Lucan update

Let me remind you (and myself for that matter) that this is not the Gracelyn show. Contrary to what this blog looks like, Lucan is still around. :)

Like most people and jobs, we have our good and bad days around here. There are some days where he is just the sweetest thing to his parents and his sister. Then there are the other days where he is an ornery mess. Lu is stubborn and has very specific ideas of how things should go. Most of the time he is very sweet and helpful with Gracelyn. He understands what it means to be "big brother" and to look out for his little sis. Needless to say, Gracie loves to tag along with big brother. But sometimes he forgets that he's three years older than she is and plays a little rough. Gracie always recovers quickly but we often remind him to be gentle. In fact, I hate to think how often the words "gentle!" or "careful!" come out of my mouth. Lu will jump in to give Gracie a drink of milk or give her a bite when I need him to help. They both love to snuggle on soft blankets and bury their faces in the warmth. It's pretty precious.

Somewhere around Christmas Lu must have experienced a growth spurt because he had no pants that were long enough. All of those 4T pants were suddenly ankle length. He's fairly passionate about NOT wearing "swishy pants" (probably because I can hear him coming and he can't be sneaky) and adamantly wanting to wear fuzzy fleece pants all the time. I suppose for this reason jammies continue to be a fan favorite.

Preschool has been good. He has crappy penmanship but an imagination a mile wide. Lu is articulate and quite verbal. Of course if you've ever spent 10 minutes with Lucan you already know this. His mouth just keeps on going and going! Needless to say, we've had some problems at preschool with interrupting. We're working on it. His blessed teacher, Miss Paula, says that Lu likes everyone and talks to everyone. Very true. Lucan is the epitome of "there are no strangers, just friends I haven't met yet." For example, as told by Miss Paula, "Lucan talks to everyone. He even asks the gym teacher what the rest of his students are doing that day." "Lucan has no one particular friend. He talks and plays with everyone!"



And my example of no stranger danger:
Me: "Lucan, what do you do if a stranger offers you candy to get in their car?"
Lucan, pauses and thinks for a moment: "Say - yes, please!"
Me: shakes my head in disbelief.

Example #2 of no stranger danger, at Target, waiting to get my flu shot:
Lucan: "Hello stranger! How are you?"
He did this to several different people, with both Lance and myself. And on another entirely different shopping trip, as we were waiting to check out, Lucan proceeded to comment on every single item the woman in front of us was buying. Poor lady had to justify why she needed three packs of hangers.

Lu has known all of his letters for quite a while and has a good attention span when it comes to stories. Storytime at the library is one of our weekly favorites. #readersareleaders

Lucan continues to be the world's best four year old eater. I have somehow convinced him that brussel sprouts and roasted broccoli are his favorite foods. If it has sour cream, he'll eat it.

Routine is a good thing in Lu's life. He thrives on knowing what to expect, what his responsibilities are and what's coming up next. He knows in the morning he needs to use the restroom, get himself dressed, find some breakfast and then make sure his backpack has shoes, hat and gloves. 2 PM is nap time. Dad comes home at 5:45 and we eat supper. Wednesday is library and AWANAs day. Saturday he gets to watch morning cartoons. Sunday is church.

Bless my son's heart, but he is impulsive. Lu has a smiley face chart at school so he gets a happy face when he's well behaved in each segment of his morning. If he does well overall, he gets a star on his good behavior chart at home. I told him once he fills up the entire chart, we'll get him a new toy. He thinks he's getting a motorcycle. I was thinking more along the lines of legos or an add-on set of magna-tiles. Life is hard.

The following series of photos features classic Lucan. Him, wearing his milk cup on his face and thinking he's the best thing since sliced bread (and of course me documenting it. I know that I'm only encouraging his antics).

I think the thing that I would sum up by saying is that Lu has a heart for people and their potential to be friends. And that he has no filter :) 

Humor: Cloud Dough-Paste Sensory Activity

Lucan is having more and more fun doing “activities,” which is great. He wants to play and interact and use his imagination – all good things. I know that sometimes it’s easiest to just plop him in the living room and tell him to play with his toys, but activities that require a little planning and momma forethought have been really good for us. I’ve been really thankful for Angela at teachingmama.org for ideas. Angela is one of those fantastic moms who always has something fun up their sleeves. Me, not so much. Angela and her family used to attend the same church as us before moving to a new town. She’s fantastic!

Anywho, Angela is one of my go-to resources for things to do with Lucan on Saturday mornings. One of the preschool sensory activities that I’ve seen floating around was Cloud Dough. Two ingredients: flour and oil. Easy peasy. Angela recommended using baby oil as it smells better. No problem, baby oil comes cheap and isn’t hard to find (unlike liquid watercolors, another story for another day). There was a weekday I was home with a sick Lucan (day two of antibiotics so technically he wasn’t “contagious” so I didn’t feel awful about dragging him out in public ) so we decided to head out to Wal-Mart to purchase some art supplies to keep us occupied. Baby oil was an easy addition to our cart. Much easier than the contemplation that took place in the tempera paint aisle.  

But a batch of cloud dough is ½ cup oil and 4 cups of flour and then mixing it up with your hands. No problem. Easy. I got a couple of containers, measuring spoons and a set of silicon ice cube trays (which I bought over a year ago with the plan to make crayon shapes) for Lucan to use to play with the cloud dough. He enjoyed it well enough. It wasn’t exactly life changing, but it was fine. Messy, but fine. We played on the deck so the mess didn’t really overly concern me. 

Cloud dough while it was still "dough."

 However problems started later that day when Lucan went out (unsupervised) to the backyard/deck to play with his water table and water table toys. Generally speaking, no problem. I can see his water table from our kitchen window while I’m washing dishes. On this particular day, Lance and I were trying to finish up some salsa canning and had put our huge vat of canning water out on the deck as a measure to NOT heat up the house even more. Unbeknownst to me, Lucan started transporting copious amounts of water using his watering can into the plastic tub we had used earlier for cloud dough. We all know that flour + water = paste. 

Cloud dough as glue paste. Just add water!

Sticky icky paste. Paste that was everywhere. While I didn’t have the massive conniption that Lance did (because how much harm can come of flour paste that’s being played with outside?), I certainly wasn’t happy that we weren’t going to be able to have a second cloud dough playtime. Lance, on the other hand, saw the sticky paste that was getting all over our wood deck that was going to have to be sprayed off with a hose to get rid of the gunk. This is probably where Lance deemed the cloud dough as the WORSE IDEA EVER. Talk about drama queen. And people say I have a flair for the dramatic. 

So in the future if you want to play with cloud dough, go for it! Just don’t add water.