Luke-ness

Our third child is not one of ours. We're not sure where he came from exactly, but we're enjoying him until his real parents find him.

Okay, he's ours. I carried him for 8 months, which in itself tells you that he's not one of my children. I also gave birth to him, and that's a story in itself. Yep, he's ours and we love him dearly. But there are moments when we just don't really know him that well.

With the first two children I was overdue in giving birth and we were resigned to the fact that I'm just one of those mothers. But with Luke my husband and I were both convinced that I'd go early. You know, like on my due date or the day before. Luke decided to join us 16 days early. Knowing him now, we're sure it's because he just couldn't stand the idea that the older kids were doing things without him.

While pregnant with him I had cravings like a lot of pregnant women do. But skip the pickles and ice cream, I was after coffee and cigarette smoke. Let me tell you right here and now that up until that pregnancy I loved the smell of coffee but couldn't stand the taste of the stuff. (I blame my Starbucks addiction on him.) And cigarette smoke still to this day makes me sick to my stomach. Except while I carried that boy. I'd walk behind smokers, inhaling deeply, thinking for sure that I'd be seriously damaging my unborn child. And yet I couldn't help it. The boy has marched to the beat of his own drum since conception.

This child is the one that taught us to relax a little in our parenting adventure. He's the one that cracks us up with his over-active imagination. He's the one that everyone has a story about. Like the dog training episode.

When he was about 3 he had an imaginary friend, Jack. Jack was quite a character and did all sorts of things that he shouldn't. Luke pushed off his chores on his friend, and Jack failed to pull through. He wasn't very good at putting toys away or laundry in the hamper. And it was apparently Jack's job to take the trash up to the road each week. Again, Jack was a slacker. And then Jack morphed into The Jacks and there was a whole host of them. All slackers. And they took up precious seating space as well. It was hard to find a spot to sit without squashing a Jack and horrifying Luke. Then one day, as we were asking where to sit today, Luke says "there are no Jacks. I was only teasing." And that was the end of an era.

Luke loves his grandparents and would live with Little Grandma and Little Pappy if he could. He likes Big Grandma and Big Pappy, but is content to visit for days on end there. Those are his names for them. It took us a while to figure out which set he was referring to. My parents are Little and Sam's parent's are Big. We're assuming it's based on their stature. And we're also grateful that both my parents are Little and both Sam's parents are Big. That just makes things easier. He called them this for years, and seriously didn't know their real names. Thank goodness grandparents got a kick out of this because there wasn't much we could do about it.

My sister raises Texas Longhorn Cattle. She lives right down the road and we get to see these incredibly magnificent beasts every day. Luke is enamored with them and calls them Horn-Cows. Loudly and publicly. Sometimes this is embarrasing.

We once had a spider take up residence in the house. Okay, we've had more than one do this. But after days of attempted killings we resigned ourselves to the fact that it was smarter than we were and it could co-exist with us if it stayed on the ceiling. Luke named this thing Foot Spider and inquired about it frequently through his days. He was a little sad when Foot finally met his demise.

Luke is definitely a one-of-a-kind kind of guy.