Dear Lucas (103 weeks),

We're getting closer and closer to your second birthday and I am getting more and more emotional. Tonight I got chocked up while I was reading you a bedtime story about a cow that wanted to be a ballerina. When it got to the part about her big break in New York I had to stop and take a deep breath before I could keep reading because my words were starting to get all shaky. I used to make fun of my own Mom for crying at movies and commercials and then here I am having trouble reading a children's book.

You beg to help me cook all of the time. To keep you from getting bored we ended up starting to make dinner before we even had lunch! I think one of the reasons that you are such a good eater is that you love to help cook and help taste. While I was shredding carrots for a pasta salad you keep sneaking little bites of them and going "mmmm" like you were eating the best candy you have ever tasted.

You are turning into quite the little chef. Tonight when we were making something else you opened up the egg carton, took out the egg, cracked it on the bowl and opened it... in your lap. I was pretty impressed that you knew what to do. It would have been perfect if you had held the egg over the bowl instead of your lap but that's okay, it is how you learn. I ended up getting out another egg and you watched me intently as I showed you how to open it over the bowl.

Your love of gardening is right up there with cooking. I am pleasantly surprised that your plants are still growing and not a single one has died! I think we need to get a bag of dirt and plant them in a larger container since they are growing so big. I need to start reading about growing herbs and vegetables so that we can grow things that we can cook with because I know you would think that was just the coolest thing ever!

Yesterday, out of nowhere you counted from one to three. Then all day today you had to count before you would do something except you went back to using "1, 1, 1, ready go!" You would count before you would get off a chair or before you went and hid behind the curtains. Your favorite game now is to hide from us. You've been enjoying hiding for a while but your hiding places are starting to get more complicated and you pull stuff out to hide behind instead of just hiding out in the open with your hands covering your eyes. It's really neat to see how your thought processes are growing.

Bugga, I love you to the moon and back!

Mommy