Amusing small minds.

So, being the only person in the adult portion of the family with a sense of fun, it is always left up to me to find ways to warp the mind of amuse the kid. Here's one of the simpler things I do.

This game is played in the bathroom (or anywhere where there is a sizable mirror). When the kid is looking in the mirror, make a face. (I personally suck in my cheeks until my lips protrude like fish lips.) Wait for the kid to spot you in the mirror. Almost invariably the kid will look to the real you to see what's going on. The trick is to make sure that you erase that face before his eyes focus on you. Now he's faced with a mystery: the you in the mirror has a distorted image. The real you looks perfectly normal.

I can keep Lucas entertained for quite a while when I do this. He hasn't managed to catch me in the act yet.

Was that ever a long week...!

OK, so I said a week and it's almost a month. Sue me. I dare you.

That being said, I do apologize to my blog's biggest (only?) fan for the delay. Life just gets very, very busy and crazy at the beginning of term in a new school and I'd forgotten that aspect of things. Distractions piled on distractions piled on Lucas ... I mean distractions ... and before I knew it, a month had passed. Then I promised to have this thing up by Sunday and a network problem prevented it. (I couldn't access Blogger nor Picasaweb.) So here I am, late Monday morning, filling the blog with my usual drivel.

This is going to be a picture-intensive blog entry, and there's more pictures than are showing up here to be found at Lucas' very own Picasaweb album. Pop on over for more details.

Lucas is growing up very quickly now, and I mean this in all respects. He's smarter. (Too damned smart, sometimes, if in a stupid sort of way!) He's taller. He's more active. He's everything that drives Joan mad.

Joan, you see, has one flaw among her many virtues: she really does not adapt well to change. Lucas is in that stage of his life ("Terrible Twos" are coming!) when change is the only constant. Just as Joan gets used to one set of behaviour patterns from him (nap times, for example, or meal times) he goes and changes things and this drives her (and her mother) nuts. Me, I've had nothing but change for all my life except for an 8.5 year period of illusionary stability (Edmonton). I've learned to adapt to change a thousand times over since then. Joan ... not so much.

I guess some statistics are in order. We have a height chart on the wall and officially measured him on August 17. 87cm. At a little over one year and seven months old, Lucas was as tall as many 3-year olds in China. And he's still sprouting. A few days ago—around the 17th, oddly enough—I did a quick eyeball check (didn't have a book handy so no official measurement) and he'd jumped to 88.5 already, maybe even 89. Oddly enough his weight is not increasing as quickly. He's shooting up, but he's losing fat in the process. This kid is going to be slim and wiry when he grows up. (At the rate he's wearing out his mother's and grandmother's last nerve, if he grows up!)

His personality is also developing at a rapid pace. I don't know what Joan and I did in our past lives to deserve this, but Joan (an introvert) and I (an even stronger introvert) have been saddled with a boy who's the precise opposite: an extrovert of the highest order. He loves having people around. He loves interacting with people. He can't stand periods of quiet and rest. This, too, causes him to wear out nerves quickly. Of course he's so damned cute when being aggravating that he likely will survive to adulthood.

There are a couple of interesting personality traits developing. He's got my stubbornness for sure. Once he sets his mind on something he doesn't let it go until ... well, as with any near-two-year old he's got the attention span of a gnat combined with, say, another gnat. But while we're in that attention span phase, he's dogged. Whatever he wants he wants and he simple will not be distracted from it. Until the attention span thing, I mean.

He's developed an obsession with cars already. He loves them. He points to toy cars, photos of cars, cars in movies, cars on the street and starts reciting what kind they are. He's even right most of the time. His favourite toys are cars (or Lego-like bricks which I make into cars or car accessories). He'll always drag out his picture book and flip it to the cars page to recite the names. Out in the street he'll constantly look out for cars and let out a joyful "che che!" ("car-car!") when he sees one, then announce what kind it is. (He even distinguishes between "car" and "taxi".) It's getting to the stage that we want to rename him to "Lucas Cars" or something like that because he just won't shut up about them!

The other thing that's developed is his penchant for motion. This kid is never not moving. Look at the pictures I put up of him. Even on the best there's tell-tale motion blur. Keep in mind that I put up one photo for about every ten I take. The rest? The rejects? Pure blurs. He doesn't sit still long enough to photograph well. (It doesn't help that he's fascinated by the camera so when he's aware of it he'll lunge straight for it. This is why there's so many photos of him pointing at the camera and grinning.)

I'd like to close off this blog entry with a gallery of photos with attached commentary.

You better not be trying to steal my bun, Mister!

This is that blurring thing I was talking about earlier.

Maybe if I close my eyes and wish really hard, I can get another car!

A rare moment of stillness. He can't see the camera either.

One of his favourite toys, accessory courtesy of yours truly.

The three toys in sharp focus, Lucas in the back being fed.

Same scene, different focus.

OK, before Mom kills me...

...I should probably keep my promise, albeit two days delayed.

This is another Lucas entry people, so if you're not interested in a parent's obviously unbiased view as to his spawn being the cutest thing in the world, move along. I understand there's a blog featuring paint drying that's probably more interesting than this one will be.

So, I keep getting asked what Lucas is like. I keep getting stymied in trying to explain it. How, exactly, do you describe a whole personality in a few, short sentences? Lucas is a human being (if only just barely at times). And despite being under 18 months old he's still a complex creature. For example he's got "exhuberant, laughing bundle of joy" and he's got "cranky, whiny little thing". Talk about range! Jack Nicholson Heath Ledger's got nothing on him!

OK, snarky levity aside, I guess it's time to try and explain what Lucas is like. I'll supplement this with a few pictures.

From Lucas

In general Lucas is a joy. He's happy and mirthful and interested in everything around him. Even the things I don't want him to be interested in. Perhaps especially the things I don't want him to be interested in. You've all seen his happy, interested face in previous entries so I won't bother showing those. Direct your eyes to the picture on the left instead for what his face looks like when he doesn't get what he wants. What's happening there? He wants something and Daddy isn't giving it to him. So he's grabbing Daddy's leg and looking really cranky.

Now usually Lucas isn't cranky. He's cranky a little bit when he's tired but doesn't want to sleep. He's cranky a little bit when interested in something that we won't share with him. Otherwise, however, he's fine. Except when he's sick. Like he was this week, with a cold. See that cranky face above? Imagine a week of this. (This isn't to say that he's always cranky when he's ill. He's just cranky a whole lot more often and switches from giggling to cranky faster than Sichuan Opera singers switch masks.)

From Lucas

One of the other things you don't get to see much of in photos is Lucas sleeping. This is a tragedy, really, because it's one of the things that he's really, really good at. He sleeps with gusto (as you can tell from the photo gracing the right). A bed that's big enough to hold two adults (one of whom is known for being a restless sleeper no less) isn't big enough to hold Lucas without having a tent around him to prevent him from splitting his head when he rolls off. Like he did last night. The rolling off thing, I mean, not the splitting head. The tent on the bed (which, again, you can see in past pictures) saved him from everything except the fright of his life. His screeching howls brought three people to his room in about two heartbeats only to have him suffer the indignity of having those same three people laugh at his terror as we found him trapped at the foot of the bed by the tent. (I know this makes us awful human beings, but it was damned funny!)

From Lucas

Of course he doesn't always sleep in a bed. When Joan and her mother go shopping they bring Lucas along and Lucas often gets worn out from pointing at things and grabbing at things and in general getting overstimulated and overexcited by things. A lot of times when they return, the picture you see to the left is what I'm greeted with.

We generally just leave him in the stroller until he wakes up by himself. This could be hours later.

From Lucas

The walking thing that had us so scared earlier in the year has gone swimmingly. Lucas now trundles around under his own steam and turns our hair white one at a time as he does bone-headed things like walking into corners and door or stumbling over deceptively level floors. Luckily we have a harness rigged up on him that usually permits us to catch him before he hurts himself. The main problem here is that he just gets so excited with whatever has his attention that he forgets about small things like "balance" or "not being in the same place as hard objects". We don't always keep him in a harness, though, as you can see by the picture to the right. (The indistinct thing in the bowl, incidentally, is Lucas' very short-lived pet shrimp. No, I will not be explaining that any further.) Mostly we have him in the harness when outdoors (because falling there can be really bad) or when he's tired and his balance hits levels that in Canada would make a breathalyzer test mandatory.

So there's a thumbnail sketch of my son. The extrovert toddler inflicted upon to introvert parents. (I'm sure that I'm being paid back for something in a past life. Saṃsāra can be a real bitch.) I hope this has given enough of a taste that I stop getting hounded by a frustrated grandmother who has yet to meet her grandson. (In a similar vein I hope that peace breaks out in the Middle East and that I get a hunk of that green cheese from the Moon.)