Houston, We Have a Problem.

Playing with older girls always seems to end up like this.

You might remember last time.

This time things escalated to a full blown dress. Morgan thought it was absolutely hysterical that she put Luke in a dress. Luke thought it was just part of a super hero outfit. He was completely clueless and totally comfortable in his gown. I thought it was really funny that Morgan chose a tiny little sash for herself and her own princess dress for Luke. Phil thought the whole thing was catastrophic and made me promise not to put it on the internet...

 Oops.

The Awesomest Day Ever...

So this is a little belated, but give me a break. I'm only 2, and typing is hard. I don't know if you heard or not but the Superbowl was in Indianapolis a few weeks ago, and I was a pretty big deal. I've been dying to tell you all about it so here it goes...

Here's my ticket to "The Big Game" (aka the NFL Experience)... I was pretty pumped.

Here's me before suiting up, you can't tell, but I was crazy nervous. I thought I was going to throw up... but I didn't, because I'm a big boy.

Suitin' up before warm ups...

Ready to rumble...

You should have seen the picture after this one. I totally pancaked that guy. And notice all the scouts taking pictures. We got some verbal D-II scholarship offers which was pretty cool, but we're holding out for the big time.

Next up was combine-style drills. They told me I ran like a gazelle, I told them, "I know. I'm soooo fasssst."

 Thankfully Reggie Wayne was wide open... AND well-rested by this point in the playoffs. He and I were working on timing routes. I could see a little QBing in my future. My Dad was an amazing QB back in the day. He led the 7th grade Duluth Wildcats to a 2-6 record which he says was awesome!?!?

 Next a little running back action... with Shaggy.

 It was too hard.

Then, a position I'll never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever play in my life.

 Who's ready for the NFL? ...ME!!!

And lastly...

 

 I had to practice the Touchdown Dance. Watch out NFL, here comes Luke Daniel Tatum.

Oh, the bald guy? That's my Dad. He and I had the awesomest day ever at the NFL Experience!

-Big Luke

I believe I can fly...

Luke is all about Superman these days, even though he has no clue who Superman really is, as he's never seen a single movie/comic book/cartoon of the guy. He just knows Superman is a super hero, and, thanks to a show on Nick Jr. called Team Umizoomi, he thinks he knows about super heroes and super powers. Of course, the super powers on Team Umizoomi are called "mighty math powers" and there have been several occasions where Luke has called upon his own mighty math powers to do things like fly or run really fast around the house. Most recently when Phil discovered some broken things in his luggage after a trip to Mexico, Luke was very distraught and said, "Oh no! I need my super duper powers to put it back togeverd [together]!" And like a true super hero, Luke does not like to leave home without his special gear -- his Superman shirt from Flipper and his trusty fireman rain boots.

 Tearin' it up on our walk tonight. 

Y'all he is SUPER fast. Can't you tell?
Ha!

So fast that Daddy felt threatened and challenged him to a race...

 ...but those mighty math powers kicked in and led our Super Stinker to victory!

Super Duper.

The Super Bowl is in town!

Phil took Luke downtown to see part of the festivities on Saturday, while Mommy had the day to herself.

Luke was so tickled to get to see the big "yetters" (letters) on Monument Circle.

For a short time, there is an exhibit of Indy cars painted to represent each NFL team, and Phil knew that the Stinker would be all about it.



Of course this was the first car Phil took Luke to see.



Can you tell it was cold?



Somewhere between Atlanta and Tampa, Luke became a sheriff. 

(Maybe that will help get us through the speed traps in Lowndes County from now on!)



And then he was utterly confused as to why we would claim the Colts this year of all years. I don't know either, Punkin.

After looking at the cars for a while, Phil decided it was too cold and that they'd walked far enough, so they grabbed some lunch and went home. All three of us went back the next day to go to Super Bowl Village and see some of the other sites. It was even colder and miserably windy, but it was fun to see the city all decked out and feel the excitement in the air.



As you can tell...



...we aren't Giants or Patriots fans in this family, so we made the best of it.



Despite hating this picture of me and the Bucs being far (FAR!) from a number one team this year, I had to document Luke's version of #1. Precious.



Happy Super Bowl, y'all!

The Chant.

Believe it or not, Luke is still sleeping in his crib and has yet to climb out. Obviously, he is physically capable of climbing out, but he is a big scaredy cat....aaaaaaaaand I may or may not have taken full advantage of that fact by not so subtly implying that climbing out would be the most dangerous thing he could ever do. This means, of course, that the only way he can get out of bed is to be lifted out by some willing (and strong) participant. Since I am not a morning person and can sleep through just about anything in the wee hours (you know, before 11 am) of the day, poor Luke has gotten creative with his cries for release.  For months he has been calling me with the same chant. It is hilarious. It is long, loud, and sing-songy, and he says it the same way over and over and over until I show up. We had to ask him a few hundred times to say it in front of us so we could understand it. He says it so quickly that you can't even make out all the words. We have wanted to get it on video for a long time and finally did. See if you can understand it, and then I'll write out the words after the video link.

The way he says it after Phil says "say it loud" is the exact way Luke calls me. Just don't ask him to say it slowly...

Luke's chant:

Turn on da yite (light)
Open da door too
Dat's a gate (great) idea...
MAAAAH-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

It makes me wonder how he thinks I'd turn on the light without opening the door...

Stressing and slacking...

For some reason, I have been so much more stressed over preparing for Christmas this year than ever before. I am not quite sure why. I think it's probably a combination of things, but whatever. I am working through it. Some of my coping mechanisms have been listening to Christmas carols non-stop (and thus annoying the heck out of my husband) and completely slacking when it comes to this blog!! I am sure the masses that hang on my every written word have barely been able to get through their days without their daily weekly bi-weekly dose of Stinker stories and pictures. I am so sorry to have left you in the lurch. To make up for it, I thought I'd share a little bit of what we've been up to. Of course the pictures are from my phone because I have been too busy and lazy to pull out my fancy camera. I'm a brat. I know. Again, sorry...

We made Christmas cookies the other day for our firemen around the corner. We used this new recipe for soft and fluffy sugar cookies and they were amazing. My extra wide bum can back me up on that statement.

 Luke ate 3 of them before they had even cooled enough to ice and decorate. Once I iced them, I let him decorate them with sprinkles. He referred to them as sparkles instead of sprinkles, and whenever he says words that start with "sm" or "sp", they come out with the "f" sound on the front instead. So he was in charge of putting on the "farkles". I may have coaxed him into saying that word 100 times that day...

Once the cookies were all decorated, we took them to the firemen and they let Luke play in the fire truck for a while. His favorite part was getting to wear the "talker phones" to listen and talk to fireman Dan (whom he calls "Fireman Dance").

 Wearing women's high heeled boots and clomping around the house saying, "Howdy, folks! I'm a cowboy!" has been a favorite activity as of late.

We've spent quite a bit of time looking for Elfie too.

 That guy comes up with the silliest places to hide.

 Another favorite activity has been playing with his "tiv-a-tee" set that Flipper gave him last Christmas. So far he has called the sheepdog a skunk, said that the wisemen took baby Jesus a treasure chest and a Coke, claimed the angel looks like a helicopter, and set up his train tracks around the whole thing so that he could give everyone a ride to "Mary's house".

 When he gets bored he likes to reenact scenes from movies. 

If you've ever seen Cars, then you know about tractor tipping.

Possibly the most exciting thing we've been doing around here is going peepee and poopie in the potty!!!  It all started when Luke was taking a bath and started going #2. Phil yanked him out and put him on the potty, while he scrambled to clean up the mess. Luke kept saying, "I went poopie, Daddy!", and Phil just thought Luke was narrating the unfolding scene. When Phil got things under control and turned his attention back to Luke, he saw that Luke did indeed go poopie in the potty and then watched in amazement as the Stinker finished everything off with a healthy dose of peepee in the potty too. We were ecstatic because it helped to extinguish Luke's fear of going potty, and he has been on a roll ever since. We aren't pushing him into potty training hardcore yet, but he is going in the potty a time or two every day...and of course his motivation is based solely on CHOCOLATE. Here he is making a monocle out of his mini Reese's cup. After all... there's no wrong way to eat a Reese's.


And the rest of the time, we have just been busy being cool dudes. 

It's a full time job.

What???

Just before Thanksgiving, Luke was playing with his best pal/elephant blanket, Eddie. I was on the phone in the next room, and he was running in and out of my view in the kitchen. He started draping Eddie over his head and face, and found it hilarious that he couldn't see anything and had to feel his way around. It wasn't long before he bonked his head on the edge of the counter. He came running and whimpering to me for a hug and kiss. I told him to please stop putting Eddie on his head because he was just going to keep hurting himself if he continued. Of course he completely disregarded my warning and once out of my view, threw Eddie back over his head and began his ghost/zombie looking game once more. Within one minute, he RAN face-first into that same counter edge. I could see this out of my peripheral vision and thought for sure that he had broken his nose. He hit SO hard! I dropped the phone and he ran to me, crying a little for the 2 seconds it took to get to me. I immediately checked out his nose, expecting gushing blood and crooked cartilage. He was completely done crying at this point and was trying to get out of my arms. I was surprised, to say the least, since even the partial view I had had of his collision made me cringe in sympathy pain and fear. His nose looked fine and I couldn't find any signs of injury, only sweat-soaked hair from having run around in footie pj.s with a fleece blanket over his head for several minutes. I thought to myself that maybe he hit his forehead rather than his nose and was just being a tough guy. I released him and to my horror, he put Eddie back on his head and headed back to the kitchen to resume his kamikaze game. I yanked him back to me and removed Eddie, telling him that by no means was he allowed to play that game anymore. This time he chose to throw himself on the floor and act as if he had just run nose-first into an immovable object. He was SO upset that I wouldn't let him play his dumb game. He screamed and cried for a minute or two and then hopped up to go do something else. It was at this point that I saw the bloody nose.




Thankfully it wasn't too bad, but it was proof that he had indeed head-butted the counter. I also found, at that point, a small cut and an already purple bruise on the side of his cheek from his first collision with the counter. What is wrong with him? How can he absolutely bang the crap out of his nose and barely even whimper, only to become hysterical when I tell him he's not allowed to hurt himself anymore?

"What? You don't want me to blindly slam my face into the furniture? I'm confused."

"Are you sure, Mom?"

(you can kind of see the cut and bruise on his upper cheek in this photo)

"Well how 'bout if I look cute and show off my dimples that you love so much??

Would that change your mind?"

The only answer I can come up with for this (and so much more) bizarre behavior is this:

He is a BOY.

Boys are so weird.

The end and Amen.