Stinker Story #5: Heady Eddy.

Over the holidays, we drove all over the place. From Indy to Atlanta to Tampa to Jacksonville, back to Atlanta, then back home to Indy. It was a lot of driving, but any normal person would pass a good portion of the time by sleeping. Unless, of course, you were the driver. Luke, however, has NEVER been a good car sleeper. It was even worse when he was a baby. He would not sleep in his car seat (while in the car or out of the car) without first throwing a HUGE screaming/crying fit, and then would only sleep for about 15 minutes, tops. Now that he is older, his norm is 30 minutes and many times it comes only after a freak-out fit that can last anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes. So you can imagine how much we love road trips in the Tatum family. Nevertheless, when it comes to holiday travel, we don't have much of a choice. This year's travel was not much better, but it did have its moments of hilarity, which are pictured below. These happened the last 2 days of our travel and were, I guess, a little comic relief to give us the strength we needed to make it all the way home with some of our sanity still intact.

Here are this year's stats:

Indy to Atlanta (10 hour trip): Screaming fit - at least 25 mins. Sleep - 35 mins.
Atlanta to Tampa (7 hour trip): Screaming fit- 20 mins. Sleep - a measly 16 mins.
Tampa to Jacksonville (3.5 hour trip): short trip, so no sleep.

This is where it got interesting. From Jacksonville to Atlanta (5-ish hour trip), this is how he slept:


During this day's screaming fit, he was slinging Eddy (his beloved elephant blanket) around in rage. When Eddy got stuck on his head, it was kind of like Luke's batteries just slowly died. His hands fell in slow motion from holding onto Eddy above his head to resting gently at his sides. It was hilarious to watch. I was sitting next to him, so I got to see it all transpire before me.
The amazing part is that he broke his car-sleeping record. He stayed asleep for 50 glorious minutes!!! Of course once he woke up, his entire head was drenched in sweat, but it was worth it.


A close-up. So angelic. And deceiving.

We spent the night in Atlanta that night and got up bright and early the next morning to make the trek back to Indy. This was perhaps Luke's best travel day ever in his life. He entertained himself so much, mostly reading books. I got to spend a lot of time riding (sleeping) in the front seat next to Phil instead of playing entertainer in the back next to the Stinker. He fell asleep WITHOUT a screaming fit and slept for 40 minutes. At 40 minutes, he stirred, woke up, put Eddy over his face, and slept for 10 more minutes like this:


From the front.




From the side.

I was a little concerned about his breathing, but didn't dare risk waking him up by moving Eddy. Considering that with Eddy's help Luke slept for 50 minutes both days, I might be tempted to cover Luke's head from now on!

Stinker Story #4: It's Not Easy Being Me....

We are not a family of small people. Sometimes that can be a good thing, like when we need to reach things that are way up high, or when the only sizes left on the sale rack are the big ones, or when carrying a 9 pound, 9 ounce baby in my tummy. But there are also many times when it's a real bummer. Today was one of those days for Luke. When going through his closet this morning, I found a little metal firetruck that I had tucked away for when he was big enough to play with it. I saw it up on the shelf and thought, "Oh, Luke is going to love this!" Sure enough when Luke saw it, he immediately went bonkers for it. I set it on the floor and kept working on some chores upstairs. Within about 45 seconds, I had a VERY ticked off man on my hands. He came running into my room saying, "Up! Up!" and holding the firetruck. I didn't understand at first, but when I put it down on the floor again, he tried to step in it. He wanted to ride inside it (isn't that what you do with cars and trucks, after all?) and wasn't able to get more than one of his big, chubby feet in. He got more and more upset, so naturally, I ran downstairs and got the camera. It was too funny not to capture for posterity and for the slide show at his rehearsal dinner. I did feel sorry for the not-so-little guy though. I feel the same way when I try to put my old clothes on.

I think if I concentrate really hard, I can totally do this.

I'll just step in right here and ...

Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!

What kind of evil trick is this?

Stinker Story #3: Sock It to Ya!

Luke is in love with socks.
He never gets to wear socks of his own, because his feet are so darn wide that we can hardly get his feet in his size 8's without the added 2 millimeters of thickness. As a result, the poor Stinker has major sock envy. Whenever he sees socks lying around, he yells "Sssssssthaaaaaah!" and starts trying to put them on his chunky, not-so-little feet. He even dug through a pile of dirty clothes the other day and tried putting dirty underwear on his feet, convinced that they were socks. I was simultaneously grossed out and guilt ridden. I've got to get this kid some wider (and unfortunately more expensive) shoes so he can wear socks. Plus, after having worn his shoes without socks for so long, they make his feet smell sooooo bad now. I mean BAD. Phil and I can't take it much longer.

Mommy's socks make for some risky business.


"I think these shorts would look really good with my socks!"


This is how Mommy's ankle socks that barely cover her ankles look on Luke.


Now that he's got socks on, he's ready to go.


The next time it was Daddy's turn to share his ankle socks.


And don't they fit so nicely?


In this picture of Luke wrestling with Daddy, you can see just how nicely they fit. The grey heels are up at Luke's knees.


And yet another day, as Mommy was getting ready to work out, Luke stole not only her socks, but her shoes too.


Pajama shirt + big socks + Mommy's shoes - pants = STUD MUFFIN!

Stinker Story #2: Fork It Over

The other day I went to the bathroom to do my hair during Luke's nap. I keep my straightener and hair dryer in the downstairs bathroom so that I can do my hair while Luke is playing or eating, but most of the time he ends up terrorizing the bathroom while I have my hands full doing my hair. Anyway, I walked in to the bathroom, opened the top drawer of the cabinet to get my hair stuff, and I was greeted by a bright, shiny dinner fork sitting on top of everything. I have no idea how, when, or where Luke got a dinner fork, but he obviously had big plans for it and stowed it away for another time. Either that or he just wanted to leave his calling card so I'd think of him when he was away. Stinker.

Mommy and her fork thief...
Cutest thief there ever was.

Stinker Stories

Since so many of my posts seem to take so long to do, I've been wanting to find a way to do smaller ones more regularly.....so I've decided to start a new thing called Stinker Stories. They'll just be little anecdotes about Lukie Lu and his silly shenanigans and such. They may or may not be accompanied by a picture, so if you are one who only looks at the pictures and reads the captions, then you might not get to experience some of the Stinker Stories with the rest of us. I hope this will be a fun addition to the blog, and don't worry, I'll still be doing longer, picture-heavy posts for the bigger things. So without further ado....

Stinker Story #1: Ssssliiiiiiiii!!!

Luke has a Little Tykes slide that he loves to play with at home. He will see his slide and say "Ssssssliiiiiiiiiii" with the funniest little lisp, that's kind of more like a roll of the tongue. It slays us every time he says it, because it's just the CUTEST thing. He's been saying "slide" for a long a time now, but just in the last few weeks, we've realized that he can not only say the word, but also recognize other slides as "ssssssssliiii's". When we drive past a house with a visible swing set in the yard, he'll see the slide and I'll hear him say "Sssssliiii!" He can pick them out as we pass churches or schools with playgrounds, and of course if he's on a playground, he'll run towards the slide yelling, "ssssssliiiii!!" Anyway, I took Luke to the mall last week to buy him some new Crocs, because he's already outgrown the ones my parents bought him in March. As we walked through the mall, he pointed to all the escalators yelling "ssssliiiii" and signing the word for "please" on his chest, asking to go on the "slides". I thought it was adorable and felt so bad that I couldn't take him on the "slides" because he was in his stroller, and since I was there alone with him, I didn't feel comfortable taking him out of the stroller and leaving it behind as we rode the "slides" up and down. We did stop to look at them for a while, but I wish I could have taken him on a "sssssliiiiii"! Maybe next time.

Here are some pics of Daddy and Luke trying to put Luke's new shoes on while swinging in the hammock. I guess it was harder than you'd think.