This Kid ...

. . . has a knack for making a big ol' mess.

I put Christian down for a nap in a clean, organized room each day (and each night at bedtime, for that matter). Lately, it's been taking him a long time to fall asleep at naptime (and some days, he does't fall asleep at all).

These days, I always hear some sort of raucous in his room during naptime, but I've learned that it is best for me to just leave him alone. If I open the door and he's sees me, it's all over ... he comes up with a whole list of things, "Read a book!" "Read Sneetches!" "Where's Thomas?" "Where's Bella?" "Take the boys to the track!" "Let's practice!"

His mattress is in two sections and he likes to take out the smaller section and play with the wood slats underneath the mattress (fortunately, they are connected by fabric bands so all he can do is slide them around and make noise). I wised up today and switched the larger portion around with the smaller portion ... and that at least kept his mattress on his bed for today (although, he did TRY to take out the mattress ... the bedding was lifted up).

The other day, he even managed to get his side railing off the bed (which has since been fixed).

It took him a long time to get to sleep today and so I peeked in on him after it was quite in there for a long time and found this disaster:

Geeze, it looks like a crime scene! See him in the bed with the black pillow over his head? And the sticker on his thigh ... looks like he found a sheet of stickers, too. I'm sure I'll find stickers all over the place when he wakes up later.

Welcome to three. The age of adventure, experimentation, resourcefulness and messiness.

Christian Turns Three!

Our little bundle of joy turns three today. He's still an absolute bundle of joy, but he's not so little anymore! I've been looking back at various pics of Christian over the past three years and I'm just amazed at how much he's grown, and how much he's changed.

Here's just a small sample of the literally hundreds (or thousands?) of photos we have of our boy wonder.

Today Sprout aired Christian's birthday card! I was so delighted to see the card on TV ... and watching the clip makes me cry every time!

You can also see the card online at http://www.sproutonline.com/sprout/birthday-party-center/birthdaycards.aspx. If you don't see Christian's card, be sure to click on the calendar at the top and go to November 2nd.

A Boy and His Papa

October Festivities

October sure was a fun month for the Lucero family!

For the first time, Christian went trick or treating. I had only planned to take him to two neighbors' houses, but he was having so much fun that we kept on going!

As you may know, we don't give Christian candy. The last thing a toddler needs to eat is sweets - toddlers are energetic enough on their own, thank you very much. But I know that at school, the kids are occasionally given some kind of candy (i.e., a small KitKat bar). And that is okay, I suppose .. as long as Christian doesn't come to expect it from us.

So the Friday before Halloween, his school had Halloween festiviites and he came home will a bag that had a few pieces of candy. He took out the DumDum lollypop and licked it with the wrapper on and said, "Delicious woddypop!" As you can imagine, he very quickly figured out that the wrapper comes off, and licking the ball on the end of the stick is even better!

What's a mommy to do? Let the kiddo enjoy his first lollypop, of course!

However, when we arrived home and it was naptime, I had to take the lollypop away and whoooooooooooooooo Lordy! MELTDOWN!

Here are some photos of trick or treating ... and Christian eating his second lollypop after getting home.




We visited a local farm to check out the fun. Pumpkins, pumpkins everywhere! This is the same farm we went to last year when Christian squatted down and picked up a pumpkin, much to our surpirse! I'll have to create a side by side photo.



We sat down to carve pumpkins ... certain Chrstian would be interested. Nope. He was more interested in playing with his trains. Sooo typical! I made a "cheeseburger" pumkin ... inspired our nieces.

Christian received his first ever non-birthday party invitation! It was given by one of his classmates at a local park. One of the activites was cookie decorating. In front of Christian was a platter of "decorations": M&Ms, marshmallows, candy corn, mini Oreos, etc. I showed Christian he could put the deocrations on his cookie and he somehow realized the were edible ... and he grabbed a candy corn and put it in his mouth ... and liked it instantly. Same thing with the mini marshmallows. So what's a mommy to do? Let him enjoy!

It's no wonder that he walked up to me yesterday and said, "Want CANDY. Want CANDY!"

And so it beings. But hey, I got away with no candy in the first three years of his life. :)