Adventures in Daycare

Some of you know that things have been in flux here at 83 Durant, mostly surrounding the issue of daycare for Lucy. In early May, we learned that the lady who had been providing our daycare for a year and a half or so would be closing permanently at the end of May, so we had to hustle to find a new spot. It turns out, this is a bit of a tight time for daycare in the area. The lack of open spots in many local daycare centers was compounded by the fact that the day after we found out our place was closing, another large daycare center in Billerica (a nearby town) was shut down completely, leaving 100 kids in need of daycare because the building was condemned when someone drove their car into it (yikes! No one was hurt, thankfully!).

We felt very lucky to find a few days available at Lowell Day Nursery, one of the oldest daycare facilities in the country. It originally opened back in the 1880s to serve the Lowell Mill workers. It's also a non-profit center with a great, long-term staff. We're really excited about the place. Today was Lucy's first day there, and it went very well. She had a few sad moments, but for the most part, she was a happy girl, and she came home smiling. Hooray!

That picture isn't from school, though. When her former place closed, the provider kindly passed along a great big box filled with un-used projects. Lucy is holding her ladybug hat and a frog book she made with me on Friday. So if you're in the mood for crafting, definitely stop by. We have enough paper, googly eyes, and pom-poms for an army of crafters.

Lucy Bridge, Master of Deception

For a while now -- like four months -- we've thought that Lucy was on the verge of walking. Generally, she's not all that interested in it, as she can crawl VERY fast to get to whatever she wants. She's taken a few steps here, and actually, right before our St. Pat's party, she took about 8 steps. We were very excited. But Lucy still seemed not all that interested in walking around, even though it seemed that for everyone involved, this would make things like going outside a lot easier. Today, I learned the truth about my daughter: she can walk just fine.

Apparently, all day yesterday at daycare, she was walking, much to the delight of the other girls there. I found this out because another daycare mom came in this morning and said "I hear we have a walker!" I had NOT heard that we had a walker, because our daycare provider (who is great) doesn't want to make moms sad when their kids pass some milestone there instead of at home. Hilarious.

So apparently, the bean has a secret skill set that she hides from us. What else can she do that we don't know about?