A Busy Couple of Days

I've got lots of topics to update you on so forgive me if this is a long post. Last week, our nanny had Wednesday-Friday off, Matt was in Detroit and I had way too much going on at work to take any time off so Grampa came out to be Luke's manny for a few days. They had a great time together which included many trips to the park and many trips to Einstein's bagels. Luke got to have apple juice for the first time and got to play in the sandbox at the park - two things that he's isn't normally allowed, but what are grandparents for? In case you are wondering why we don't let him in the sandbox, it's because getting him out with out an epic tantrum and a huge mess is next to impossible. Anywho, Luke enjoyed Grandpa's visit and is looking forward to more spoiling this week when Grandma comes.

Friday night we tried a new Italian restuarant with Nick and Grandpa. We went at about 6:00 to avoid the crowd in case Luke didn't fell like acting like civilized human being. Normally, herding cats is an easier task than containing Luke at a restuarant. As we waited for our food to come, Matt and I took turns walking Luke around. I took him to the outdoor patio and tried to teach him how to smell flowers but instead, he wanted to lick them. So that was the end of that. When our food came, Luke decided he was interested in sampling everyone's dishes so he asked to be passed around from person to person until he finally settled on Nick's lap and helped himself to Nick's dinner. When he put some asparagus in his mouth, he quickly determined he didn't like it and removed it and stuck it in Nick's mouth. Nick is a good sport.

Speaking of Nick being a good sport, Matt and I had a date night Saturday night while Nick came up to babysit. Matt and I went downtown to Joe's steak and seafood. Joe's is an pretty upscale place so we were doin' it up! We had been seated at our table for about 10 minutes when I saw this man who looked awfully familiar. I'd been trying to figure out where I recognized him from when Matt said "Oh wow, Larry King's at the table next to us." Duh. I recognized him from his show on CNN. I still can't believe I didn't know who he was from the beginning because I'm a news junkie and I watch his show pretty often. He was also with Jon Miller - a sportscaster for Sunday night baseball. It was kind of weird hearing Larry's voice during dinner because it's pretty distinct and I normally only hear it on tv. Larry's wife was also there with him - talk about a mismatch made in heaven. Go ahead, google her and you'll know what I'm talking about. Funny... the waiter actually messed up the checks at the end of dinner and we got theirs and they got ours. Good thing we didn't have to foot their bill.

Today was a normal Sunday for us - a little lounging, a little eating and a lot of going to the park. I'll leave you with some pictures of Luke trying on my shoes. He LOVES my shoes...

Guilt - Gah!

So the guilt and separation anxiety are creeping up on me already and we still have a week and a few days to go until Matt and I leave for our trip to the Outerbanks. I'm not at all nervous about his well-being (obviously since g-ma is staying with him) but I feel bad knowing that Luke will be wondering where we are during the long weekend. It's no secret that I'm Luke's favorite person -I'm so popular with the toddlers **flips hair side to side** I'm hoping his new obsession with choo choos will distract him from missing us. I'm sure numerous trips to the park will also help him endure the pain of longing for me. ;)

Meanwhile, Matt and I will be living it up in the Outerbanks with my girls from college and their husbands/fiances!!! 14 of us will be sharing 1 extremely ginormous beach house. Woo hoo! I'm already looking forward to sleeping in until 7:00 AM - Matt and I are sure to be the early risers of the group.

To get ready for our beach trip, I ordered a new swim suit. I love being the only one with a post baby body in the group -gag. So anyway, I got my new bathing suit in the mail today and when I tried it on, it didn't fit quite right - the top was gapping and pulling in all the wrong places. I was wondering what kind of idiot designed this ill-fitting garment until I realized I was the idiot who put it on UPSIDE DOWN! Once I figured the top out and got it on the right way, it looked much better! Phew.

Ok, I'm off to pout about missing my Lukey baby in advance of my trip.

Memorial Day Weekend

I've been a slacking blogger lately but I hope to pick up the pace. Matt's commuting to Detroit has picked up again so I'll try my best to write more but I reserve to right to rest when I can. I averaged 5 hours of sleep each night this past week.

We started our Memorial Day weekend on Friday with Matt having the day off and golfing and me working from home for a half day. We headed to the park for the afternoon (where else would we be?) and capped off the evening by getting Luke to sleep by 7 and enjoying are favorite mexican take out. EGB #5 woot woot!

Today we visited various parks and had breakfast and Einstein's bagels. Luke loves bagels with cream cheese:

As for new Luke updates, we've discovered that he really enjoys mint chocolate chip milkshakes - further proof he is my child. He sings "chooo choooo" when the el goes by. He laughs very hard when momma says "grunt grunt." If you are wondering how/why I came to make the "grunt grunt" noise, it comes from his Old McDonald had a Farm book...not that I don't normally go around saying"grunt grunt." He's figured out how to work an ipod. He calls his vitamins "meds." He's been practicing driving on the steering wheel at the playground and has asserted that he's ready to take it to the street. He now "drives" the car and sits in the driver's seat and throws the steering wheel back and forth.

We've also been dealing with some very early mornings lately, averaging a start time of about 5:15 am. Is 7:00 am really that unreasonable, Luke? 7:00 am, that's all we're asking! We are hoping to trick him tomorrow morning - we blocked out the windows in his room so maybe the sun won't wake him up! What makes the 5:15 kick off so hard is that Matt and I have been sleeping on the couch and getting lousy sleep as it is - yes both of us on one couch - imagine who gets most of the room! We've been doing this because our master bedroom is out of commission due to the neighbor's water leak issue and when we sleep in Luke's room, he tends to sense we are there at 3 am and wakes up to play. So the couch it is. If Matt were closer to my size it wouldn't be so bad but sharing a small sleeping space with a giant as proven to be problematic.

Here are some other pictures from our weekend:

We plan to go to the zoo tomorrow so stay tuned for pictures of Luke with his favorite friends!!!

Who Needs Pants?

If you ask Luke, pants are an optional piece of clothing. He spends very little time at home with pants on but we do insist he wear pants in public. I actually prefer getting to see those cute little legs in the flesh as he takes off down the hallway at full Luke speed. He doesn't necessarily mind shirts, but pants are a deal breaker when trying to avoid Mr. Meltdown. Here are just a few recent pictures that I am submitting as evidence:

Oh and I've decided to subject Luke to my hair cutting skills (or lack there of) again. I wasn't able to get a picture of it tonight but I'll work on that. I thought it looked pretty good but Matt told me I have him an "olden day" cut and suggested a frohawk for my next attempt. Not sure his little wispies could support a frohawk.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day everyone! I had a great 3rd Mother's Day, well it was more of a Mother's Weekend since we technically celebrated yesterday. Today I slept in (all the way until 8 am!), had breakfast with Matt and Luke, went on a solo Target run, and played with Luke the rest of the day. Matt and Luke got me a much needed gift card to Sephora :) I was thinking today about my past 2 Mother's Days...the first one I remember, the second one, not so much.

My first Mother's Day, I spent at the NICU since Luke was still in the hospital due to being born early. I remember the nurses made these cute little signs to hang around the babies' beds. It was very thoughtful. They really did all they could to make the NICU a pleasant place to be. Here's a picture:

I'm surprised I remember the first Mother's Day and not the 2nd because I was so much more in a fog for the first one!

Anyway, now that "my" weekend is over, I'll need to start planning for Father's Day which is right around the corner. I'm guessing Matt doesn't want a gift card to Sephora, but I could be wrong.

A cute Luke story before I let you go since I wouldn't have just had a Mother's Day without him...

On my trip to target today, I bought Luke some crayola water paints and a pad of paint paper. I'm talking the basic, 8 color little paint palette that comes with the super skinny paint brush that most of us remember having as kids. So I get him all set up on a splash mat with an itty bitty amount of water and a single piece of paper and his paint. I demonstrate how to use the paint and even do some practice strokes with him. I'm making lunch at the same time so I had turned my back for .2 seconds and when I turned back, Luke had a green and yellow beard! Good thing Crayola makes non-toxic products!! I shouldn't have been surprised because of his previous incident of stamping himself on the face with a stamper. ay yi yi... paper and skin are not the same!

Update to the Water Problem / Mother's Day Breakfast

Well, we know where the water came from! As suspected, it came from our upstairs neighbor's bathroom. awesome. She left the sink on for a few hours on Thursday and flooded her bathroom. Apparently her people never thought to contact us about it. Anyway, they did respond when we mentioned the warm water dripping through the ceiling. This is the 3rd time in 3.5 years, wtf!?! They did offer to pay for all damages so at least they are taking responsibility. Happy Mother's Day weekend to me :)

Speaking of Mother's Day (notice the segue) we went out to breakfast at my favorite spot this morning, M. Henry and it was M. delicious! I wish I could reference more angelic behavior by Luke at said breakfast, but then I would be a lying liar. I loved my fruit topped pancakes with vanilla cream but I could have done without the glass of ice cold water that was dumped in my lap ( I won't name names).

Hmmm, I just noticed a theme with water and Mother's Day - I suppose tomorrow I'll need to wear my rain gear all day, inside and out!

One more nugget for you, Luke's favorite word of the day - "NO!" Where did my one year old go, I want him back.

Dunk Dunk

Advertising at its finest - Dunkin Donuts has claimed a spot in the mind of a 2 year old. "Dunk, dunk," is what Luke says as we drive past Dunkin Donuts (DD). He can read! Ok, maybe he just recognizes the logo but either way, one would think that as wee one such as Luke should have no idea what DD is. His little sponge of a brain soaks up every.single.thing. We occasionally have a DD coffee but certainly are not regulars. Luke tends to be a scavenger and scoops up "finished" coffee cups hoping to get the last drop pooled at the bottom. He loves coffee. But people are going to think we feed this kid donuts! So not true, we only feed him coffee. Ok, we don't willingly give him coffee. The little bugger is just smart and good at recognizing logos!

On another note, it's been a while since the unit above us has leaked water through our ceiling so it seems fitting that some water arrived tonight. AWESOME. I love dealing with condo repairs. This is the 3rd time this has happened --ARGH! At least tomorrow is Friday :)

2

When people say that time flies by too fast, they aren't joking! Luke is 2 years old today but honestly, it's hard for me to wrap my mind around that. I don't even remember what life was like pre-Luke, other than I know that I used to get a lot more sleep. I probably had a lot more free time then, too. But I wouldn't trade Luke for anything. I've just enjoyed the best 2 years of my life (so far).

We had Luke's 2nd birthday party in style (obviously)! We partaayyed with about 25 guests at Seven Ten Lounge in Lincoln Park. Yes, his 2nd birthday party was at a "lounge," but we had a private party room with bowling lanes. Don't worry, only the adults were allowed to drink this time. A great time was had by all and Luke loved the bowling. He really enjoyed the ball return, too. I'm not even going to talk about the generous toy store Luke received.

Behold:

In addition to Luke's birthday party, we had a whole weekend of events planned for out out-of-town family. Saturday night, we headed out for some libations, some of us had more than others, matt, tommy, karis while Luke hung out with grammy Zappia. And Sunday we had a bagel brunch followed by a Cubs game in the bleachers at Wrigley and then a Dairy Queen ice cream cake celebration after that. I know, I know...what a perfect weekend I arranged. Sigh.

I'm not sure that each of Luke's birthdays can get better than the rest since the bar has now been raised pretty high for birthday 3. Birthday #2 almost required a rehearsal dinner if that puts things in perspective for you.

Luke wants to thank all those who participated this weekend and made his 2nd birthday a success! He's very aware of how spoiled he is but he loves it all the same!

No more presents?

Some other pics from the weekend:

Fun with the #2 balloon Uncle Nick bought for me:

Mom and Dad out on the town: