Dear Lucas (26 weeks),

You are 26 weeks old and just bursting with personality! This week you started doing this thing with your leg that makes me smile just thinking about it. You are constantly crossing your ankles and then lifting one foot up in the air and bobbing it up and down. It almost looks like you are trying to wave with your feet. The next time you do it I'll have to catch it on video. Actually, thinking about it, there isn't much you don't do without using your feet to express yourself. When you are happy you kick them out and when you are mad you hold your legs so stiff. When you are bored you just randomly lift them into the air. You have very expressive feet! I'm sure this will disappear once you start crawling or walking and I will only remember how you used to talk with your legs when I look back at your 26th week.

You are such a little flirt already. Whenever a stranger comes up to us in the grocery store and wants to gush about how cute you are or what great big blue eyes you have, you just look up at them and smile and laugh. I think one of your favorite places to go is the grocery store because nine times out of ten there will be a cashier or a bagger that wants to shower you with attention. (plus you seem to get a thrill out of the beeping sound each item makes as it is scanned in... of course once you start buying your own groceries hearing lots of beeping won't thrill you as much as it does now).

You still love to play on your tummy but you are constantly making sure that someone is paying attention to you. You are like that kid on Mad TV that is always going "hey look what I can do" but in a more cute and less annoying way. If you don't have our attention when you want it you will loudly protest and once we are watching you again things are all right in the world (not that we leave you unattended or ignore you... after all it isn't ignoring you if Jadie is watching you... right?!) You are still always eyeing the remote control, home phone, cell phones, and various parts of Jadie to put in your mouth when the time is right. You always look like you are plotting and scheming your attempt at world domination or maybe you are just trying to poop.

Today we took our first real outdoor adventure. It was unplanned and didn't last long. We started out going to the grocery store to buy fruit because we were out of fresh fruit to put in your mesh feeder and I had a coupon. On the way to store we passed the local park and I thought it would be nice to walk you around in your stroller. When we got to the park (which is really a little lake with a walking track) it was really windy so we walked so the wind was blowing at our backs and then I realized once we got around to the other side it would be blowing head on so we decided to walk back to the car.

Since it was a spur of the minute outing I didn't have a blanket for you and I could just hear your Grandma Valeri in my head saying "put a hat on that boy." I can count the number of times I have put a hat on you on one hand and most of them were just to take a picture of you. On the way back to the car we saw your first ducks (although I'm not sure if you saw them or not because the sun was glaring and made me wonder if you would wear a pair of baby sunglasses or just take them off and try to eat them). I think you really enjoyed the fresh air and the sunshine (when it wasn't blinding you). We'll have to go back again when we are more prepared.

You are still throwing me off with how much you've been sleeping lately but then again you have been sick. Your bedtime used to be between 7:30 -8:00 PM but we are lucky now if we can keep you up past 6:30. Usually you want to go to sleep at 6 PM but we try to keep you up a little longer and get you to play since your Dad gets home from work a little after 4:00 PM so he can spend as much time with you as possible. We have no clue why you started going to bed earlier but our guess is you either need the extra sleep because you are growing so rapidly or because you are fighting off your cold you have right now. There isn't anything wrong with you going to sleep so early I guess I'm just not as flexible as you are. It takes me a couple days or weeks when you put yourself on a new sleep schedule. I can't wait until Friday you will officially be half a year old and we get to find out just how much you weigh and how tall you are. I'm keeping a list of questions to ask your pediatrician and I'm going to ask him about your sleeping patterns.

Boogs, I love you to the moon and back,
Mama