Sunshine Man (Day 10 ~ Year 10: 30 to 30)

 Any form of normal didn't really come to the Whitacre house until Lukas Whitacre. Lukas was born when I was 10 and I was sooooo excited to be a big sister again and have a baby around. And this baby was suuuuper cute. He had white blonde hair, thick eyelashes, and blue blue eyes. When I was a baby my Mom had to keep a bonnet on me until I was 2 so people would know I was a girl because until then I was essentially bald. With Lukas she had to put on overtly "Boy" shirts and with his curly, golden locks people still commented on her 'girl'. It was these golden locks that caused my Mom to deem him the sunshine man and every morning we sang to Lukas,
 "Good morning merry sunshine,

   Why did you wake so soon?

   You scared the little birds away.

  And shined

                    away

                              the moon."
 Which is, yes, an actual song. 

 Along with being adorable, Lukas was, from day one, extraordinarily headstrong. I got into a fight with him when he was 18 months old. Like a battle of the wills fight. I don't remember what it was about. I do remember thinking "this is ridiculous. I'm fighting with the baby." And I do believe he won. Which is unsuprising.

 And, yeah, he was so normal. And the poor baby felt it in a sea of weirdos but perspective is a funny thing and so being the odd (normal) man out, he felt like the odd one, and with some kind of incredible intuition as a toddler. He used to cry that he "didn't fit" and he wanted brown hair. Poor kid. He got over it later. ;)

 He also used to say, with great confidence, when asked how old he was at 3 ,"46." He'd come up with a new big number each time but say it with no lag, like he actually believed it. 

 And one day, I came home from some stint away, and suddenly this golden haired child was taller than me. And that was a very strange thing. And now he knows music, and taught himself guitar and brings sunshine that way. So I wrote him on his countdown day, to say I loved him and I'm glad he's my brother. And that his defense of the pronunciation of "armadillo" would always stick in my mind (It's a cruel irony to not be able to pronounce the first letter of your own name as a toddler and Luke's 'l's' were ever 'w's' at that age. In one memorable conversation he was talking in the car about 'armadiwows'  and oh so kind and helpful older brother Devan said "Don't you mean armadiLLo's?" to which Lukas said emphatically "That's what I said. 'armadiiiiiiiiiiiiwows.'"