funny kid at 20 months

You can tell her eyes are a bit off...we aren't sure if she's fighting a cold (for the last month) or if she has allergies like her mama (it is pollen season down here).Sitting still is not one of her specialities...Reading Go Dog Go for the millionth time...

Sweet as ever, sharing her "baa" with Bear!

I love this kid!

In case you didn't know, our Luce is a pretty funny kid. I love seeing her sense of humor & personality evolve. She laughs now at the funny parts of books (even if it is the 100th time that day) and cracks herself up quite regularly...she tries to share her paci with the cats and then laughs. She shares the paci with Bea & laughs. She throws Bea down the slide & then laughs. She makes Bea pretend cry & then actually says hug (huuuhhhh) while hugging her...and then laughs. She tries to put the shape in the wrong spot and says, "noooo" while laughing. She's kind of a goofball!

She also makes a lot of associations that crack us up. Today for example...

scene: church, organ music in the background

Mom & Dad: standing facing forward with one eye on Luci

Luce: muahh, aaah, ahh, haaa (channeling The Count from Sesame Street)

Mom & Dad: confusion...then

Mom: she's being The Count!

Mom & Dad: stifled laughter

She also said her first little phrase yesterday in church...at the end of the service my arms were tired...holding 26lbs of squirmin Luce for 1.5 hours is exhausting...and I tried to hand her over to Clay...to which she responded, "more Mama, okay?! okay." Of course how could I hand her over after that?

for grammy

new photos per grammy's request...
aunt bay-yee's shoes...

marching...she's really into marching these days...today we marched all of the way to Clara's...

bayy-yyyeee

My sweet, sweet girl. I love you Luci!!
Luci's Aunt Baylee left this morning...but before bed tonight Luce looked in the guest room and said with a hopeful tone..."baayy-yeee??" We miss you already Bayl!! Come back soon...heck, come stay all summer!!!

Luckily woodlandsonline was able to provide again & we had a good distraction this afternoon...Luci is now the proud owner of her own backyard cube climber/slide. I think she went down it 25 times in 20 minutes and up it maybe 15. She also climbed up 3 of the 4 sides, and pretended that the area under the step was her house...complete with saying "house, house", and "byy-ee, hhiiii" as she went in & out the little door. We also got a little high chair for Bea from the same woman...Luce put Bea right in it & started banging on the tray saying "eat, eat".

And just some fun pre-bath photos from last night. Luce LOVES her some 'qaak, qaak' (aka, duck).

Thanks for a fun week Aunt Baylee!

not-to-be due date #1

for six days last july i thought i'd be having a baby about now. my due date was march 20th, which i'll never forget because it also happens to be my bff jen's birthday. happy birthday jen. and happy would-be-birthday unborn pea#1. i'm glad they share a special day.

complicated

i managed to get photos off my memory card by putting it directly in the computer. who knew you could do that?!?! good thing young tech savvy aunt baylee is here....

but now i have to go through a whole rigmarole to upload photos. hmmm...i'm sure i'll get it figured out one of these days...but at least i don't have to buy a new camera!! yaaaayyy + insert luci golf clap here...i'll try to get that on video...it's hilarious!!

needy Pea as of late. up, up, up is requested often these days...

she loves her some "toe-pay-toe" (aka mr. potato head & his spud friends ms. carrot & mr. corn)

results of the second hair cut...just trying to prevent the mullet...

who doesn't need a sun hat, alligators, and "ein-nine" (aka disney's little einsteins) all before 7a?

more to come...

alive & well

we are alive & well...I swear!! My not-nearly-old-enough-to-be-broken camera will no longer upload its photos when I plug it into my usb port. boo. and I haven't had/taken the time to figure out what is going on/fix it. or get a new one. which is NOT in my budget so let's hope it doesn't come to that...

we're starting our second week of lovely very welcome visitors...Grandma Pierse came last week followed by our friends the Determans, and now Aunt Baylee is here. yaaaay!!!

so those are my excuses for being behind on blogging....and i'm stickin to them!

cuhcake

Somehow since the Valentine's Day party our girl has become OBSESSED with cuhcakes (aka cupcakes). She has a little toy ice cream cone that she calls cuhcake. A few weeks ago I bought a Valentines Day Funfetti cake mix for $.49 after Valentine's Day...she found it in the pantry & carried the box around for days. And randomly enough, we checked out a book from the library last week that had a picture of cuhcakes. All week she walked around with her plastic ice cream cone saying cuhcake, playing with the cake mix box, and finding the borrowed book & opening it right to the cuhcake page. So when I told her it was her friend Margeaux's birthday and we could have cuhcakes she clapped her hands and said, "YAAAYYYY". The celebration started with a cuhcake at playgroup and continued later that day with a Mama/Lil Girls Night Out (aka dads are working ;) at Rico's where she had just a few teaspoons of whip cream that Margeaux shared with her. Then Margeaux's REAL party was on Sunday at Gymboree...Luci was thrilled to know she could expect another cuhcake. But Margeaux got her cuhcake first (cuz it was her birthday and all) and Luce LOST IT. Nobody could tell what she was so upset about (maybe the adorable party hat was uncomfortable?), but I am pretty sure it was all concern over not getting a cuhcake. Poor thing...it was not my proudest parenting moment.

In addition to being not so great for a growing tot, she broke out with a terrible diaper rash after the first cuhcake...that just got worse & worse...to the point that here we are a week later, and she still has it. Poor lil thing. I'm looking into some good-for-you muffin type recipes I can make & bring to such events for her going forward. Ugh. I was hoping she'd have her dad's take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward sweets. Nope...this is all mama. Sorry Luce.

table & chairs

beloved "Bea" getting some "baa" time...

one happy camper...

Bea always needs to sit up, and unfortunately, doesn't sit on her own much to Luci's frustration...she asks for "a-help peeeaazz" about 1000 times a day...always requesting Bea sit up in a chair, on the trike, on the zebra, on the airplane...you get the idea...

I made a trip into Houston this weekend to IKEA...the plan was to buy a little table & chairs set for Luci. I did find plenty to buy, although not a table & chairs set! Upon seeing them I decided the tables were no match for our adventurous tot...I imagined them tipped over in seconds! I did however find some adorable chairs that stack and match her playroom....so I bought those, and decided to go with an idea I had some time back to re-purpose a table that we used in our condo in Chicago. We brought it down here with us but hadn't used it...and we have two sets of legs for it (counter height and table height), so we felt okay about cutting one of those two sets down to Luci height (22.5 inches in case you wondered ;). Luci seems pleased as punch!

Special thanks to Guh & Guh Pierse for providing said table & two sets of legs years ago, and for the saw that enabled Dad (special thanks to him, too) to cut the legs!

19 months

Sweet baby is doing much better with anger now that her beloved 'baaaa' is back. She's using lots of one word phrases and will even repeat some often heard 2 or 3 word phrases...including 'chiyyouhh' (chilly out) and 'iuhnoooo' (I don't know). She is VERY interested in the alphabet all of the sudden with P & W being her two favs. She also enjoys the J and the C. She recognizes the P on a STOP sign and the W on all of the storm drain man hole covers. She does a great job stopping before we cross the street, and overall is a great listener!

beat up

Luckily said wounds haven't dampened her spirit!! Here she is 'clipping, clopping' to a Raffi tune...

Our Luce is a little beat up. It started on my watch...her little hand got all scraped up at the park. Then on Dad's watch she fell in 'the woods' area of the park on a stick...that really scraped up her ear. And now she has a little bruise/scrape on her neck...and we have no idea where it came from!

Luckily she has her dad's pain tolerance and has endured the clean up of said wounds like a champ.

alligators

watching...you guessed it! CHOO!!!a lil dirty...

borrowing Clara's adorable rain boots! (taken by Amanda with her iPhone)another iPhone shot...

Luci is now the proud (albeit still skeptical) wearer of her very own Crocs. Or alligators, as she calls them.

This week after an AM rain Luci was VERY intrigued by a large puddle covering the mulch under a big kid toy at the park. She promptly just walked right in it & started walking around & around in ankle deep water....all while donning her long pants, socks, and Stride Rite shoes (aka not inexpensive OR rain shoes). It gave me some serious anxiety, but luckily my much wiser mama friend Amanda was there to point out that everything can be washed...the pants (she sat down to splash at one point), the socks, the shoes, the girl...and she's right! But because she's such a good friend she went home to get Clara's rain boots for Luci to borrow...and I of course thought this was a perfect solution but Luce was not a big fan of the rain boots. She might have her dad's adventurous wonder, but the kiddo does not like to be uncomfortable...and that is ALL ME. She didn't like her little feet being wet in shoes & socks, and was totally not having her bare feet touch the mulch!! Cracked me up!!

Next time she wants to head out in the rain we'll have proper foot wear...alligators, of course!

best.deal.EVER.

headboard...

footboard...

detailing up close...the mirror that attaches to the dresser...
the dresser...

the nightstand...

the trundle...

This weekend we scored the best.deal.EVER. Garage sales aren't allowed here in fancy fancy planned community land. Instead we have something even better...woodlandsonline.com....a local craigslist of sorts. I regularly garage sale shop from the comfort of my sofa with the TV on...it is fantastic...we've scored all sorts of gently loved items...but this weekend we scored BIG.

Luci now has big girl bedroom furniture!! Sure, she doesn't need it yet, but who are we to turn down quality furniture for a low price? In truth I had been coveting a big girl bed (aka...a regular twin) from the pbteen lilac collection for her...literally for months...(since sweet Clara got her big girl bed). All the while knowing full well that purchasing such furniture would be an absolutely ludicrous decision for our family. So what is a mama to do? Regularly peruse wooodlandsonline.com for said furniture, of course! I've been perusing for MONTHS. And Friday something similar-enough caught my eye. A white twin sleigh bed. I emailed the lister hoping I was the first to respond...quality items like this at a reasonable price don't last more than a few hours...and more than once my friends & I have lost something we have been promised. So I was DELIGHTED when she said she'd hold the furniture for us until Sunday night when Clay would be home to check it out with me. All weekend I kept checking my email thinking she'd write and say that someone else could come earlier to see it & it was gone. But nope, it was ours.

We got there & she casually mentioned that she had forgotten that the dresser had a large mirror, and that there was also a trundle bed. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? So for $450 Luci now has a gently loved big girl bedroom set that retailed for over $2200 at The Dump (they have fancy furniture that has been liquidated from expensive furniture stores) three years ago. Sure, there are spots where the furniture has been loved not-so-gently, but for $450 we'll sand it down & re-paint the whole set if it bothers us too much!

For now the dresser & nightstand are in her room, and when she starts climbing out of her crib (my guess is 2-6 months from now) we'll transition with the trundle bed & mesh railings, and then move to the full-on twin a bit later. For now they'll remain in storage. WOOHOO!

Happy Valentine's Day!

At the park this morning, playing peek-a-boo. Also at the park this morning...we sit at this table & bang on it. Sounds like fun, right?

Very closely checking out her photo Valentine's Day card from her Guh's...

She looks SO much like photos I've seen of my mom as tot in this picture.

Super cool shades...all over the house...but never outside!?!?

Correspondence with our pedi proved VERY insightful. He asked a seemingly benign question...any changes in the house?

Hmmm...changes...not permanent changes, per se. But disruption? Where do I start? I decided it really all started with our Christmas travels. Two weeks of traveling with a very anxious Mama. I'm not a good traveler to begin with, and all I could think about was making it to my 8 week appointment so I could see that baby & its heart beat. We were home one day & then took away the baaa (paci). Next day we find out our baby is really babies, but that they are not well babies. Mama starts to lose it a bit. We are blessed with many family & friends who stay with us and support us (thank you family & friends...I have a post composed in my head thanking you...just isn't out yet). Mama basically gets through the next few weeks, but certainly doesn't win any awards for grieving with grace. Dad is home for longer periods & gone for longer periods than usual. The home/gone adjustment is hard for all of us, and is directly related to the length of the trip. In short? It has been a difficult few months and this family needs to give itself a break.

Pedi recommended giving Luci back her baa. It is her security blanket...and obviously (why didn't I see it before?) she's lost some sense of security over the last two months...and when she needed her blanket most, we took it away. Of course hindsight is 20/20. Had we known what we'd go through with the pregnancy we probably would have made a different decision, but once we had started down the path it seemed like failure to go back. But of course the head butting, banging, hitting, kicking & biting (there has been some of each over the last few weeks) all started when we got back from Christmas travels and took away the baa and Mom & Dad started to behave in a way far from usual. For now it seems she just might need that extra bit of security it provides. Clay & I hope to distract her from it when she doesn't need it, but we agree it was a bit too much to ask of a one year old all at once. Another thing that sold us on the fact that this was the right move? Her desire to stay in her crib for over 4 hours just to have baa time yesterday. So for now, the baa is back.

Of course this is not to say we'll stop disciplining. Hitting, kicking & biting are now an automatic one minute time-out...no warning (which I've already explained & implemented this morning). She's generally a VERY good listener & really responds well to expectations & consequences, so I think as long as we stay consistent the behavior will stop as quickly as it started. The head banging will result in us holding her with her back to our face - no eye contact and only a short 'no'. It seems to be an attention getting behavior so we need to stop rewarding it with our attention. Instead we'll focus on being present with her & giving her the right kind of engaged attention she deserves.