Lukas

Lukas cracks me up pretty often. Those of you with me on Facebook might remember a couple of months ago when he said, "Cucumbers are juicy when you eat them in a tree in the sunshine." The thing is, he wasn't trying to be funny or cute or profound or anything else--he was just so full of joy of the moment that he couldn't do anything except say exactly how he felt. A nice juicy cucumber, sitting comfortably in a tree, relaxing in the sunshine (in December)...ah, this is the life!

Often he only seems to be able to focus on right NOW and is very impetuous, but he also is extremely persistant and never forgets anything he wants to remember. In December 2007 we went to Norway to meet a couple who had been working in Cyprus and later returned to Cyprus. (And have sadly--for us--moved back to Norway again.) Lukas was extremely impressed with Helge's bald head and asked if he could have his hair shaved like that. We just kind of laughed it off. He mentioned it several times over the next year, again admired Helge's head when we saw them again in Norway in October 2008, and then when we moved here in January 2009, he was determined to have his head shaved. I said fine, but someone else would have to do it. It wasn't until August 2009, when we were at Helge's house one afternoon, that Lukas asked Helge, who agreed, and shaved Lukas's head. A year later, he got my brother to shave his head again.

While looking for photos of Lukas to post here, I realized that most of them were either blurry (because holding still is something that doesn't come easy to him) or with other people. All of my children love people, but most of the others will happily smile for the camera on their own, while Lukas always wants to make sure to get someone else in with him. I found one of him by himself with a hat he got from some friends who had moved. When the crown and brim first got separated, he was heartbroken for at least five minutes, telling me how special this hat was because it reminded him of his friend, etc. To say that Lukas can be dramatic is a bit of an understatement. But then he thought it was cool to wear it like this:

 ...and life was good again. He wore it constantly, all day and everywhere (I'm so proud of my husband for actually taking Lukas grocery shopping like this!), for a week or so. I haven't seen it for awhile now, it may or may not still exist.

This next one is a pose that Lukas requested, on the aquaduct about two and a half kilometers from our house:

 He wanted it to look like he's climing up high, which I guess it kind of does, but I'm anything but a photographer. He's actually about 10 centimeters off of the ground. However, if I were to let him, he probably COULD climb straight up that wall. This is the child who was sitting at six months, crawling at six and a half, and cruising at seven months. By 10 months he was pushing a stool around the house to climb up on things, such as the dining room table and the piano.

And here's just a very nice photo (in my opinion) of Lukas with Katie, in the dress-up clothes they got for Christmas from my aunt:

Lukas often wears the tunic and cape just while going about his normal business, home or out. The crown less often

And after all that talk about his hair, all three of these photos have his hair covered!

Lukas ought to be in bed at the moment but just came out to look for Jacob (who is reading to Helen so that I can type this), and wants me to include the "C! L! C!" episode of yesterday. Katie had asked me whether "crazy" starts with C or K, and I answered her correctly, much to Lukas's dismay, because then Katie started chanting "C-L-C! Crazy Lukas Crazy!" Lukas was very upset and for once I had a flash of inspiration and didn't say a word to Katie, but to Lukas said, "Cool also starts with C, you know!" and then joined in with Katie, chanting "C-L-C!! but then added "Cool Lukas Cool!" Katie went off in a huff while Lukas and I giggled and danced around the kitchen.