I predict I will swoon at the sight of Alex Meraz when I go see New Moon. Is he old enough for me to swoon at?

Luci at bathtime... Josh and Luci in the ball pit and More Tween Pary fun...

Playing catch-up

It feels like when Lucia hit one year old life went into hyper drive or warp speed. She learned to walk at 9 months but by one year I have to run to keep Lucia out of anything and everything. Remember those first 3 months when I was asking, "Where is the challenge?" and "When does it get hard?"
It got challenging. It got hard. I don't mean to complain- I will have to work hard to find myself depressed with Lucia to do something goofy everyday to cheer me up. However, Lucia is a climber. She scales couches, chairs, tables, shelving, beds, cabinets, stairs, dressers... She will open any cupboard she can get to and promptly pulls out the contents before I lope the 5 or 6 steps between us to stop her.
I also remember writing about how Lucia would bang her head on my chest when she was hungry. Well, I'll be darned if our girl hasn't carried that behavior into toddler hood. We have endured many a bump on our noggin for either not getting her out the door fast enough so she can play outside or for those crabby times when she just can't communicate what she's feeling or wanting... Her poor little forehead has taken the brunt of many of her frustrations. As she grows and develops tools and language to communicate we are seeing less of it. We also were unable to continue putting her in her crib in efforts to establish a "bedtime". She started head banging and sobbing instead of sleeping. We commenced a routine of bath time, then reading, then rocking and ultimately sleeping in our bed (its mine 4 nights out of the week-"ours" for only two due to Daddy's work schedule) in order to curb more head banging. Now, I'm dangerously content sleeping with her. Luckily, we have largely been able to transfer her after she falls asleep into her crib.
When Lucia is bored with meal times she has come up with a few creative ways to express she's finished. For awhile she fed the dog her food. This caused the dog to bark to go outside to crap a gazillion times a day. So then we only put small amounts on her tray at a time. That works but when she's done she will start stuffing the food down her shirt and smear it in her hair. So that's been amusing...
Its been increasingly entertaining finding myself in a variety of "Lucia conversations."
Lucia: "Buh bye!"
Me: "Oh! See you later! Auf Weidersehen"
Lucia: "af-veee-say say! Bye! (Lucia hides b/w two large dressers while she maniacally grins at me for a minute and I pretend not to notice her then reveals herself again....... ) "Hi YA!"
Me: "Welcome Back"
...Repeat 20 times...
... or ...
Lucia (nodding): "Uh-huh! Okay?"
Me: "Okay."
Lucia (lifting shirt, looking at belly button): "Bee Ba?"
Me: "Yes, that's your belly button"
Lucia (laughing hysterically and racking at my shirt to uncover my belly button): "Grrrrrr!"

Lucia has visited her grandparents and my brother's family in AZ since her first birthday. I celebrated my 32nd birthday (right? I lose count all the time now). For my birthday I invited my tween nieces, the Coghill-Behrends tweens, as well as my Twilight obsessed friend Genevieve and the Barrons over for a Tween pajama party. We ate mushroom ravioli, looked at tweenie twilight magazines and watched the movie.
My friend Genevieve and I also went to the "Tulip Time Festival". It was my first time there. We took our toddlers and watched the parade, ate "dutch fair food" and took pretty pictures in the Tulips. I went to college for one trimester in Pella. It was really neat to see out the town has changes and ogle all the clean cut Norman Rockwell Central students with their little dutch hats and whatnot. Genevieve and Josh caused quite a ruckus at the port-a-potty. But I'll let her tell that one.
Lastly, and most importantly, I've been gearing up to open my house up as a daycare! I'm in the process of getting registered with the Department of Human Services. That means I've been going to trainings, filling out paperwork, and meeting with people who know about these things. I have two little guys lined up and I'm still looking for a couple more to make ends meet. I'm very excited about it. I've most recently enjoyed printing out schedule pieces on Boardmaker and laminating them at work (he he). I can't wait to have my own mini-early childhood classroom and to be able to have Lucia involved in all the things I have planned! I have fun ideas about having a cooking class (adapted, of course), craft ideas, monthly or weekly themes, centers, singing to all that great music I copied from teachers along the way... Sometimes, a decision in life is made easier when everything sort of just points to it. Committing to doing daycare became easy once I gave into the logic of doing in home daycare. Something stubborn inside me resists things when they make so much sense it seems too easy as if its somehow cheating. I don't know where I got that but I've struggled with it for as long as I can remember. I ALWAYS over complicate things for myself. Therefore, I'm glad my brain gave up and gave in on this one because it should make like that much more enjoyable for my family.