A Hot Day at the Morton Arboretum

Last Saturday we had a big outing. We went to the Morton Arboretum for a picnic and some fun. The event started as a present for my grandmother and sister. They both had birthdays in June, and we promised them a nice lunch and walk through the gardens for a present. My mom drove them down to the Arboretum. Also, my friend Gardenmom and her son were in town, and they joined us. A good (but sweaty) time was had by all.

The kids had a blast running around in the children's garden. They had a stream, slides, and a number of climbing areas.

Nick wanted to try everything that Gardenmom's son could do, even if he was too little. My son doesn't understand the concept of "too little."

It's actually quite surprising how refreshing it is to wade in a stream on a hot sunny day.

The arboretum had an art exhibit going on where they crocheted trees. It was pretty awesome, in my humble opinion. Kinda like a sweater for the tree.

Oh, and Henry? He got a ton of snuggling from his grandma and great-grandma. He pretty much got passed between the two of them the entire time we were there. Henry heartily approved. He is happiest in someone's arms.

I do want to go back to the arboretum sometime soon, but hopefully we'll pick a day where the weather is a little cooler.

A Night Out? Really?

I actually got to go out on Saturday night. I don't mean the kind of going out that one does where you run into the grocery store for milk. I'm also not talking about the last minute run to the Walgreens for some baby prune juice or diapers. No, I mean I went out. Like, to dinner. With friends. Without children.

These two ladies were bridesmaids in my wedding, and this is the first time we've all been together since then. I've seen each of them individually, but we haven't gone out. Here we are back in 2008. I'm the one in the wedding dress, in case you couldn't tell. It was two children and a few pounds ago for me.

Anyway, we weren't too wild on our ladies night out. We went to Heaven on Seven and had drinks and then jambalaya and red beans and rice. Yum. It was very spicy, but so good.

We walked around downtown Naperville for awhile, watching all of the people who are used to going out on Saturday nights. There were the very young 20-somethings who made me feel a little old, and the 40-somethings in their cocktail dresses and way too much makeup and botox. There didn't seem to be many people in-between. At one point, we looked for a bar to stop and get a drink in, but no place seemed right.

We did stop at Le Chocolat Bar for dessert, but unfortunately, they don't serve any actual liquor. Instead I had this:

Not too shabby. I bought Greg some truffles as a thank-you for watching the boys (Our 2 plus Gardenmom's son). He was a little overwhelmed with three kids, but he rose to the occasion. I wish I'd bought one of these cupcakes to take home as well.

For me, at least, it was just nice to spend an evening with my friends without having to wrangle little people. Feminine conversation is very good for the soul. I actually relaxed and had a wonderful time. I think I need to do stuff like this more often.

A Visit from an Iowan Friend, Part One

I've been very busy the last few days. My friend Gardenmom came to visit us from Iowa with her eight-year-old son, and we had a blast. I'm oh-so-deeply exhausted, but in a good way.

She came to see the baby and have a mini-vacation. Gardenmom also spent a lot of time holding the baby. Henry is a cuddler, so he really liked that.

Gardenmom and I have been friends since college. We've tried really hard to maintain our friendship, and visited one another about once a year since she moved way out to Iowa. Usually we go to lots of exciting places, but this year I just had a baby, so we took it kind of easy. For Nick, it was enough to have someone to play with. He didn't remember Gardenmom's son from last year, and he just called him "that guy" for the first two days. As in, "I don't want to take a sleepy nap. I want to stay here and play with that guy." (pointing)

Nick has a new role model now. I'm all for it, because Gardenmom's son is eight, and fairly well-behaved. We went to the outlet mall, and out to eat on Friday. I made a colossal mistake, though. I didn't think to bring Nick's stroller, and I forgot the tether (leash) for him. He used this as an opportunity to head for the hills whenever possible. We were a funny sight: Nick running, with Gardenmom's son following behind, and me chasing them both. It was a full day of shopping. Henry, thankfully, slept in his stroller most of the time.

At one point, though, we got to a dressing room area in a store where we were the only customers. So I let the boys run wild. Hey, you've gotta pick your battles, right?

The boys entertained one another, and frankly, having an extra child ended up being less work because the older one entertained the annoying one, to a certain degree. 

We visited Mimi's Cafe, one of my favorite casual places, and had a nice lunch. Nick stayed in the booth most of the time, but then again, he had entertainment. And dessert. That was the "reward" for sitting.

Then we went to Houlihan's for dinner. We ordered some fancy fries for Nick, and at one point Gardenmom decided to sample one of them. Nick gave her the dirtiest look I've ever seen. I didn't snap the worst of the dirty look, but this is the face he made when she took another french fry.

My boy gets possessive over his fries. I was really tired that night, but I know I worked off all of the food, chasing after Nick. I am never going to forget the leash and stroller again! It was very nice to have company, though. I wish there was a faster way to travel to Iowa, so we could visit more often.

A Trip to Iowa: Part Five

It's Alive! It's Huge!

For the last part of my Iowa trip, I got the grand tour of my friend Gardenmom's gigantic garden. Nick and I were both awed by the size of this garden. I cannot imagine the amount of produce she got from a garden this size. Wow. All the plants look so healthy, too--even in October. I didn't even realize that this much stuff would be alive this late in the season. Greg demolished all of our growing things about two weeks ago--said the season was over and we might as well accept it.

In fact, I think poor Nick was worried that it was going to swallow him right up. I do believe that this garden is at least twenty times the size of mine. The height of these plants makes Nick look downright tiny.

I think seeing this garden inspired me to make mine much bigger next year. I'll have all winter to work on my husband.  ;)  It would just be less grass for him to mow. Although I don't think I'd want one this big. Nick acted like he was in wonderland. He had this look on his face, as if he were saying, "Very strange place."



After our garden tour, I cleaned out my car, and Nick helped. You would be surprised at the mess one mommy and one toddler can make during a very long car trip. (Or if you know me, maybe you wouldn't be surprised.)

It was a really long drive, but the visit was definitely worth it. I want to make a trip out there again next year sometime, maybe when I can see more things in bloom. Nick loved playing with all the other kids best--he got mad when they had to leave. He was so happy and entertained all weekend. We really did have a great time.   : )

A Trip to Iowa: Part Two

Yes, there is such a thing as a corn pool. Observe for yourself:

Nick and I had a really good time on our short trip to Iowa, but we did so much that I'm going to tell you about it in several posts. Let's start with the corn pool.

Prior to my visit to this Iowa pumpkin farm, I had never even heard of a corn pool. In fact, I'd never imagined that such a thing even existed. But it does, and man, is it fun. I got in with Nick, and he was petrified. Something about the unsteady surface freaked him out, and he clung to me and whimpered. Nick has started telling me when he's scared, as in "Mommy, I scared!" For awhile there, he wouldn't even dip a toe in the corn pool. I was patient, but I didn't take him out, figuring he'd like it eventually.

So he watched the other kids (my friend Gardenmom's son, stepson, and stepdaughter) for awhile and then decided he'd like to try the corn himself. It only took a little while before he was enjoying himself thoroughly. Nick likes to throw things, and once he figured out that it was okay to throw the corn, he was in heaven.

You can see Gardenmom's son buried up to his neck in the background. There are lots of fun things to do in a corn pool, as you can see. However, you should be aware that the corn comes with you. Personally, I had piles of corn kernels in my underwear and hay in my hair. When I went to change Nick's diaper a little later, it was filled with little pieces of corn. But it was great fun. All four of the kids had an absolute ball playing with Nick all weekend, and the corn pool was just the start of the adventure. More tomorrow. I'll leave you with this:

A Trip to Iowa: Part One

A Long Car Ride and a Delicious Meal at Thunder Bay Grille

So, yes, I'm a little crazy. I have Columbus Day off tomorrow, and I decided (rather ambitiously, I might add) to drive out to visit my friend Gardenmom in central Iowa. Nick and I last went to see her and her family in August of '09. Gardenmom and I met in college, and we take turns visiting each other at least twice a year. I spent several hours packing the car Thursday night, because babies require endless amounts of paraphenalia. Then, right after school on Friday, I picked up Nick from daycare and we got on the road immediately.

It's gotten more difficult in the last year to entertain Nick in the car for long periods of time. I did prepare myself with a giant grocery bag of various toys, and thank goodness I did. I kept it on the passenger side and passed Nick back one toy at a time. He has this habit of dropping (or throwing) toys. In the first two hours, Nick went through his stuffed bunny, his toy airplane, his portable zoo full of stuffed animals, His "If You Give a Moose a Muffin" book, several balls, and his vibrating toothbrush. (I was desperate at that point.)

While Nick was good for part of the trip, even spending 45 minutes looking at his book and pointing to the pictures, he screamed for much of the first three hours. At one point, he flung his toothbrush, still on, across the car. Then he decided he wanted it back, and so he screamed for the next hour. I could hear both the vibrating toothbrush (under the seats somewhere) and the screaming baby over the radio. I decided that it was a good time to stop for dinner. I stopped at the first restaurant I saw, Thunder Bay Grille. I visited one before in Rockford, and it was okay, but not great.

But apparently they've gone through some menu changes, and Nick and I were very impressed.

The restaurant has changed its menu to include tapas-style offerings, and they were quite delicious. My bill was only $23, and Nick and I enjoyed calamari, two miniature angus burgers with homemade chips, and a delicious caprese salad in a small martini glass. I'm pretty picky about restaurants that I like, and I usually do not enjoy chain restaurants. The menu at Thunder Bay, though, was one of the best I've seen, and you could tell from the taste of the food that a lot of thought had been put into each dish.

Nick's favorite was the homemade chips. I loved them, too, but only got to eat one, because someone had already eaten all the others. The burgers were a much better quality than I've seen in most similarly priced restaurants. The decor was really neat, too, though a little dark. Some tables were even low to the ground with cushy chairs to sit in. (Nick and I couldn't take advantage of those because of the high chair.) I liked the idea for the mozzerella/cherry tomato salad so much that I'm going to try to recreate it at home.

The calamari was good, too, and not too greasy. But what I thought was spectacular were the breadsticks. They reminded me a little of the ones at the Olive Garden, only with a little less salt and an overall better taste. These tasted less processed and the garlic butter was just enough on the soft bread. I usually do not rave this much about my dinner, but it is really rare to find a menu that is this good right off the highway in the middle of Iowa. I honestly wish they had one near my house, because we'd be frequent visitors. I can tell you that I'll be stopping in every time I go through Davenport.

Nick was in such a good mood after this meal that he went to sleep almost immediately and was out for the rest of our trip. I finally arrived at 11:30 p.m. That means we spent 6 1/2 hours in the car and 1 hour in the restaurant. I'm so glad we went Friday night, though, because we were able to get lots of rest. We needed it, because on Saturday Gardenmom took us to the pumpkin farm for a very exciting day. I'll write more tomorrow.

"Uh-Oh! Where Water?"

Yesterday I posted about our trip to the zoo, but today I wanted to show you the highlights of Nick at the splash area outside of The Living Coast Exhibit at Brookfield Zoo. This was part of my visit with Gardenmom and her son. Both of the boys enjoyed the cool spray after hours of walking around in the hot zoo. Making the water squirt the baby is a fun pasttime, especially since he doesn't mind.

The water may have been the best part of Nick's day. He must've said "Water!" about thirty times. Check out how his diaper keeps getting more and more full of water. Those diapers can hold a lot!

Nick was running around in the spray, enjoying himself thoroughly, when suddenly the spray shut off. We're not sure why, since the map says the water doesn't turn off until 5:30, and it was 4:48, according to our cellphones. Nick decided to be a detective and figure out the problem by wandering around and looking into all the holes where water usually comes out.

Lots of parents and families were standing around the water play area, watching their children, when the water was turned off. Nick immediately started shouting, "Uh Oh! Where water?" very loudly. It made quite a few of the adults laugh out loud. I only got the tail end of his announcements on the video above, but I think you get the picture.

Mister man made me chase him across the brick so I could change his very soggy diaper and put on some clean clothes. For some reason, he doesn't like to be dressed, and he always runs when it's time to put on clothes.

An Afternoon of Onomatopoeia at the Zoo

Tuesday, after summer school, Nick and I went with my friend Gardenmom and her son to Brookfield Zoo on a very hot and humid day. Gardenmom did a post about our visit too, if click here. Nick was having tummy trouble and nap issues, but I think he enjoyed himself anyway. The afternoon did not start out well, and Nick screamed more than he was quiet. Note his expression of toddler attitude and the binky in his mouth. He usually isn't allowed to have the bink unless it's naptime, but this week Nick was such a crab I broke the rules so he wouldn't drive us completely insane.

After a leisurely tour around the zoo on the tram, which Nick called the "Choo-Choo," (Close enough. Hey, he's only 1.) we checked out the Australia house and the camels. That's where the onomatopoeia comes in. Lately, Nick has been trying to learn the names and sounds of different animals. He has a tiny stuffed zebra he likes to carry around, and he calls it "Moo." Usually, I'd correct him, but heck, I don't know what sound a zebra makes. Predictably, Nick said "Moo," for the zebras and for these camels he was pointing at so eagerly.

Nick saw the elephants and immediately started stomping his feet. In one of his favorite books, Wacky Wild Peekaboo, by Tim Bugbird, the elephant makes a stomping noise. Nick has done that everytime he's seen a real or fake elephant since last winter. When Nick got to the giraffes, he just wasn't sure what to think. We don't know what sound a giraffe makes, but the one in his story says, "Munch, Munch, Munch," as he's eating leaves from the treetops. Nick just looked, mesmerized, at these huge animals. They were beautiful.

We went in to my favorite exhibit, The Living Coast, to see the fish and the penguins and the arctic birds. If you've never been to this exhibit, you should totally see it. There's this neat wave that goes overhead every 30 seconds, and you can feel the salt spray on your face and look straight into the glass. It makes me jump everytime. I even got some video. First, I took video standing in front of the wave area, looking up at the glass blocking the wave. Here is what the wave looks like:

I also took video of Nick's reaction to the wave. This video is from his 2nd or 3rd time seeing the wave, and he was really liking it by that point. He wanted to see it "Again! More Water!" My boy really loves the water. One of these days I'm going to have to take him to a real beach.  

Nick liked the birds flying overhead in the penguin exhibit and kept pointing up and saying, "Birdie!" and "Tweet!" At one point he looked like he might be trying to waddle like a penguin, but he might've just been dancing with excitement. He was truly stoked to see the flying birds and the penguins, too.

This penguin was a total ham and was showing off for all of us. See him in the window of the fake boat?

He was pressing himself right up against the glass and when Gardenmom's son moved his finger, this gregarious bird would move his beak back and forth. The penguin even posed for this picture. My friend said that it was like this penguin was telling his buddies, "Hey, man, look at all of these crazy people. They're coming right up to the glass." It was kind of like we were the exhibit, and the entertainment for the penguins. The animals were very active during this day, and I saw more animals up close than I usually do at Brookfield. We saw a polar bear totally hamming it up for the crowd. He was playing in the water and you could totally see his cute polar bear toes kicking around. I didn't get a picture of that, but Nick was able to easily recognize a "bear!"

Out of State Guests and Sprinkler Fun

I've been pretty busy this week. Besides teaching summer school in the mornings, my friend Gardenmom and her son came to visit us from Iowa. We had lots of fun, and Nick absolutely loved having another little boy around. He got so excited when they arrived. The first day we mostly hung around the house and let the kids play in the sprinkler.

Gardenmom has been my friend for nearly thirteen years now. We met when I helped her move into her dorm room at NIU back in '97, when she was a freshman and I was a sophomore. Ahh, those were the days.  : ) We had so much fun in college, and whenever we can visit, it's always a great time. It's only the best kind of friend who will stick with you through all of the madness (of men, and children, and jobs, and, well, life) that happens between 19 and 32. The boys sprayed us a few times with the sprinkler, so that's why this next picture is weird.

Nick loved having a friend to play with. He's been kind of bored with me lately because, well, I'm too old to be a quality playmate. Even though Gardenmom's son is seven, he was the perfect entertainment for Nick. He has more than enough energy to chase Nick down--way more than me, that's for sure.

Central Iowa: My Exotic Vacation Destination

To finish off my summer break, I decided to take Nick and go on a relaxing getaway to visit my friend GardenMom. I've known her since we lived on the same co-ed dorm floor at NIU back in the mid-1990s. Boy, did we have some fun back then. After college, she moved to Iowa and I moved back to the Chicago suburbs. But once or twice a year, we try to visit one another for a mini-vacation.

In this picture, you can see Nick sitting on the edge of the world. At least it looks that way to me. The corn and soybean fields seem to go on and on forever. I thought the hills in this part of Iowa were beautiful and so different from Illinois. GardenMom lives on a dead end street, with beautiful fields behind her.

This was my first time making the trip since having Nick. He was very well-behaved (for a baby) during the drive; I found the local NPR affiliate and he went right to sleep. I guess Iowa Public Radio does that to some people. At one point, he did get fussy and I had to fling him (literally) a teething cookie, but the rest of the way he was great. I'm hoping for the same kind of luck on the trip back this Saturday.

Here is GardenMom standing with Nick next to her huge sunflowers. She is an amazing gardener, and her whole yard is filled with vegetables, herbs, and flowers. She has given me much advice on how not to kill my plants through neglect and/or abuse. I've become better at keeping plants outdoors alive, although I have a 100% record of killing indoor plants. We'll see if I can break that record this year; I'm going to buy plants for my classroom next week and try to keep them alive. In the picture below, I'm standing in the middle of her monster garden of joyous vegetables. Nick kept trying to grab them.


For our first full day in Iowa, we went to the Reiman Gardens at Iowa State University. They were gorgeous, but the highlight of the trip was the Butterfly Gardens. There were so many different kinds fluttering all around. Nick didn't know which way to look.

Pardon my poor photography skills, but if you look closely, you can see a gorgeous yellow butterfly sitting on the pavement towards the left side of the picture. Nick was enthralled. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he sure liked it.

He also had the chance to flirt with this little girl, maybe 2 years old, who wanted to hug him. She kept saying "Baby," and touching his hair and his hands. She patted him on the head like a dog and would have followed our little group if her grandma hadn't pulled her away.

Nick was just as attracted, but to the little girl's shoe. She was wearing Crocs, you see, and he enjoyed poking his fingers through the little holes.

The experience of standing in the butterfly gardens with hundreds of wings fluttering around you is wondrous. I sat on a bench and just watched them fly around for quite awhile; it was incredibly relaxing. I will be thinking of the butterflies next week while I'm sitting in staff meetings and organizing files.

I was at Brookfield Zoo on Tuesday with my dad and stepmom, and we went to the butterfly gardens there, but this structure was more permanent and the plants were larger and more beautiful. I'd recommend the Reiman Gardens to anyone who visits this part of Iowa.

This little pond had frogs, giant dragonflies, and lilypads galore. GardenMom's son had to walk all the way around the pond to make sure he introduced himself to every frog he could find. I don't blame him. At the age of six, I would have done the exact same thing.

As it was a hot and sunny day, I of course packed sunscreen and dutifully applied it to my son. We've been using it for months now, but I think Nick might have developed an allergy to this baby sunscreen. Almost immediately after application, a rash appeared on his head and spread to his face. He must have rubbed his eyes right after I put sunscreen on his hands, because his eyes got all red and his nose was running.

This picture was taken after the rash had mostly calmed down. You can still see it on his head, though. I am going to try a different sunscreen tomorrow. We're going to the Iowa State Fair, and I'm sure we'll need plenty of sunscreen. That and Pepto Bismol.