Destruction is my middle name

Bunny is eleven months now and we're seriously planning her first birthday party which will be in a couple of weeks. So maybe this behavior is her age, I don't know, but she has become a little tornado of destruction, every where she goes! It's like she looks for something to explore that will make a big bang or a nice ripping sound and then goes around our house knocking things off shelves and stealing and unraveling my yarn, and chewing on electrical wires.  It's not like our house isn't baby proofed, either.  Our living room looks more like a toy chest than the modern, relaxing space it's intended to be, and that's fine.  I love it that way.  But since we let her play there most of the time we've taken the time to make it safe.  So how is it possible that she manages to find the one dangerous thing in the room every time?

  Yesterday, her destructive behavior was laughable--and frustrating, but mostly for her.  I had to run around the house getting some things done before going to the post office and mailing some diapers to customers from my shop.  As I'm getting ready to go and trying to do it all with Bunny on my hip (because if she doesn't have me in her line of vision, she cries like she's lost her best friend), she's grabbing the wool shorties I'm mailing out to one customer and I barely got them from her in time to save them from her mouth, and then she grabbed the package of envelopes I was using the mail them, and then the fitted diaper I'm trying to send to my other customer.  All I wanted to do was address these envelopes and stuff them and my daughter has an entire room dedicated to her play time and she wants to play with the things Mommy has.  Then, as we're leaving and I"m trying to balance her on one hip and my purse, the diaper bag, the two packages, and of course my keys in the other hand, she's ripping the sunglasses off of my head, and trying to pry the keys out of my hands, and grabbing both packages and wrinkling the paper before I can do anything to stop her.  I find it cute and funny.  I"m not complaining, but this new exploratory energy certainly adds a new dimension to parenting!  It's exhausting! She's so smart and she does so many amazing things and I guess in order to continue to learn, she has to explore and the ripping, tearing, throwing, knocking down, and chewing area all a part of the experiments that she puts her world through to figure it out.  I think I need an extra nap! Oh wait, she's boycotting her nap time too!

Well, that said, school starts Monday.  I'll teach for four hours every morning and then come home at 12:30 to be with my Bunny all afternoon.  Of course, I would prefer it if I could be a stay at home mom but if I have to work, this setup is wonderful.  My school is wonderful, my students are so well-behaved that sometimes I wonder if they're paid actors, and I still get to feel like I'm a stay at home mom once I come home.  It's been nice being with Bunny all summer long (even though I wasn't at home with her all that time), but now it's time to go back to school and I'm accepting it.  God obviously has a plan with my being there.  I just wonder how her nap schedule will go when her time is split between me and her daddy (and an occasional baby sitter).  I sort of hope she decides to nap when I'm home or I just may collapse :-D.