Lucas Camilo

Lucas didn’t get to explore the snow on Saturday, but we did manage to escape outside in shifts. Krista and Alice went out in the morning for some time at the YMCA, and in the afternoon Burke represented the family at the opening of our friend Edmond’s sculpture exhibition (he’s an amazing artist from Burkina Faso who lived with us for a while at our old house and who we had lost contact with after Lucas was born.) Both excursions gave us the chance to be out in the midst of DC’s first winter storm and we told Lucas all about it once we were settled back into our warm basement apartment.  Unfortunately our water heater conked out on Saturday afternoon and we’ve been struggling with getting warm water – or water at all – ever since.

Sunday brought more adventures: a wide awake Lucas spending time on the floor during an extra-long session off the vent, a batch of West African peanut butter soup made by Burke, and trip to the All Souls Unitarian Church for Krista and Alice.  The latter event brought sad news that Shana, a minister and friend who visited us while Lucas was  in the hospital, will be leaving DC and All Souls early next spring.

Later in the day we invited our good friends Sha and Max over and continued playing with an alert Lucas.  He danced with Max, made goo-goo faces at Alice, and all the while sported his snazy “We will not be pacified!” radical baby onesie that Sha silk-screened for Lucas before he was born.  As if reveling in the irony, Lucas sucked on his “chumpy” (as we now refer to the pacifier) all afternoon.

Alice continued her string of scrumptious meals with a mushroom risotto that would have even pleased Burke’s dad (a risotto aficionado).  Meanwhile, Max and Burke worked on upgrading the platform for the CISPES webpage (fun stuff!) and Sha and Krista continued playing with Lucas.  Eventually we all snuggled onto the futon to watch a movie.  Lucas dawned his second “nose” and joined us for a while on the couch before falling asleep after a long day.  Finally, our guests headed home and since we had canceled the night nurse we got to spend another evening sleeping next to Lucas, him in the crib, us on the adjacent futon.

Though we’re still wary of bringing too many people – and potential germs – into our home it was great to be around Lucas AND good friends.  It proves that even though Lucas currently has special needs we can still do a lot with him and continue enjoying the wonders of life, love and community.