Uncle Josh and [we might as well start using Aunt] Lauren have the coolest new site in the world. And since I've always thought of Josh as a much improved, smarter, slicker version of me, it only makes sense that he's got a fancy photo slideshow gadget going. One that I must steal for here. And I will. But it'll have to wait for Silas; it can be one of the nifty things that his arrival brings to the site. For now -- since we're less than three weeks away -- I'm just going to freestyle it and dump stories, photos, and such from the past two months into this one long, rambling post.

Noman.
On the last day of February we got our yearly dusting of snow. Prior to this, Luke had become fascinated with these four snowman plates that we had hanging up in our breakfast room. The "nomen." So he was pretty pumped when we got a chance to build our own. Yeah. It was kinda tiny. Pretty much the size he was used to from the plates. But the good thing about the tiny nomen: they're highly portable.

Easter.
Yes, Luke needs some dress shoes. But man do they get you on the shoes. They're like the price of adult shoes but with a life-span in the months range. Jerks. Another thing about Easter though: Luke discovered the chocolate egg. And now all chocolate is referred to as a "chi-choc egg." What's that all over your face, Luke? "I don't know. You tell me. Chi-choc egg?"

Three fish.
I think that this has improved in the last week (language development with this guy can be measured by the like hour), but for a while there Luke referred to any number of items over two as three. Put a single cracker in front of him and it's one cracker, two on his plate is two crackers, five crackers on his plate? Seven crackers on his plate? To Luke he's got three crackers. So when we took him to the Tennessee Aquarium, every single tank in the place had three fish! Very excitedly three fish! Look! Three fish! Ooooooh, three fish! Jesus needed two fish to feed the masses. Luke might need one more to make it work.

Anyway, here's a little movie-based snippet of the aquarium visit [ 8.6Mb Quicktime movie]. As with everything in his life, Luke attempted to talk/command the creatures behind the glass into doing what he wanted.

Gooooo Tech!
He wasn't talking so much the last time we made it down to Georgia Tech (an early season November b-ball game), but since then he's learned that yelling "gooooo Tech" is what you do when there are athletes throwing balls around. So we thought we'd all head down to a Tech baseball game and show him a bit more of the campus that Mommy and Daddy met on. Super fun stuff. Seeing him stroll across the grass like he didn't care that he was late for his Calc 3 class? Hilarious. Once we got to the game itself, he was pretty excited and then quickly disappointed when he realized that the fence separating him from the players meant that he couldn't chase down balls. Of course he'd think that he could go out on the grass and throw the ball around; he gets to do that in the backyard, doesn't he? We suddenly became the man holding him down. "Pleeeeese balls. Pleeeeese." These are the times when you realize that his logic is just way way different from your own, and you wish that you could figure out a way to explain difficult concepts like aging and athleticism and collegiate sports departments and rulebooks and stadium security chasing down field runners. But you can't so you go buy some peanuts and he's immediately distracted.