Buckaroo with bite!

Luke's first tooth arrived this morning! Of course I knew it was coming -- his drool deluges and nonstop gnawing never let teething slip too far from mind. But nonetheless it astonished me to look in and find a scraggly white protrusion from his cute little gums. Once the shock settled, it was interesting to check out this new development and even inspired pride in the little guy for hurdling a difficult milestone. But I miss the total little baby gummyness; the scraggly tooth just looks so out of place. And what a sharp ridge it is! I hear that this helps it to cut to the surface and that use will dull it. In the meantime it must be uncomfortable on his tongue and upper gums. Maybe if he keeps up the gnawing he can speed up the dulling process!

At the moment, the babe is sleeping off this latest accomplishment against all odds. Erik is using a demolition hammer to remove mortar that previously held tiles to the entryway floor -- just a few feet from Luke's bedroom! We turned up his shushing machine and placed pillows at the base of his door, and somehow Luke is snoozing away. We are almost finished with renovation stage 1, removing the flooring in our entire house except for the bedrooms and bathrooms. The result is that the whole place feels like a garage, with concrete floors and empty space. Meanwhile our garage is looking like a storage unit, filled with our furniture and kitchen appliances. As the re-flooring project looms larger and larger in the scope of work it requires, we're thankful for the reinforcements that are on the way. Erik's parents and brother arrive tomorrow, and plan to help us move forward with installing tile and laminate wood. We can't wait to see how it turns out and to have our storage unit back to a garage and our garage back to a home!