Please indulge me for a few moments and allow me to give you some background on Luke. Be prepared...I'll probably gush a little. And, be prepared for future gushamental posts about my 3 other children as well. Wow, I made that word up right on the spot. I like it!
Luke Darren Shepherd (he shares his middle name with his Daddy) was born on December 19th, 2003, at 11:45 AM; our 3rd child and 1st boy. He was our biggest baby, weighing in at 8 lbs. 5 oz. and measuring 21" long. How he ever fit into this short-waisted torso I will never understand, but I do know that at the end it felt like I had a baby stretching from my throat all the way down to my knees. I don't know if it was the Christmas spirit or just my general giddiness at being so close to giving birth, but when I went to the hospital to be induced, I took along a cd player and my Michael W. Smith Christmas album to listen to during my labor. My entire pregnancy with Luke was by far my easiest, as was labor and delivery. On a side note, but very related to the thread of thought, epidurals that take full effect are truly wondrous things. I was feeling great and was laughing and talking right up until time to push. Nurses and other hospital staff who weren't assigned to me were coming in my room to hang out because my nurses were calling it the "fun room". I kept the music playing through the entire thing, and to this day sweetly experience the wonderful memory of his birth every time I listen to that cd. When it was time to push, the doctor BARELY made it in time. Really. He came in, got into position, and caught the baby. I was feeling so great afterward that 15 minutes post-birth, I was on the phone to my closest friend at the time telling her the exciting news.
Luke was a happy baby who rarely cried. His name means "Bringer of Light", and he has certainly lived up to that title. We didn't really experience the dreaded Terrible Two's with Luke; he waited until he was 4 to start throwing tantrums and such. What? You didn't think I was going to go on letting you think he's perfect, did you? I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, and I certainly would never go so far as to say that every time he acted naughty during that time frame and after was because of this, but his younger brother was born with a serious birth defect and was hospitalized in a city 3 hours away from our home for 21 days. My husband and I were staying at the hospital with our sick baby, and we got to see our 3 oldest children a couple of times during that whole ordeal, but that's a story for another time. I said all of that to say, I noticed a change in Luke's behavior after we finally got to bring his brother home. My previously almost always happily compliant 4 year old was now decidedly more defiant, disobedient, and dramatic. The triple D threat. He definitely hasn't outgrown it all either. I found out very recently, much to my embarrassment and horror, that he put on a full-on melodramatic angry outburst production in front of, well, let's just say that it was the very last person on earth that I would want to see him acting like that. Kids sure do have a way with timing, don't they?
A few other facts about Luke:
He's as smart as a whip, sharp as a tack, and every other applicable cheesy cliche' you could think of. He was talking in short, but complete, sentences by the time he was 10 months old. He knew his alphabet by sight before he was a year old and could arrange cards with the letters on them in order with no help. He knew the presidents up to Clinton by the time he was 18 months old and could say their names in order by looking at their pictures. He was reading on at least a 2nd grade level at some point between the ages of 3 and 4. The trend continues, and he continuously stuns me with the amount of knowledge that he has stored in that cute little red-headed brain of his, and how quickly and easily he graps it.
He's scatterbrained. Extremely so. Exhaustingly so. E-Frustratingly so. I so wanted to have a triple E threat there. It would have been so perfectly............alphabetical. I won't go on for your sake. But I could, if I wanted to. He has been known to get into the shower - more than once, mind you, wearing his glasses, or his underwear, or even fully clothed, or any combination of the 3. If I tell him to go get something from the other room, he will come back minutes later having accomplished 7 different things...but none of them being the 1 thing I told him to do.
He's kind. His oldest sister, Tara, was tired and snoozing on and off on the couch while he was playing Wii one evening last week. I was in the kitchen cooking, and I saw him glance at her several times, then pause his game and go get her a pillow to lay her head on. He continued his game, glancing again at her several times. He paused his game again, went and got a blanket, and covered her up with it.
He's dramatic. This can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing when he is called upon to play a dual role in the church Christmas play. A curse when he is upset about something and crumples into a heap on the floor spontaneously. It puts me in mind of the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz...'I'm melting, meeeeeltiiiiiing'!
He's constantly moving; doing; busy. Keith has jokingly said more than once that if Luke were in the public school system, he'd come home with a note pinned to his lapel every day, and I don't think he's far from the truth. Luke is a kinesthetic learner, which means he thinks and learns better when he is moving. As soon as you think he's not paying attention - because he's looking everywhere but where he's supposed to; pretending his hands are cars crashing into each other, sound effects inserted at appropriate intervals; hopping around like a kangaroo; all while humming a tuneless song while he's taking a break from doing sound effects - you can ask him to repeat what his teacher just said, and he does repeat the past several sentences, v-e-r-b-a-t-i-m.
He has a sincere heart, and one that loves Jesus and virtually all other people with all of the fullness and joy that it can hold. This completely trumps and outweighs all of the good, sometimes (ok, ok, OFTEN) ornery, and everything that's in-between with my Luke. I have thought, felt, whatever you want to call it, for several years that he will eventually end up in the ministry. He led his 3 year old brother in the sinner's prayer one night after they went to bed, and he just has that something that makes me wonder if he will end up as a pastor, evangelist, or even missionary one day. Yesterday, he was literally shaking with excitement with the anticipation of being baptized. I had the thought and even expressed it verbally to our pastor, that wouldn't it be awesome if everybody was that excited about Jesus. And that thought has led to another...I have a desire to dig deep and rediscover that childlike - yet still bold, innocent - yet strong and steady, faith again for myself.
And, just to make us all smile, here's a picture of Luke after his dunkin'.
Have a happy day, everyone.
Melissa
