Ikeversary

Well it's been 6 months! We have gone from not knowing what to do with him to feeling lost when he isn't with us. Everyone loves to say "oh, kids change your life" like it's something bad or some sort of hassle, but for us, we have continued to do everything we did before it's just that we have this little mega man baby entertaining everyone and we are home by 7 to put him in bed :)

We are looking forward to making this whole gig final; we finally had out last homestudy on Tuesday. I want to go ahead and get the final report so I can drive down to the court house and file the adoption decree. I haven't even sent out adoption announcements yet because I felt like I was losing my mind when Ike first came home with Thanksgiving, his birthday and then Christmas so I thought I would wait till the thing was final.

It's so weird to think about when he first came home and was so scared and we were so scared! How we all cried when we realized he was staying :) We had no idea what to do with him
or how to entertain him. A few times we forgot to feed him in the beginning.

It was way harder for us to go from 'Luke and Amber' to 'Luke, Amber and Ike' than we thought it was going to be. We had been just the two of us for so long that adding the extra dynamic was difficult. We were used to working constantly and eating out late at night. Plus, when Ike first came home it was soo cold and we were unable to walk the dogs like normal or even spend time outside and with the ice we had here we couldn't even leave the house. There were many times we prayed for 7:30 so he would go to sleep.

Then there was the early sleeping issues when he would scream for hours a night. A horrible death curling scream that we could not get away from no matter where we were in the house. Thankfully, he was so happy the rest of the time. It seemed like those nights lasted for ever, although I really only think it was a week.. Then, one night, he reached for his crib just like the book said, and went right to sleep.

And for the most part he has done that ever since.

Ike amazes us every single day. He is a great communicator and has so many words and if he doesn't know that word he will ask. His little brain works so hard we can see it. He has figured out every child proof thing we have.

We are so proud of him. He is such a sweet little man and is so caring and considerate. He wants to share his food or drink with everyone in the room. He will acknowledge everyone in a social setting by walking up to them and touching or saying something. He has made many friends and other parents at his school say their little ones talk about Ike all night (some of the kids are 2 in his class). He loves to dance and will 'find the beat' when ever asked. He also like to 'be the wind'. He has an absolute love of animals and is really gentle with them.

Luke has said that we are never going to win the lottery because we have Ike. I hope everyone feels so lucky to have their babies and that everyone is in complete awe of them. Not to say that he doesn't try and get to me every once and a while or that he is this jovial all the time. Ike is happy unless he's not and then he's really not happy.

Yesterday we had a window person here quoting a new window for the one that broke in the hail storm so Ike decided he wanted to be a puppy. Which meant to him that he would lay on his belly and lick the floors, stand in the water bowl and then lick the water like a puppy. I was trying to ignore him because sometime I feel like I am more annoying saying "Ike! NO!" then Ike is screaming or trying to take down the blinds. But the licking of the dog water after he was standing in it with his shoes really got my attention. :)

So, back to the crazy hail storm. We were all at the lake, about 1.5 miles from our house. We walk there most nights. We saw the storm coming but were not overly concerned till someone told us we needed to get to our car because there was a tornado coming. Well we walk there so we had no car. We started walking faster, but Sculley will not be rushed. I went ahead with the stroller, running. But I had already ran that day and was having a hard time. We went across the back field but couldn't run because it was incredibly muddy. Anyway, we
made it home about 5 minutes before the storm hit. We have never seen hail that big. We had hail the size of tennis balls. It was hitting our house and windows like we were in a batting cage. Luke shut the blinds so if the windows shattered into the house it wouldn't be as bad. We were really lucky in that we just have one broken window and only the outside pane shattered. We will need a new roof-just like everyone in our neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhoods and Luke might have his car totaled, but hopefully not.

(We went to the ostrich egg breakfast at the zoo and we had to purchase an actual ostrich egg to add to our collection of odd things. )