Lucas Camilo

It’s been a good 372 years since the last time a full lunar eclipse coincided with the solstice so we decided it was probably an auspicious moment worth celebrating.  Monday night we dragged ourselves out of bed at 3 am and went outside for a few minutes of viewing the huge, reddish-brown full moon.  Everyone’s probably already seen a million pictures, but if not, here’s a cool time-lapse video.  It was pretty astounding.

Then on Tuesday night a few of our friends came over for a solstice dinner.  We’re not usually such committed pagans, but it seemed like an important year to be with friends on the darkest night of the year.   Lucas sat in his chair on the floor and played.  He seemed to enjoy the small party around him, as the rest of us ate barley soup and hung out.  We also shared a little about the “darkness” in our lives – both the parts we find useful and the ones we’d like to let go of – and we ended the night with a small fire in the back yard.  Thanks to Max, Jess, Ilana, and Buddy for sharing in on our mini-ritual!

Meanwhile, Lucas has been surrounded by lots of friends lately.  Last week Sha came by and was able to hold Lucas for the first time since his surgery a month ago.  And Lucas enjoyed a long snuggle-turned-nap with Heyward right before she left for Colorado.  Heyward has spent a lot of time with Lucas this fall and he’ll definitely miss her while she’s gone!  And then Krista’s good friend Alice was in town visiting from Michigan last weekend.  Alice is in the thick of writing a brilliant dissertation about workers centers, immigrant rights and social justice movements, which made it all the more amazing that she could drop it all to come cook food and sing nanananana with us for a few days.

Speaking of the nananana song, Lucas is making major strides in his communication.  He’s learned to recognize a handful of words, going beyond waiving when someone says hi or bye.  Over the weekend he started bringing his thumb and pointer finger together in the gesture made at the start of the Itsy Bitsy Spider song.  Now whenever we say “itsy bitsy” he immediately makes the hand sign, and we go crazy laughing and applauding and then sing him the song.

The hand signs are exciting since it means Lucas is moving towards learning basic sign language even before he can speak.  But he’s certainly not afraid to speak his mind either.  His voice is getting louder and louder, and he was especially inspired in his bath the other day.

We’re looking forward to Krista’s mom and sister arriving tomorrow night and then Burke’s parents coming in early next week – it will be wonderful to share the holidays with all of them.