. Shows what I know...most nights you'll find us parked in front of two screens: the video baby monitor and Wii tennis. This is a phase that I'm sure will pass, but for now we're a Wii family.

Chickie Love

We hate to break the hearts of all the baby girls we know, but Luca has already found his first love. Her name is "Miss Chickie" and she lives in his car seat. Luca smiles at and talks to her, and if she falls off to the side he starts to fuss. The other hanger-on is Turtle, who inexplicably does not seem to elicit the same kind of attention. Luca's love is reserved for Chickie.

Luca at 2 months

Luca reached the two-month marker this week, so we took a trip to the doctor's office for immunizations and a check-up. LT was as brave as an eight week old can be about the shots, and was also very impressive in the weight gain department. At 14 lbs, he's in the 95th percentile for weight. To round out his stats, he is 23.5 inches long and his head is 15.5 inches. I'm relieved to report that his head is only 50th-percentile-big, and that he didn't inherit a gravity-defying Allen melon.

In addition to his clearly good taste in music, Luca is developing an excellent sense of humor. He thinks we're hilarious. He's very talkative, especially in the morning after a good sleep, a diaper change, and some breakfast. Speaking of sleep, he gave us a preview (we hope) of a more sane future when he slept for 9 consecutive hours on a few nights last week.


We've been so surprised by Luca and by how much you can love 14 pounds of boy. A few of our favorite observations at two months:

- He's managed to uncurl his hands and can get them to his mouth
- When tired, he pulls on his ears and rubs his eyes and face
- He loves his dad's whistling, and seems to enjoy music and voices above all else
- Luca usually wakes up smiling, but occasionally wakes with a silent, contorted-face cry that would be sad if it weren't so funny
- He does the best wake-up stretch
- His hair is lightening to a strawberry blond and is starting to fall out just in time for hat season

Back in Time

We spent last weekend in Lanesboro, Minnesota, a tiny town in the southeastern corner of the state. For some reason, we thought it was a great idea to take a two-month-old baby on a three hour car ride to stay in a quaint, old inn...and luckily it turned out that we were right. Luca slept the whole way both going and coming, and our inn neighbors didn't have a single midnight peep or scream to complain about.

For our part, we enjoyed the getaway and the break from laundry & dishes. Lanesboro is, in a word, picturesque. The main attractions are bike paths, Fall colors, and Amish tours. This is the kind of place that's so curiously charming, it just might have inspired a Stephen King story.

While in town we mostly strolled and ate. We also stopped into the Lanesboro museum which is stocked with all manner of memorabilia, from Uncle Ernie's hockey jersey to antique grain milling equipment. Karen, the woman in charge of the museum, actually watched Luca for a few minutes so that T & I could check out all three floors. Only in Lanesboro...

But the main entertainment was Luca, followed by watching the DNC. Luca is getting more smiley and social every day, and he made his first friend, elephant #1 on his pack'n'play mobile. He spent a lot of time exchanging smiles and single-syllable sounds with us.

Now we're back at home, with the RNC raging (or whimpering) along in St. Paul. Watching Palin last night made me wish we were back in Lanesboro watching the Obamas, Clintons, and Bidens again. Although I did get a kick out of the unbelievably inappropriate "Hoosiers for the Hot Chick" button sported by one vet during Palin's speech...

Luca's First "Great Minnesota Get Together"

We love the MN State Fair. We go for the ridiculous food and drink, the people watching, the music/shows, and for some inexplicable reason, the animal barns. In these barns, one encounters unbelievable tastes, sights, and sounds, along with numerous gigantic Minnesotans prodding and poking numerous gigantic baby animals which are prodding and poking the gigantic teats of their gigantic mothers. Oh, and it smells like deuce. I know, I know, it sounds like I must be falsely billing the greatness of the experience, but trust me, I wouldn't do that.

This year, A got a whole new perspective on things in the human barn known as Lactation Station.Lactation Station is a tent outfitted with fans, light music, and rocking chairs filled with baby Minnesotans feeding from their mothers (both prize-winning and otherwise). Last year, we didn't even notice it. This year we orbited around it.

While our Fair experience was very different from years past in some ways, it was the same in many others...

Raise Your Hand if You're Californian

When we lived in San Francisco I was one of the city's most elusive type of residents: a native Californian. And though I didn't live in the City until my mid-20s, my mom made sure that the "born in _________" line reads "San Francisco" on all four of her children's birth certificates. So it's been a little heartbreaking for me that Luca's birth record not only won't say San Francisco, but won't have anything Californian about it.

Even so, and even if we lived in Oregon or Montana, I consider the little guy to be half Californian and half Minnesotan, just like he's a little bit Irish and a whole lot Italian. T & I both have a lot of home state pride, so wherever we go we won't let Luca forget his dual Pacific and Midwest citizenship. Thanks to Luca's Auntie BFF, he has a wardrobe of MN- and CA-themed onesies to back this up.


This week Luca had his first exposure to his California roots during an unbeatable visit from his CA cousins, auntie & uncle. We visited the MOA, played at the lake, had an in-car picnic during a huge thunderstorm, and generally enjoyed time together in the Minnesota summer. We're so thankful that they came all the way here to meet the little guy. The only thing that made their heading back home bearable is knowing that we'll see them in California this Fall.

My Baby Can Eat Your Baby

In the blue corner, wearing the orange G-diaper, and weighing in at 11 lbs 14 oz., future welterweight champion of the world, Luca "The Bruiser" Giganto!

Luca at 4 Weeks

A whole month has passed since Luca broke out and joined us on the outside. In the interest of recording his development for posterity, we'd like to make a practice of monthly highlight reels. Here's the first, covering what he's being up to these four weeks.

Hazmat

Luca is an expert poop producer and wall sprayer. There were two early omens of his proficiency that we might have heeded more carefully. First, he produced some meconium in utero - a cause for concern during delivery that turned out to be no big deal. Then there was one particularly long trip to the nurses' station. They'd had a clean-up on their hands after Luca made a pee fountain to entertain all the nurses.

Since then we've lost count of all the incidents of wet walls, wet clothes, and ill-timed diaper changes, but there have been a couple of memorable occurrences worth mentioning:

- At one trip to the doctor's office, Luca peed on the examining table not once, but twice. Since the same doctor performed Luca's circumcision, the peeing seemed purposeful and perhaps punitive.

- Airing out the baby is a good idea, but it's one that should perhaps be executed on the lawn and not in the front room. I had him on my lap, wrapped in what turned out to be a permeable blanket, and was rewarded with a soaking in baby poop.

- And you've seen the picture of the sopping mess Luca made of T.

Babar

In the middle of the night, Luca makes sounds more appropriate to a baby elephant than a human baby. Curiously, he doesn't seem to make these noises during daytime naps, but only when T & I are trying to sleep.

Luca "the Bruiser"

Luca is a fairly easy going baby. He'll cut you some slack on diaper changes, and he lets me drag him all over town to run errands. But get in the way of a meal, and you're in for it. He's ferocious about feeding.

The result is an impressive weight gain. During one six-day period he gained almost a pound, going from 9.4 lbs to 10.25 lbs. The 2.4 oz per day increase this represents is more than double the 1 ounce expected max daily weight gain.

Yes, we are planning his NFL career.

Rewards

In just the past few days, Luca has started to punctuate his usual expressions with occasional smiles for T & me. It's the greatest.



Here's Luca working very hard to build neck muscles.

One Woman Band

The little fella and I are going to be on our own for a couple of weeks, as Omi has gone back home after a great extended visit. She helped us tremendously - in both the around-the-house ways of doing laundry and loading the freezer with baked ziti, and also in the what-do-i do-now ways. Like when Luca's screaming in the middle of Target and I don't know whether to pick him up out of his carseat or run us all out the door. Omi always knows the right thing to do. Thanks Portland for letting us borrow her for a few weeks. We'll need her back later.

A's Big Day!

Supermom will probably blog tomorrow, but I just took these photos this morning (her birthday!) and thought they were more than blogworthy.


Happy birthday, A!

Super T

Today is T's first day back at work after two and a half weeks off, and we miss him. He is an impressive dad already. He sings to Luca and walks the floor with him for hours to comfort him. He jumps up in the middle of the night when Luca makes one of his many wild baby animal sounds. He even lets Luca pee on him.

This weekend Luca got to meet special visitors Marsha and Sam

T & Luca, after Luca marked his territory

Lucky Luca

In his first two weeks of life on the outside, Luca has been showered with love, attention and gifts from friends and family near and far. T & I have been saved from starvation thanks to generous meal deliveries, and bailed out from the shocking pile of baby laundry by Omi. We're immeasurably thankful for Luca and all the support and love our new family has received over the past two weeks.

Papa with Luca's chin

Omi & Luca - forging a special bond during her visit

T has been off of work since Luca's arrival and will be heading back to the adult world next week. In the meantime, the closest he's gotten to his office was earlier this week when we checked out a special Aquatennial tennis match put on in the plaza of his building.




In the future we will post videos of Luca doing funny and amazing things. For now, we only have video of his mom doing an impression of him. T thinks I have a gift for impersonating our baby.

Videos brought to you thanks to Papa & Gigi's gift of a video camera.

Week 40 - Gametime!

Dear Luca,
Since this whole thing began back in October 2007, July 2nd was the date that you were supposed to arrive. However, with Mom's family history of delivering late (she was 3 weeks late herself!) and the fact that first babies typically are a little on the tardy side, we were prepared to wait a few more days or even weeks when we went to bed on Tuesday night, July 1st.
Mom was having some dull pain in her back and her frequent contractions seemed to be even more frequent than usual. We chalked these things up to being effects from having taken a long walk to Liberty Frozen Custard for ice cream after dinner, and went to bed as usual. Little did we know that your arrival was around the corner.

3am - Contractions woke Mom for the first time in the entire pregnancy. Each contraction was also painful, which was a first as well. She noted the times of the contractions, and saw that they were coming fast and furious (5-minutes apart right from the start).

4am -
A: "Wake up T, I think things are happening"
T: "Oh my god"

4am - 545am - We timed contractions, took showers, put the finishing touches on our hospital bags, called the doctor (who told us to head to the hospital), and of course, took A's in-labor uber-important week 40 photo.

Yes, she's in labor in this 545am photo!

7am - The nurses at maternity assessment noted that A's contractions were strong and close together, but that she was only dilated to 2-3 cms. They asked that we go for a walk before being reassessed. With further dilation, Mom would be admitted and we would begin becoming your parents. No further dilation would mean we would head back home and continue with the waiting game.
8am - After an hour-long walk to and around the midtown market, we returned to the hospital to learn that A's dilation had moved to 4-5 cms. It was gametime! Mom was admitted to room 10 of the delivery room (which we later learned was the same room where your cousin Ben was born just 9 months before!), and her contractions ramped up in intensity and length.
11am - A was dilated to 6 cm by this point, but her contractions had reached a point where they were almost unbearable. Mrs. Tough Stuff had been handling her discomfort so well that nurse Linda said she couldn't believe A was at 6 with no pain medication b/c she was acting like someone at 2.
12pm - A's pain escalated rapidly and after discussing some relief options, she decided to give the tub a shot. The warm water of the tub proved a good distraction as A began to feel a little better about her discomfort.
1215pm - A's water broke in the tub!
1245pm - Mom began feeling the need to push and nurse Linda thought it was time to head back to room #10 to begin the delivery process.

1pm - We returned to the delivery room and the nurse was impressed to see that A was between 9-10 cms without having received any drugs at all. She asked A if she was ready to push even though the doctor was still not in the room, and A said she was ready.
1-135pm - Mom's spirits improved as she was able to take some control over the process by pushing through each contraction. Doctor Kilburg arrived around 130pm, and after a funny introduction to A during a big push she immediately prepared for a delivery that she deemed imminent. Here was their exchange:

MD: "Hi, A. You're doing great. I'm doctor Kilburg. It's nice to meet you."
A: "MMMRMRRRRRMRGRRR!"

136pm - You were born! Luca Thomas! To quote the doctor, you were a big, juicy, baby boy! We high-fived upon hearing the news (partly because we didn't even have a girls name figured out), and you immediately screamed and cried. After Dad cut the surprisingly thick cord, you bonded with Mom for a few minutes and then were measured by the nurses: 8lbs 12.8 oz., 21 inches long, 14-inch head:

We stuck around the hospital until Friday, and were immediately overwhelmed with happiness and the sense that you belonged with us all along -a euphoric feeling that is impossible to explain.

We love you, and welcome home.

Love,
Mom and Dad

1:30 of more pics...

Week 39

With just two days until #3's due date, we shouldn't be surprised that today brought a lot of contractions and quite a few opportunities for us to wonder if the real thing was underway.

Our friends have been great at helping to distract us from the inevitable feeling of suspense that week 39 has brought. Last week we barbecued and witnessed a super-soaker showdown, and got to spend some time with the newest addition, little CS born just a couple of weeks ago.

Week 38

As you can see, I'm still pregnant. You might also be able to tell that I've passed the stage where people regard me with doting admiration. Now when I walk into a store, I'm greeted by strangers who say "whoa!" and start making contingency plans in case I go into labor.

There's got to be a jail stripes joke here somewhere...

We manage to keep stacking up great weekends and are keeping track of all the cool things #3 is getting to do pre-birth. The highlights this week were Rock the Garden at the Walker on Saturday and a family dinner on Sunday. Now just one weekend between us and the due date...

A friend found this picture of us in a local paper. We're near the center, watching from the roofdeck of the Walker.