Lucas Camilo

This has been a big week for Lucas’s cheek muscles as he’s been showing off his grin daily.  It’s probably a universal joy to do something silly and get the beautiful reward of making a baby laugh.  Lucas waited seven months until he was ready to play this game, but he’s now obliging us with joyous, wide-mouthed grins in response to everything from foot tickles to our ridiculous googly-nay-nay-nay-nay-kisses-noserub-ta-dah!-game.  He’s also developing a more nuanced range of upset faces (for a long time it was hard to see any expressions between neutral and extremely distressed).  But recently we’ve seen him show clear frustration as he makes bigger efforts to grab at toys, or fussiness when he wants to be moved, held or suctioned.

Lucas has also been “talking” more this past week.  His cooing noises are still distinctly his – he only makes them while he’s on the ventilator – but that makes it all the more exciting to hear him figure out how to make his noises louder and more often.  Our friends Gabe and Daniella were hanging out with us last night and got to witness Burke sing Lucas the “March Madness” theme song as Lucas lovingly gazed up at his dad and made cooing sounds back.  Although cold and flu season isn’t officially over yet, spring fever has led us to relax Lucas’s strict visitation policy a little bit early, so Lucas has had lots of visitors recently, in addition to Gabe and Daniella.  Over the past few days he’s also spent time with our landlord Steve (back in town from Mexico), Walker (here from NYC), Isham, Janelle, Mackenzie and Alexis.  We know that others are looking forward to stopping by too…

Lucas appreciates all the snuggling, and he was especially thankful for the visit and love from Shana, the minister at All Souls Church who’s been busy saying goodbye to her community in DC.   In fact, all three of us are grateful to Shana for her incredible love, thoughts and prayers over the past year.  Thank you, Shana!  We wish you well as you move on to sharing your heart and soul and spirit with a new congregation and community.