The Luders Family

Happy birthday, Reidie Pie! How is my baby already two? When I look at these pictures, you look like such a big boy, but you still let us treat you like our baby. Just tonight at dinner, you let dad cradle you in his arms and feed you chicken like an airplane (because you decided you wanted more food after we had changed you into clean clothes). You just find so much joy in everything, so it’s truly a blast.

One of my very favorite things over the past few months has been watching you run. It makes me laugh all the time. You get so excited that your arms are often flailing above your head, and you lead with your little baby tummy. Gah, it’s just the cutest thing ever.

Some other cute little Reid-y things are:

• Your sweet little happy teeth. They are slowly coming in, but that sweet, paci-induced gap is hanging in there.
• Your obsession with bottles. We probably shouldn’t give you so many of them, but we were so limited on what we could feed you, that you got pretty addicted to them. We no longer let you have them before nap or bed, but let you snack on them during the day. Maybe one day you’ll transition to milk in a sippy cup.
• Your learning about “pee pee” and “poo poo.” You randomly decided to be potty trained this month while I was at Hobby Lobby. You demanded to sit on the potty and actually peed and pooped. I was shocked. You wanted to be potty trained, but we compromised with pull ups because you weren’t (I wasn’t) ready. During the Christmas Eve service, the pastor said “And all God’s children said..” and the congregation was supposed to say “Amen.”, but you shouted “pee pee poo poo!”.
• Your love of dancing and being silly. You can win over even the grumpiest people with your cute little dance moves.
• Your love of mommy. No one has ever made me feel as loved as you. You’re so affectionate and get so excited to see me. When you feel a little shy, you cling to my leg. When you see me at school pickup, you drop what you’re doing and run over with open arms. When we play hide and seek, you want to hide wherever I am. Your love of daddy and sissy are close seconds!

You bring so much light to our lives. Your joy is contagious, and it’s hard to be in a bad mood around you. You’re so verbal, so you’re always saying something so silly. I don’t know how someone so young has such a good sense of humor! Your teachers love you. Your grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins love you. Your sister loves you. Mom and Dad love you. You’re our littlest gift, and I feel so blessed to have you in our life!

Hi Reid! You’re 23 months old! And I totally missed your 22 month post. Not because I don’t love you but because it’s so hard to encapsulate so much personality into one little write-up. You are a real character. I can barely even look at you without laughing because you’re just so silly!

A good example of your personality was a little trip we took to Hobby Lobby the other day. We were there for about 20 minutes, half of which we spent in line to check out. You sat in the front of the cart and managed all the stuff we picked out. Mostly, though, you were the little mayor of Hobby Lobby. You stood up and said “HI!” to everyone to passed while waving your cute little wave. Between waves, you pointed at every single thing we passed and said “What that?!” You’re just so gregarious!

In between your sweet little personality has emerged a little bit of a tantrumer. You fully commit with your whole body when you don’t get your way. You’re so so sweet, but you sure can have a bit of a temper! We are trying to teach you not to push when you get mad.

You’re still my little snuggle bug. You fall asleep in our arms almost every day during nap time and bedtime. I love it so much! When we hang out in the den, you come up to me pretty frequently and say “mama lap!” and climb up. You’re a bit of a wiggle worm, but it’s worth it for the cuddles.

Since I’m a little late, I’ll point out that you dressed up as Papa for Halloween. Papa is your favorite person in the whole world, so I figure why not dress you up like him. We surprised him and he thought it was awesome.

Reidie, what else can I say except I love you? You are the perfect addition to our little family. I just want to scoop you up and put you in my pocket. You’re the most precious little baby! We love you love you love you!

Hi, my handsome little guy. Seriously, look at that face. You’re the cutest little boy I’ve ever seen. And you have the sweetest little personality too! I sometimes think about how if you were the only baby someone knew, they’d surely think having kids was easy. You’re just such a happy little guy. It’s a good thing too, because your little gappy smile is one of the best things in the whole world.

This month, you started school! You cried at drop off the first few days, but only for a minute. As soon as the teachers took you to wash your hands (one of your favorite things), you’d cheer right up. I remember the first day, when I came to pick you up, I looked in the window and saw you dancing your little heart out. It made me so happy! Every day, you seem to be so happy at pick up. Your face is often red from playing so hard. Fortunately, you’ve done well being around other kids and their food so far. We pray every day that you stay safe!

You’ve started chatting up a storm. You know so many words, I couldn’t even begin to count them. You especially like to shout “Cookie!”, “Lemonade!”, and “Snack!”. You also love to sing. You sing “Wheels on the Bus” all the time, and learned to shout “Amen!” when we sing “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” We love hearing your sweet little voice, and Rosemary loves to talk to you and pretend to talk as you.

You’re just a little joy to have around. You’ve learned how to push everyone’s buttons when you want to (taking toys, jumping off furniture, turning on tub water, etc.), but you are so funny when you do it that it’s hard to even be mad. You’re my sweet little boy and we love you so so much!

Hi Reidie-Pie! This is currently your nickname, by the way. In addition to “chunky boy” and “my baby”, Rosemary consistently calls you “Reidie-Pie.” And, much to my shock, you’re nearly the age Rosemary was when you were born (she was 20 months and 25 days). She seemed so big then, but you still seem like our baby. You even still drink bottles twice a day…admittedly because we are scared to mess with your sleep routine. You sleep through the night but start crying as soon as you wake up, so we don’t want to put you to bed on an empty tummy! We all love having our little baby around, though! You truly are a little beacon of light. A laughing, gap-toothed beacon of light!

A couple of weeks ago, we did a baked egg food challenge to see if you could tolerate eggs when baked for at least 30 minutes and you passed! So now we are supposed to feed you baked eggs every day. Of course, you are a toddler and resist eating it. We’ve tried multiple different forms (muffins, cake, bread), and bread is the only one we’ve had mild success offering. Hopefully we are on the path to you outgrowing an allergy!

You’ve also gone to your first classroom visit this month! You start school this week. We are nervous because of your allergies, but know you are going to thrive in school. You are so smart. You always know what we are saying, communicate really well for a 20 month old, and amaze us with your imaginative play. Once school starts, I’ll have 2 days home with just you and 1 day home with just Rosemary. I’m really looking forward to the one on one time. We’ll see how you like the days where Rosemary goes to school without you. Your little heart was crushed when Rosemary had gradual entry and you didn’t get to stay at school with her. We are convinced that you think you are 3 just like her. You want to do everything just like her!

Some of your favorite things this month are:

• Dinosaurs: We’ve gone to Fernbank a few times this month, and you love the dinosaurs. You cry and say “Roar! Roar!” any time we take off a dinosaur shirt.
• Zoos: We’ve gone to a few zoos this month, and you love telling us all the different noises the animals make.
• Water: I finally broke down and bought one of those junky plastic pools for our house. You could play there all day.
• Phone Calls with Gigi/Papa: They’ve been traveling all month, so we’ve been calling them most days. You demand to hold the phone and give lots and lots of kisses.
• Hide and Seek: Rosemary has been really into hide and seek lately, and you love it but you don’t really get it. When it’s your turn to hide, you sometimes hide/sometimes don’t but always jump out immediately and yell “Surprise!”. When it’s your turn to count, you go into the counting spot, count by just saying “Three. Three. Three” over and over, and then jumping out and saying surprise and acting confused when you don’t see anyone. When we are pretending we can’t find people, you always run over and reveal them.

You’ve also been saying some pretty cute things lately. Rosemary has been watching a lot of Fancy Nancy, and you’ve picked up saying “ooh la la!”. You also say “scared! scared!” when you get scared by seemingly unscary things. For example, I was changing your diaper on a sink counter at Fernbank (that was intended for diaper changes), and you kept saying “scared” and nearly shaking. You also got scared by sitting on a rock at Arabia Mountains and by Juneau and Scout licking your face. It’s pretty adorable!

We love you so much, baby Reid! You make us smile all the time. You bring us so much joy! I hope you always stay the happy little boy we love so much! We are so proud of you and love you always.

Happy 19 months, baby boy! Just look at you – you’re getting so big! That little boy haircut you got this month makes you look so big. You’re just the cutest little baby, and your little smile just melts my heart. You have this big gap in your teeth, and it’s one of my favorite things ever. You make a big cheese face whenever I bring out my camera, and it just cracks me up.

You’ve become pretty vocal this month. We tried to count all your words so we could tell the doctor a few weeks ago, and we lost track. Your most recent word, though, is one that you won’t let us forget. You say “snack” about 100 times an hour. You love food, and are definitely not a picky eater so far. You also like to put food in your ear while we are in the car. I have no idea why. We constantly have to tell you take cheerios or crackers or bread out of your ear. As Rosemary would say, “you’re a goofball!”

Some of your favorite things right now include:

• Buses – you love to watch Little Baby Bum and sing along to “Wheels on the Bus.” You prompt us to sing along by waving your hands in a steering wheel motion and kind of humming the tune.
• Cars – when we go on walks around the neighborhood, you like to point out every car that we see, especially if Papa tags along. Speaking of which….
• Papa – you walk around saying “Papa. Papa” sometimes. When you pretend to talk on the phone, you say you’re talking to Papa.
• Snacks – I already mentioned it above, but it bears repeating based on how much you like snacks. We made the mistake of mixing Fruit Loops with Cheerios. You pick out all the Fruit Loops and dump the cheerios on the ground. You are quite the stinker.
• Mama – You still love your mama. When I leave the room/car/1″ area, you burst into tears and cry for Mama. Dad wants to point out that you did cry for “Dada” once when I didn’t want to read another book at bedtime.
• Giving Rosemary Hugs – except after nap time. You are grumpy after nap time. Other than that, though, you like to like to surprise Rosemary with neck hugs. You guys also like to put on a show where you give each other really sweet hugs when mommy is watching. It’s adorable.
• Rollover – we’ve had a mattress on the floor of your room for a couple months (long, uninteresting story). You and Rosemary like to sing the song “There were two in the bed and the little one said, rollover…” and then roll off the bed. You look like a little goober barrel rolling off the mattress.

I can’t believe that you’ll be starting preschool in just over a month. When did you get to be such a big boy? Thank you for letting me keep you my little snuggle bug for so long. I can’t even imagine our lives without you. You’re our little comedy act and our sweet angel. We love you so much!