June Bugs

There is no rest for the weary when there is a two year old in the house! The sheer drama associated with being two is enough to wear a person out. Luc is a young man of extremes right now… his shattering disappointment at sharing toys matched only by his unbridled enthusiasm for strawbabies.

Dolphins and Penguins and Whales… Oh My!
Mommy had a day off of work when her office relocated this month. We asked Luc if he wanted to go see the animals at the fair. He said, “I go see whales!” So, we changed our plans and took him to Sea World instead. Friday morning, he was dressed and ready to go, standing by the front door at 8 AM. Since Sea World doesn’t actually open until 10 AM, we had to explain that the whales were still asleep. Once we were actually in the park, he was so excited you could practically see the energy crackling around him. The penguins were the first stop, in keeping with his current obsession with Happy Feet. He was a little concerned that the penguins in the water were going to be chased by whales and/or seals, but once he realized there were no threats, he loved the exhibit so much that we had to go through it twice. The dolphins were a hit as well. We made it during feeding time, so they were very active. They came close enough to pet, but Luc would have none of it. We were killing time until the Shamu show, so we stopped by the sting ray and eel exhibit. He didn’t like the eels (I don’t blame him, I think they are creepy too), but he did like the other fish in the tank. The hit of the day was the Shamu show. He was thoroughly captivated by it. He stared intently during the tricks and jumps and clapped after each performance. After Shamu we hit up the Shark Encounter where he correctly identified a barracuda (he is his father’s son!). He wasn’t too sure about going in the water with the sharks, but when he found out it was a tunnel and we could stay dry, he was all over it. He crashed out in his stroller as we made our way over to the polar bears, so we decided to save something for next time and called it a day. He’s been talking about whales, penguins and dolphins ever since. Fortunately for Luc, we bought year long passes, so he can see all the marine life he can handle.

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?
The Guzman Family Reunion was held at Covina Park in mid-June. We are quite a group when all together, so we were looking forward to a fun filled day. Luc loved the park and made friends with Cousin Mandy’s daughter, Jennifer, who fed him all the cake he wanted. We saw Grandpa Art, Great Grandpa Henry, Tio Henry and lots of tias who pinched Luc’s big fat cheeks. Shawn counted over 125 people before he lost count of family members. Grandpa Art introduced Luc to the wonders of the ice cream man, so his day was a success.

Happy I Ceam Day, Daddy
Luc was awake bright and early Father’s Day morning. As we ate our cereal together, we were practicing saying “Happy Father’s Day” before Shawn woke up. Luc played along for a few minutes before correcting me saying, “NO. Happy I CEAM Day Mommy.” We drove up to Oceanside that evening to take Daddy to dinner and did end the evening with Luc’s favorite “dirt” (dessert), ice cream.

Nothing Like That Good Mountain Air
We were invited to spend the weekend in Idyllwild at a cabin owned by the grandparents of Luc’s friend Max. We packed up the car as if we were going to be gone for a week instead of 1.5 days and headed up to the beautiful mountains. Luc and Max were delighted with each other’s company and had a blast playing together. Saturday morning we packed up the boys (big and little) and headed to Lake Hemet. Daddy went mountain biking, the other big boys went fishing and the little boys threw rocks in the water. We picnicked on the lake shore and then took naps all around. More kids and families showed up that afternoon and it was kid chaos. For the record, 11 adults and 6 kids under the age of 3 are probably too many for one cabin. But everyone got along very well and the bath water was black every night… a good sign that fun was had.

What’s Ahead for July
We can’t believe that it is already going to be July, but we have lots to look forward to next month! We will spend the 4th of July on Coronado with our neighbors, Maxwell Cortopassi’s 2 birthday is July 7, and best of all, Mica and Avi come for a visit July 15. With so much to look forward to, it is no wonder the summer is flying by!

May, May, Marvelous May!

May is always a busy month for Master Luc. We started building the birthday excitement as soon as May hit and he wasn’t disappointed.

Luc’s Ticket to Ride
Mommy and Luc went to visit Grandma and Papa for Mother’s Day Weekend. Mommy had a free ticket and it was Luc’s last chance to fly for free before he turned the big -2-. Luc was very excited about going on the plane until we actually took off, then he wanted down. Fortunately, we sat next to a very nice lady who was, I am sure, delighted that we were not traveling all the way to Pittsburgh next to her. He showed her his books, his cup of apple juice and everything in his backpack. He played the shy boy in the airport but was soon hanging out with Grandma yelling, “BANG!” as he watched the luggage come down the chute. By the time the Mead families showed up Friday night, Luc was read for action. Cousin Wes showed up with his Daddy and crawled after Luc just as fast as can be. Luc kept the party going until 9 PM before he crashed. He did manage to get to a few presents that night. Aunt Lou-Lou’s 4 pack o’ balls was the hit of the evening. The next day, Mommy and Grandma headed off for a little Mother’s Day spa action while Luc hung out with Papa and Auntie Sarah. Luc took a special liking to Papa’s big leather chair and ultimately passed out in it for his nap that afternoon. Luc celebrated Mother’s Day by waking Mommy up at 5:30 AM. We let Grandma sleep a little longer before going to feed the ducks. We ended up feeding not only ducks, but turtles and carp as well. Back at home, Grandma made Luc “wapples and strawbabies” for breakfast, with plenty of whipped “keem”. Luc’s cousins, Billy and Camden, came over for a barbecue that afternoon with their mom and dad. Luc adored playing with the big boys, even following their lead and jumping off the side of the pool in to my arms. He screeched with delight each time someone jumped in. He loved the pool so much that when Mommy was done, he went back in with Auntie Sarah. Grandma took us to the airport early the next day and we went home to prepare for the big birthday!

Luc turns 2
We started out Luc’s birthday like we do every Sunday. Daddy gets up with Luc first thing and Mommy tries to get a few more minutes of sleep before taking over. Mommy packs Luc up and we head out to the dog park to meet up with Mattie and Stella, Luc’s two schnauzer friends. Because it was a special day, we stopped and got Luc a celebratory “Moo Latte” from his girlfriends at Starbucks. Last minute party errands after the walk meant no morning nap for Luc. His friends started showing up around 11 AM and the party really started when Daddy turned on the kiddie music and the bubble maker! Luc had a “Cars” theme birthday and seemed to get a kick out of yelling “kachow!” every once in a while. Mommy gave herself a nice case of carpal tunnel decorating his Lightening McQueen cake, but it was worth it when his face lit up upon seeing the cake. The presents were a big hit and we spent some time explaining to Luc that sharing didn’t mean the kids were going to take his toys home with them. Luc experienced the After-Birthday-Sugar-Crash and had to be woken from his nap lest he not go to bed later that evening. When I asked him if he was a good birthday, he groggily replied, “yeah Mommy.”

Arrrggg Matey
Luc is very popular this month and has been attending parties galore. Paola invited us to a Pirate’s Party Memorial Day Weekend in honor of Captain Jack Sparrow. We declined the movie invite, but did partake of the pirate booty including some serious bling and dip with chips. His buddy Max was there as well, so there was fun all around. Well, the mommies did a fair amount of chasing, but the boys definitely had a good time. We had a quiet day off on Monday that included a trip to Fiesta Island with Loki, breakfast in PB with Grandpa Art, some play time in the back yard and finally, to wrap up a great long weekend, some play time with Sadie and Ethan Henry. Daddy and Luc also harvested their first summer bounty, a beautiful zucchini! We can’t wait to see what June has planned for us!

November/May Romance

OK, so the Editor is cheating. She sincerely regrets the circumstances that have lead her down this primrose path (extremely busy work and home life), but is trying to make amends by making this post mostly pictures. She will post an actual May blog in honor of the Big Boy's 2nd Birthday as soon as she get some pictures together.

Turkey Time!

Once again, we packed up the car and headed East for the Thanksgiving Extravaganza with the Mead family. Thanks to Aunt Anita’s portable DVD player, we had a fairly smooth ride. Luc watched “Finding Nemo” several times over and took a nap so he arrived fully charged at Grandma and Papa’s. Luc found Grandma’s potato colander and led the Charge of the Light Potato as Sir Spud, head of the Knights of the Round ‘Tato. He put the colander over his face and charged up and down the hallway. Entertainment is cheap when Luc is around, what can we say? The actual Thanksgiving was a veritable smorgasbord of food, cousins, and all consuming excitement. We also took Luc down to Tucson that weekend to celebrate a friend’s wedding. It being Luc’s 6th or 7th wedding, he was very practiced at eating the favor candy conveniently left on the tables.












Let’s hear those sleigh bells ring!
Who are we kidding??? There’s no sledding in San Diego. In fact, it was warm enough to eat Christmas dinner on the patio. Uncle Deric came to visit from San Francisco, providing Luc with the one person audience he needed to show off his antics. Daddy outdid himself and cooked up a fantastic Christmas dinner that we enjoyed sitting on our back deck. After dinner entertainment included bocce on the lawn and a trip out to La Jolla Shores for a walk along the beach. As for presents, Luc really got in to the spirit of wrapping paper this year and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of every present, his or not.

Back to the Daily Grind

January brings us back to the mundane world of everyday life. But, life with Luc is actually not that ordinary. His language skills are exploding and each day brings a new word to the surface of the bubbling pot of alphabet soup in his head. Below is a brief list of the words we have found most amusing (only amusing after we have deciphered them, of course). I am sure there are more, I just can’t remember them at the moment. On top of these, his own interpretations, he repeats EVERYTHING you say.

Pinkos = flamingos
Macky totos = mashed potatoes
Yolget = yogurt
Mimi = pacifier
Nolk = milk
Eye keem = ice cream
I dood it = I do it
strawbabies = strawberries
mackanoly = guacamole
bluebellies, bloobies, boobies = blueberries
wapples = waffles
Moo Latte = Organic milk at Starbucks

We also made a big change to our lives in January and got Luc a dog. Not just any dog… we adopted a Great Dane. He was named Luke (somewhat confusing, as you might imagine) so we changed it to Loki, the Norse god of mischief. He is rather big, sheds a lot and likes to sleep on the couch. But, he is excellent with Luc and protects him from whatever he thinks Luc needs protection from including small yappy dogs at the dog park, friends that come over to play and random skunks, possums and cats that wander through our backyard. Thanks to Aunt Shanley, he also attended his very first Charger's football game. He made until half time before falling asleep among 30 bazillion screaming fans.


February, March and April passed in a blur of work, home, and back to work again. Luc keeps us on our toes and had become fast friends with Max Cortopassi, Toler Pfaff-Carano, and The Henry kids, Ethan and Sadie. All mommy can say is thank goodness for play dates! The backyard and trips to the zoo are infinitely more fun with friends.

Luc in Ordinary Time

We’ve been so busy lately that all the blogs seem to report exotic happenings in Luc’s life. Rest assured that we are not always on the go. We are an ordinary family (mostly) doing the ordinary family things.

The Rosetta Stone
Luc is chatting up a storm these days. I think he talks almost as much as I do. He keeps up a steady stream of mostly nonsensical babble during waking hours. He may talk in his sleep too, but we’ll never know because we wouldn’t risk opening his door after bed time to find out! New words are quickly emerging, sometimes faster than we can decipher. We had a breakthrough recently when we discovered that “mimi” is his binkey (pacifier). He was repeating “mimimimimimimimi” and dumb mommy thought he was singing like they do on the Wiggles (one Wiggle sings “mimimimimi” and another answers “youyouyouyouyou”. I know, Mommy needs to get out more, but that’s a whole different blog topic, kids.) Anyway, I was holding his binkey at the time and when I finally finished my singing solo and handed it to him, he smiled and said, “MI!” CLICK. Yep, that sound was the light bulb going off in my head. Most of his words aren’t so hard to figure out. He can say daddy, mama, juice, cup, cheese, car, go, dog, kitty, and bye-bye pretty clearly. Not so clearly are nana (banana), gogurt (yogurt), ckck (cookie, a valiant effort and one he practices often), and he is working on Sadie (his girlfriend down the street), grandma, papa, and who knows what else. If only we could figure out what “coe” means.

Squish Face and the Little Baker
Like any good toddler, Luc loves the Tupperware cabinet and my baking drawer. Just about every other drawer and cabinet in the kitchen is Luc proofed, but he is allowed to reign supreme over those two areas. He loves to take the Tupperware lids and squish them on his face. Since they are clear, you can see his smushed up little face through the plastic. Thus, the Squish Face game was born. Luc squishes his face and then I kiss him through the lid, squishing my own face against his. He giggles so hard he often falls down. Sometimes he just hands me the lid so I can be Squish Face. When he gets tired of that, he uses the rest of the Tupperware to collect various things in the kitchen. All of his refrigerator magnets fit nicely in my soup Tupperware and it its handy spout makes it easy to pour them out.

His other kitchen entertainment is the drawer where I keep all of my baking pans and my baking gadgets with levers and other exciting bits like my flour sifter and my potato ricer. The removable bottoms from my tart pans can keep him busy for hours as he tries to pick them up off the floor. I have high hopes that he has inherited his dad’s cooking talents and encourage all forms of culinary play! Mud pies anyone?

Move Over Aunt Shanley, Here Comes Something Meaner!
Mommy and Daddy and most of the grownups they know were invited to the fete of the year, the Wang-Hanger wedding. This left us with a shortage of babysitters, Aunt Shanley and Aunt Bubba being the two most often used. A lady I work with, Anita, has been dying to baby-sit ever since Luc was born. When she arrived at the door, Luc was overjoyed (he gets a little suspicious when Shanley shows up, even if it is just to hang out). He led her immediately to his highchair where he started begging for yogurt. We waved bye-bye while he was happily ensconced in his chair. He made an attempt to be angry, but Anita gave him a cookie and all was well in Luc Land. They played so hard in the back yard that Luc needed a bath before bed time. Speaking of bed time, he fell right asleep and stayed that way until 6:30 the next morning. Aunt Shanley, maybe Anita can give you some pointers???

The Great Pumpkin
Happy October! We celebrated the start of fall with a trip to the pumpkin patch with our neighbors, the Henry Family. Luc and Sadie held hands on the way to Bates Nut Farm. Luc was beside himself when he caught sight of all the orange balls lying in the fields. We walked through a maze of straw, took a tractor ride and picked out giant pumpkins to bring home with us. We worked up an appetite with all that fun, so we had a picnic under the trees and wheelbarrow rides provided by the daddies. Luc loves his 50+ pound pumpkin and give it hugs every morning when we leave for the day.

Ahoy Matey!
Chery and David Miller invited Luc and his chaperones on a high seas adventure. Captain Luc was tethered to the parents at all times, a situation which annoyed him greatly. We had an escort of a huge pod of dolphins on our way out of the harbor. Luc was delighted with the fishies. He quickly grew irritated with the rocking of the boat, no doubt thinking we were trying to rock him to sleep. It eventually worked though, and after a nap, he woke up as we were cruising the Newport Harbor. The sun had come out and lunch was being served. He happily ate Ranch dip with slivers of carrots and waved at other people cruising the harbor. Captain Chery even let him drive the boat for a little while.