This nursery was quite a bit of work.  When we first bought this house last November, we knew that this room would need a complete and total redo.  It had a wallpaper border at the top (I HATE THOSE!!!) and an old and yucky carpet that looked and smelled like someone had been brutally murdered on it (and when we tore it up, the marks on the hardwood floor didn’t do much to convince us otherwise).

These before pictures were taken before we actually bought the house.  I wish I’d taken more detailed photos of that scary carpet.  Just to prove that it looked like someone was murdered on it and then the carpet was bleached to death.

Luckily the room looks completely different now.  The contrast from that dark and smelly room to the bright and cheery room that it is now is awesome.  It’s a happy room.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this Vintage Snoopy bed set.  I guess I could have re-used Lukas’ bed set.  I made sure that his was very unisex and it is still damned adorable, but I really wanted this baby to have something of his own and for Lukas’ bed set to always be JUST Lukas’.  These boys are going to have to share a LOT of things during their lives, and I see no harm in throwing in a unique thing here and there.  Sure, these bed sets will probably be donated when this baby has outgrown his, but I still just wanted this to be something that was unique to each of them.  I grew up with lots of hand-me-downs and I know how those few things that were all mine were so special.  I want my boys to have those few things as well.

Here is the changing table/chest of drawers that my Facebook followers talked about last night.  Jessie put it together and kept doing silly Jessie things that had my in stitches.  This is EXACTLY like Lukas’ and that is simply because it is an awesome piece of furniture.  After it is no longer a changing table, it can just be a dresser/chest of drawers until they move out and take it with them.

Now I’m really going to kill you with cute.  Who’s ready for itty bitty baby clothes?

Drawer full of tiny socks, tiny hats, and dozens of bibs.  I’m so glad that I didn’t have to re-buy a lot of these.

I get excited about holding my new baby in my arms when I am reminded how tiny he will be.  That’s a tiny sock!

I’m hoping that both of us will be out of the hospital and home by the time trick or treaters come around to my house.  I plan on sitting on my front porch with my little baby swaddled and wearing this as I hand out treat bags.

Before I started having kids, I remember my mother-in-law telling me that I needed LOTS of onesies.  She was right and I’m glad that I have lots here.

Teeny tiny shoesies, anyone?  Yes, they are shoesies!

Teeny Tiny bunny slipper!  Passed down from his big brother who was able to wear them for about the first week of his life before he outgrew them.

Teeny tiny sneaker also passed down from Lukas.  Lukas wore these ONCE.  The child was born with size 12 feet, I swear.

A closet stuffed full of clothes.  Most of them are hand-me-downs, but there are a few outfits in there that are just for the new baby.

For those of you perceptive enough to notice the wallpaper on the inside of the closet, yes, we are leaving the pink ribboned wallpaper up.  When this child is old enough to have a problem with the pink ribbons inside of his closet and complains about it, we figure he’ll also be old enough to help remove it.  I hate wallpaper so much.

ATTACK OF THE GIANT BELLY!

Aaaaand the weird belly button thing is back!

And to put a proper end to this cuteness post, I give you a picture of my beautiful first-born.  He thinks Momma’s bed is paradise and takes every opportunity to get snuggled in under that quilt that he and I both adore.

Beach from Somer Canon on Vimeo.

I can’t help it.  That totally harrowing event at the end always makes me crack up laughing.

It had been 5 years since I’d last been to Rehoboth Beach.  I love this place.  It was the first beach I had ever been to (at the age of 13) and it is the only beach I really like now.  Sure, when I was 17-18, I really liked beaches that had lots of clubs and hot guys to flirt with, but now that I’m a momma and a wife, I prefer the smaller, quiet Rehoboth.

I hesitate to say outright that Rehoboth is a gay beach.  It’s a beach where lots of families come to mingle with the gay people.  So I guess the most gentle way to say it is that Rehoboth is very gay friendly.  It’s one of the things that makes this place so charming.  There are awesome gay stores (Out Gear) and just really really cool people there.  Jessie and I actually went there on our honeymoon.  It was slightly off season and we really got a good view of how the town itself is very gay friendly.  It was a great week.

We had a very good weekend there.  Lukas was good at night and slept well, and he enjoyed all of the shops and the sand.  The water, however, was another story.

This year is the first year that I’ve been able to get Lukas into a swimming pool without the child freaking the hell out.  I’ve taken him swimming every summer of his life and he’s always hated it.  This year, he’s been all about swimming at Grandma’s house and doing daredevil dives into our arms.  So it was a bit of a stretch to believe he’d be ok with water that has waves and knocks him over.  He wasn’t impressed.  We got him to venture out a couple of times and even got him to go out into deeper water with us holding him.  And then a huge wave broke right upside the poor child’s head and he was DONE.  Maybe next time I’ll be able to talk him into going out deep with me.

We all had a good time at the shops.  He marveled at the hermit crabs, sea shells, and preserved baby sharks in a bottle.  He loved the Christmas shop and Out Gear (everything had rainbows!!).  He loved all of the neat little eateries.  He ran us ragged going from store to store, but he had a good time…..so it was worth it.

I’ll post a video tomorrow, but for now, here are some pictures from our trip.  I can’t wait to go back!

Playing in sand.

Lunch at Nathan’s.

He pooped out from all the shopping and slept through dinner.

Wearing his “Macho Man” hat.

BEST.  CHRISTMAS TREE.  ORNAMENT.  EVER.

Video tomorrow!

Friday, Jessie left work early and we went to my mom’s house.  My mom and step father are out of town but they gave us permission to use their pool and cabana while they were gone.  I spent that Friday cooking fried chicken for a picnic while some weird cable guy was in my house for almost 2 hours trying to ignore what I was telling him.  Want me to go into that story?  Too bad, I’m doing it anyhow.

Ever since our cable company has made the switch to where you need a digital cable box to get even basic channels and we got a second box just for that reason, we have been having horrid problems.  We subscribe to a bundle package where we have cable television, cable internet and the cable telephone.  Once we got the second box, things started fucking up.  On Demand wouldn’t work and the phone and internet kept going out.  I don’t like being without internet, but it really pissed me off that we were paying for phone service that was really unreliable.  They sent a workman out.  This guy was really super nice.  He kept me informed of what he was doing and when he found the problem he tried his best to explain it to me even though it was way over my head.  Basically maintenance had to come out to my house and replace wires and couplings at the pole.  That still didn’t fix the problem.  They sent another workman out.  This guy was also extremely nice and he listened to me when I explained what the last guy had done and I suggested that perhaps this second cable box was causing the problem since the problems started when we got it.  He agreed and said that he would replace the second box no problem.  He had to try two different boxes before one worked and he even explained to me why the equipment sometimes didn’t work.  He was awesome.  Well the new box fixed the On Demand problem but not the phone and internet problem.  *sigh*  They sent out another workman.  This guy was a doofus.  The best way I can describe it to you (especially my WV readers) is that he was a know-it-all redneck.  You know, the guy who thinks he knows how everything works and will not listen to reason.  Basically he came and stood in my living room (where there is NO cable equipment) and talked to himself for about five minutes….thoroughly creeping me out in the process.  Then he asked me what the problem was.  I explained to him that the phone and internet kept going out.  He then started going through the same long process that the first guy went through.  I stopped him and explained to him that he was the third workman who had come to our house about this problem and that he might want to look at the modem first.  Then I heard the signature know-it-all redneck line:  “I’m gonna tell you right now that your numbers are going to be out of whack!”

I tried not to laugh because he reminded me so much of a dumbass a friend of mine used to be married to.  So he looked at the numbers and then stood in my backyard talking to himself a while longer.  Then he came to me and asked me to show him where the cable modem was.  I showed it to him and you know what he ended up having to do?  Change out the modem.  Like I suggested he should try.  He was at my house for almost 2 hours.  But, the good news is that it seems to have fixed the problem.  I’m not really miffed at the cable company.  When we call, the people are always super nice and they always send a workman out the very next day.  And up until know-it-all showed up, the workman have all been awesome.  I hope the problem is fixed though.

ANYHOW, we spent the evening at my mom’s house swimming in the pool and just enjoying each other.  That night, we let off a few small fireworks to try to get Lukas excited for the 4th.  He wasn’t very interested.

Saturday, we went to a local lake to try fishing only to find that with all of the jet skis and motor boats (and lack of fishing areas) there was no chance we were going to get any fishing done there.  So, we shrugged it off and went back to mom’s house and spent that very hot day lounging in a pool.  It was a great day.

Sunday we were pooped and decided to stay home in the air conditioning.  That night, we grilled out and let off fireworks.  Again, Lukas could have cared less.  Jessie and I made clowns of ourselves playing with sparklers and doing stupid stuff trying to get his interest, and he ended up getting really annoyed with us.  Then we brought out the big noisy fireworks and he was still not having it.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Today we WERE going to stay home and just chill, but in the middle of writing this post, my mom called from her car on her way home from Philly and asked if we wanted to come over today.  I know part of the invitation is because it is hot as hell outside, but I know she really just wants to see Lukas.  It makes me a little misty-eyed to know that my mom will probably be to my kids what her mother was to my brother and I.  It makes me happy they will have that kind of connection with someone outside of their parents.

So I am finishing this blog right now with a very excited toddler pulling at my arm screaming “GRANDMA’S HOUSE” and “BIG WA WA” in my ear.  It’s cute and annoying all at once. I’ll end this with some awesome pictures from the weekend.  I have videos as well, but I’ll make a separate post for those.

I don’t know if it is a Lukas-thing or a little boy-thing, but this kid LOVES being naked, and I know my mom will get a good laugh out of seeing him running around bare-ass on her patio.  I also love my censor-the-winky job.

He was more interested in the mac n’ cheese than in the fireworks.

It was a good holiday.  Stresses were forgotten and I remembered to count myself as lucky to have two sweet faces smiling at me when I looked up.  Soon it will be three sweet faces.  Life is good.

I had another blog post in mind for today, but this little blah blah is really just a platform for me to show off another video of Lukas being cute.  Today we sat in the sunroom and played with some of his toys and munched on some Oreo cookies.  We both share a deep love for Oreos, even though our view on how to eat them differ.  I am all about keeping them whole and dunking them.  Lukas is a split-and-lick kind of guy, which upsets me greatly.  He’s ruining a perfectly good cookie!

Lukas Oreo Face from Somer Canon on Vimeo.

Note:  I also LOVE how every “sentence” end in “Momma.”  If he’s talking to his toys and I’m in the room, every sentence directed at them still ends in “Momma.”  It’s really freaking cute.

Then there are those nights when he quietly gets out of bed, goes to his door, and says through the door, “Momma.”

I’m awake in a flash and going to him.  When I open the door, I am greeted by a tiny creature dressed in fleece footy pajamas with a blue blanket hanging from his mouth.  Tiny arms are reaching up for me.  I bend down and the tiny arms wrap around my neck.  I pick him up and hold him for a minute, just standing in the doorway with his tiny form in my arms.  His warm soft cheek presses against the side of my face.  Little hands have found my hair and are lightly playing with it.

I walk him back over to his bed and lay him down.

“Sit, Momma.”  He cries.  I get in bed with him and pull the covers around us.  I stretch my right arm out and he snuggles into the nook between my chest and arm.  Tiny hands reach up and start playing with the button on my shirt.  We both doze.  He wakes up, not realizing I’m still there and cries out.

“Shh.  Momma’s here.”  I say to him.

“Momma,”  he says as he grinds his face into my chest.  He’s asleep in a matter of minutes.  I slowly make my way out of his bed.  I pull the covers in around him.  I kiss the soft hair and warm skin at his temple.  I pick up a tiny hand and kiss it before tucking it under the blankets.  He sleeps the rest of the night.

The next morning, I am awakened by the sound of one of his noise-making books honking loudly by his door.  He is awake and is patiently keeping himself occupied until I let him out.  I get out of bed, open his door, and a tiny creature in fleece footy pajamas flies past me, stops, turns to me and says “Hi, Momma!” before darting into his toy room where he plays with his train set until breakfast.

He eats his yogurt and fruit quickly and quietly knowing that finishing this dish will get him a bowl of Cheerios and milk.  When I set the cereal before him, he looks up at me and says, “Ank oo!”  I sit across from him eating my breakfast and checking my email.  He lifts his small plastic spoon for me to see and proclaims that it is a green spoon.  I tell him that, yes, that is a green spoon and that he is a very good and smart boy.

Now it’s time for Sesame Street. The time of day that I dread and he loves.  With the hour-long show comes 10,000 questions about minute details on the screen.  Yes, Elmo is red.  Yes, that is Mr. Noodle.  Yes, I see Big Bird too.  No, that is not a cat, that’s a dog.  Yes it is.  YES IT IS.

He has not been napping lately.  Usually around this time, it is nap time but now I pull some special toys out for him.  We cut wooden fruit, play with cars, or fry bananas in his play kitchen.  When I go upstairs to shower, he stands in the bathroom with me standing on his stool and compulsively washing his hands and getting water everywhere.  I brush his teeth and he begs for a sip of water from his ducky cup.

Now it’s time for his lunch.  I put him in his chair and serve him a plate of bologna, cheese, and a crackers or chips.  He asks for a sippy.  I bring it to him.  He tells me to sit.  I sit and we chat while he eats.  We talk about the house that he can see out of the window.  We talk about the kitty misbehaving.  We talk about what kind of cheese he is eating.  We sing the ABC song.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  He claps and wants to sing it again.  We sing it again.  I get up from my chair and remove his empty plate before he can ask for another encore.  I let him down from his chair.  He grabs my hand and says “DOO DOO!”  And drags me upstairs where we play with his train set (choo choo).  We come downstairs and chase each other around for a bit.

I ask him if he wants chicken for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants fish for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants rice for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants noodles for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants a weiner for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants French fries for dinner.  He says no.  I ask him if he wants M&M’s for dinner.  He says yes.  I opt for chicken.

His father comes home.  He goes crazy.  They say their hello’s and hug and kiss.

We sit down to dinner.  When he sees that he did not get M&M’s for dinner, he gets angry.  He repeatedly pushes his plate away from himself and I keep pushing it back telling to eat a little bit.  He puts a piece in his mouth and takes it out before chewing.  I tell him to eat or go to bed.  He doesn’t want to go to bed so he eats one piece.  Only one piece.  We give up after about 45 minutes of screaming and tantrums all around.  We go downstairs and watch a DVD.  Then we go upstairs and play with the train set some more.  Then it’s bath time.

He plays with all of his toys, splashes us, points out his winky 200 times, and turns on the cold water and squeals when it hits him.

We take him out, brush his teeth, lotion his body and put him in fleece footy pajamas.  We read him a book.  We snuggle him under his blankets and kiss his cheeks.  He says night-night to us.  We turn off the light and tell him that we love him.  We close the door.

He can count to 2.  (Not impressed?  Bugger off!)  He knows that he is 2 years old.  He recognizes and can say all the letters of the alphabet even though he’s not quite so good with the song yet.  He says please (peeee!) and thank you (ank you!).  He says hi and bye bye.  He knows the difference between a man and a lady (we took the cat to the vet and when we left Lukas looked at her and said “Bye bye lady!”)  He can ask for more sippy (mo see peee!)

In general, I’m on top of it all.  I know what he’s saying better than anybody.  But he keeps saying this one word and I can’t for the life of me figure out what the hell he is saying.  It’s possible that it’s jibberish, but it’s so clear and he’s so serious when he says it.

PEGAWAY.

It’s never a consistent context in which he uses this word.  It’s completely random.  It’s funny, but it’s also a little frustrating.  So I’ll ask you:

What the fuck does pegaway mean?!?!

Christmas ’09 from Somer Canon on Vimeo.

Jessie’s parents visited us bearing loads of presents.

Among other things, they got him a train conductor’s costume,

A Chef’s costume,

And his own awesome train set!

On Christmas Eve at my mom’s house there were more presents still for the little man.  They were mostly clothes,

But he had fun anyhow.

Then Santa visited our house.  He left wrapped gifts under the tree, a fully loaded kitchen set, and a small table and chairs set for Mister Lukas to do his doodling and drawing.  Also, there was a completely stuffed stocking with chocolate and sweets to keep temper tantrums at bay for at least two weeks.

He was excited when he saw all the new things in the family room.

But in the end, he really just wanted to dig into the contents of his stocking.

The next day, he was a little more interested in exploring some of the other toys besides the train set and kitchen set, like this awesome mat with roads on it and tons of little cars and trucks.  He was a happy boy.

And as a family present we went to the Berks County Humane Society and adopted a 9-month old cat.  His name at the pound was Duce, but that name reminds me too much of superstar bloggers and poop (i.e. dropping a deuce) so I renamed him Chess because he smiles at me and looks like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.  He’s an absolute love and I’m totally glad I chose him, even though we originally went to adopt a kitten.  However, as we browsed the little windows, all of the other cats completely ignored us (including the two adorable tiny kittens), but at the end, the very last cage, was a cat who jumped up when he saw us and pawed at the glass and meowed for us.  When I would talk to him he would rub against the glass.  When I walked away I could hear his little paws beating the glass.  I wasn’t leaving there without him.  So there it is.  The new member of our family.

I hope everybody has a Happy New Year.  I won’t be doing a year in review of 2009.  This year was long, stressful, hard, and filled with too much stuff.  Some of it was good, yes, but I’d rather just use all of my good thoughts to hope that 2010 will be a wonderful year.

Whenever I look out the window and see one, I announce, “There’s a naughty squirrel outside!” and Lukas and/or Jessie comes running to watch the little varmint.  When I have to go outside to get wood from the wood pile (a source of annoyance with me.  It’s termite infested and I’d like to wonder WHY the previous owners had a huge wood pile and never used it!) a naughty squirrel always leaps into a tree in my yard and glares down at me as I carry the logs to the patio to dry off.  I have a feeling that if I ever go outside in the dark to get wood, a group of secret squirrel ninjas will leap from the night sky and tie me to a tree and bean me in the face with acorns.  It’s a little intimidating.  Would you like to see the little beasts?

Naughty Squirrel #1.  Sitting in the Dogwood tree outside of the sun room window.  It was glaring at me and muttering something about shoving peanuts up my nose.

Naughty Squirrel #2.  This one was flexing his authoritative muscles in the neighbor’s yard.  I don’t think he saw me…which is good.

And that’s the Naughty Toddler watching the Naughty Squirrels.

We also saw a Naughty Cardinal, a Naughty Flock of Sparrows, and a Naughty Neighbor’s Cat.  It’s possible that we’re just easily entertained, but we really like looking at the West Reading wildlife….all the while trying not to incite the wrath of the Squirrel Mafia.

The closing lasted about 45 minutes, but you try making a toddler sit still and quietly for that long.  I DARE YOU.  I brought a few distractions with me to try to keep him quiet.  He sat on my lap and as paper and paper after paper was passed over to me to sign or initial, I had to wrestle with Lukas to be still and not put the paper in his mouth so that I could do my part.  Luckily, I brought a big lollipop with me so he could have something to occupy himself.

We got all of the papers signed, and started passing around congratulations and shaking hands.  Then the lady from the land transfer company (who had been making faces at Lukas the entire time and playing peek-a-boo with him) decided to start clapping and saying “Yay!”

She did it before I could stop her.  She did it before I could warn her JUST HOW EXCITED clapping and yelling “YAY!” made Lukas.  I was helpless.

Lukas screamed at the top of his lungs and threw his giant lollipop across the table into the nice gentleman who had just sold us the house.  He was nice about it, we had after all just bought his house, but that image of Lukas launching that huge lollipop across the table at this man will send me into giggles for the rest of my life.

I should also add in that when we were at that office a month or so earlier to make the offer on the house and signing thousands of papers, Lukas kept farting every time the room got quiet.  He’s still at that age where it just happens and he takes little notice, but the realtor and our loan officer laughed every time he ripped one in the silent conference room.  Kids.  What can you do?