March Madness (2nd half) - Chicago Counts Style

Second half of March - in one long blog, in an attempt to catch up.

March 16 - 20: There IS a Party without Arty
Art went to a conference in Pittsburg on Monday - Friday. The prospect of 5 days of me, alone with my boys, was a bit overwhelming. As luck would have it, Art's conference was the same week as Dad's spring break from Rutgers. He agreed to come out on Tuesday evening to help out. Not wanting to miss out on too much fun, Faye - though tax season was in high gear - was able to come out on Friday to spend the weekend with us.

March 16: First day alone goes well - Zach and Wy laughing
The day started VERY early. Art had to be at his co-worker's house at 4:30am to catch a flight. Yowzers. The alarm went off at 3:30 I think. Ouch! Luckily, I was able to go back to sleep after he left, but I was still pretty tired that morning.
My first night alone w/ the two boys. I knew that I'd have them all to myself through dinner (though I'd done this several time), and all through the evening b/f bed (I'd done this w/ both of them too, so not a first). Here is a video of how our first evening with the three of us.

They are laughing at a silly laugh I was doing - an impersonation of an old co-worker.

Poppi came in on Tuesday evening after dinner. Relief!
On Wednesday we gave Zachary a "first" experience. I had bought a kite for him a few days ago, and we took it out for the first time on Wednesday afternoon. It was a bit chilly when we walked out the door, but by the time we walked one block to the playground, the weather - typical for Chicago I've learned - changed suddenly. We could all of a sudden see our breath and got very cold.

Poppi in charge of the kite string

Zach in charge of the kite string

Yes, that is a Disney Cars kite - Lightning McQueen & Sally

Dad worked on several projects while he was here. The biggest was putting a supporting beam in for our "closet" in the boys room which holds both the boys' clothes and mine and Art's clothes.

On Friday, Art flew back home. Luckily, Faye's flight came in around the same time at the same airport, so they two of them shared a cab home. Zach was very happy to see DaU, but also very happy to see Mema too! Friday night we had Carmens for dinner, YUM! Poor Poppi...he had been on a very strict diet before coming here, and I ruined it by having too many yummy things - like popcorn and reces pieces while we watched a great movie Appaloosa. However he did his best not to eat too much of what we had and even ate vegetarian for lunches! Carmens was a splurge! It was going to be the only night that we all ate dinner together. Dad and Faye generously offered to stay with Zach and Wyatt while Art and I took an overnight trip to celebrate our 7th anniversary.
After the kids were in bed, we all played Settlers of Catan.

Saturday dawned bright and sunny. After a leisurely breakfast, Art and I finally started to get our stuff together and leave. Dad dropped us off at the Howard el station and we headed down to the loop to our hotel. Thanks to hotwire (and Joanna for the suggestion) we were able to get a 3.5 star hotel for pretty cheap. However, we learned why that is once we arrived. The room was small...very small. Big enough though for one night.

view from the hotel - we were on the 10th floor I think.

bed, nightstand, desk and barely enough room to open the bathroom door. Still, a nice room.

We'd gotten a hotel in the loop, hoping that we would be able to get same-day tickets for some 'broadway' show. Turns out that same-day tix are not any cheaper, unlike NYC. We walked to the discount ticket place to see what we could get for that night. Most of the tix to the popular shows (Jersey Boys, Mary Poppins, etc) were a bit out of our price range (I asked the lady at one box office if she had any seats left, and she said "I've got some great seats left - $210/ea. I asked is she had anything less nice", so we got tix to a small theater company run by a local Methodist Church, Silk Road Project (http://www.srtp.org/) for a show called Pangs of the Messiah. We were in the 2nd row and it was very enjoyable. Quite gripping really. Way better than paying $40/ea for an "obstructed view" seat for Jersey Boys. After buying tix, we took a walk to go get my long-awaited carriage ride (our carriage ride after our wedding was canceled due to high winds). Long walk. Worth it though. Neat to take a carriage ride through Chicago.

Me sitting in the carriage

Shayna, Art, driver and horse

After the carriage ride, we walked down the famous Magnificent Mile (very similar to the Koenigsalle) to Millennium Park.


Street sign for Magnificent Mile.

We walked around Millennium Park for awhile and saw the very cool Cloud Gate sculpture (or 'bean' as it is often called). Interesting how popular a sculpture is where you can see your own reflection - what does that say about humans?


The bean with the city in the back.


Our reflection - look for my red coat - in the bean.

What should be across the street from Cloud Gate but a vision in yumminess...a Caribou Coffee. My favorite coffee place! Art and I used to go there on dates when we lived in ATL, and Christy and I always had "storytime" there every week. There were no Caribous in ABQ nor DUS. None in Evanston either, but there, right across the street from the park is one. So we spent the next hour or so there, just sipping coffee and waiting to get hungry for dinner. Dinner was at Exchequer Pub. The food was good, but I was disappointed by their ranch dressing. Then off too our play. We didn't not have time to go back to the hotel and change but luckily it was ok. Most people were not dressed up too much and we did not stand out in our jeans and Chuckie Ts. Back to the hotel. I had to pump (yes, still nursing Wyatt) which is not the most romantic thing, but a necessity. Very nice to be able to sleep late! Unfortunately we slept so late that we missed breakfast at the very few places that were open. It was shocking really that such a large city was mostly shut down on Sunday - it was like being back in Europe! Of course since I could NOT get breakfast, the only thing that I really wanted was breakfast. We finally found a place where I could get a croissant and juice. Yea! It cost more than $12 I think. Boo! Then off to the el station to head back home to our boys. We got home shortly before their nap time - excellent timing! Then, sadly, I had to take Dad and Faye back to the airport. It was back to being just the 4 of us again.

March 23, 2009: Wyatt CRAWLS!
Poor Mema and Poppi! Wyatt had been trying and trying and trying to crawl for over a month; he was so close to crawling while they were here. He decided that today was THE DAY. So so cute!

Wyatt's first day of crawling.

March 24, 2009: Chatting at the table

It is rarely quiet at our table.

March 25, 2009: Wy showing off his Buddha belly
Wyatt is wearing a shirt that we got for free from Pampers in Germany. It has all of his birth information on it. It is now 'almost' too small, but as it was laundry day, not too many clothing options were available. I "MAY" have helped his shirt ride up a tad to show his cute belly. Wy is playing in Z's bed - I have no idea where Zach was during this b/c he would be FURIOUS. For some reason, it's a-ok for Zach to play in Wyatt's bed, but not vice verse.


Happy Wyatt!


That big ole belly.


Playing in Zach's bed with his toys.

And that follks, is the end of March.

March Madness (1st half) - Chicago Counts Style

As I am still behind on blogs and such, I'm going to attempt to consolidate several into two longish blogs.

March 2, 2009: 7 years of wedded bliss
March started with a bang...Art and I celebrating our 7th wedding anniversary! We had an overnight in downtown CHI planned as our anniversary trip (we don't do presents, but opt for a trip), so we were not planning on celebrating on this particular day. However, I could not let the day pass by totally unnoticed so I planned a little surprise for Art. I asked Sarita from upstairs to come down at 8pm and just be in the house while we were gone. When the evening arrived, we got the boys into bed by 7:30 - Art thinking it was just so we could have a bit more time alone. Unfortunately, he started thinking something was up when I came out of our bedroom wearing shoes (we generally only wear house slippers in the house). But the knock on the door still surprised him. So off we went to Union a bar/pizzeria we have wanted to try, and specifically to do research for Jake and Maddy's trip in April. It looks like a very trendy cool place from outside. We went for drinks and dessert. I had a glass of wine and Art had a beer and we shared a wonderful chocolate mousse thingy. We won't go there again - not because it was awful, but b/c it won't fit into our budget for awhile. Still, it was an enjoyable evening. We paid Sarita $10 for the 2 hours we were gone, which worked out great for us.

March 3, 2009: First playdate
Yea! Finally a social get-together with another mom! There is a family at our church that lives about 3 blocks from us. The mom invited us over a few weeks ago but her boys got sick the night before and had to cancel. She has three boys - twins that are 3 and a nearly-2 year old. It was high energy! Zachary likes to think that he's a good wrestler, but most of his experience is with adults who know how to not hurt him. The funniest moment was when Zach rode into their room on a ride-on toy, and one of the twins hit him on the head with a plastic sword. Zach calmly backed out of the room back into the living room where he found it safer to play with the younger boy. We'll definitely invite them over to our house to play - we also have a bit more room thanks to the play room.

March 6, 2009
Snow snow snow! There has been a LOT of snow recently. It is starting to collect in piles and drifts on the frozen lake. You can no longer tell where the lake ends and the beach begins. Here are some pics, though not great that show this.



March 6, 2009: Wyatt or hair-less gorilla
Just thought these pics were pretty funny looking.

Wearing a preppy little outfit from Marieke & Ruurd

Wy just looks like he is too uncomfortable in his large frame.

March 8: Shayna turns 29 AGAIN (or, 34)
I sent an email out to everyone in our bible study group asking for someone to babysit the boys on my birthday so Art and I could go out to celebrate. A couple, Bob and Robin agreed to come over. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask if either of them are allergic to cats, and Robin is, big time. She was about 8 months pregnant and had to take some baby Benadryl that we had. We felt so terrible that we did not stay out long - a little over an hour - and hurried back to relieve her. We did get in a little walk, and have some coffee and a little chat. Good enough for me. :)

Another big thing happened on March 8, though I doubt Art wants me to give it much detail. He got bitten perhaps, and the bump (on his "hip") got infected. It was pretty bad by the time that Art showed me on Friday. We put some Neosporin on it Fri and Sat, but by the time church was over on Sunday, it looked pretty horrific still. Art called his Dr. who said "come on in" (he is an older Jewish guy that does not work Saturdays, but works on Sundays). Art thinks that the Dr. was a little doubtful about the seriousness of Art's claim until he dropped his trousers. His response was "Oh MY! Yes, we need to take care of that". So it got cut out w/ a scalpel. Ouch! Art was a bit sore on my birthday walk. I MAY HAVE said something SLIGHTLY insensitive when he complained that it hurt. It's POSSIBLE that I said "you know what else hurts - GIVING BIRTH". Oops! I was forgiven only b/c it was my birthday.

March 12, 2009: Boys playing together
Zachary often likes to play with Wyatt in his "big bed" (crib), but had never expressed interest to play in the "little bed" (travel bed)...until today. Here they are playing together.




March 14, 2009: Trip to the Zoo!
The Lincoln Park Zoo is a FREE zoo in Chicago. Admission is free, but parking can be up to $24. Lucky for us, Art's co-worker is a Zoo member, and let us borrow his pass, which gives you free parking. Today was supposed to warm up a bit, so we decided to go for it. The kids were dressed fine, but I was definitely too cold. It did not warm up as fast as I thought it would. Here are some of the highlights


Zach posing by the polar bear exhibit.


Polar bears - brother and sister


Zachary posing by the polar bear sizer. Glad that plexiglass is thick!

Zachary's attention span was pretty short. He would say "I want to see the monkeys", so we'd go to the monkeys, then 3-5 seconds there he would say "I want to see the kangaroos" and so on. It was like doing the zoo "fast fast" as Zach would say.

Off to the gorilla exhibit.

Here is a mother and daughter gorilla enjoying some cuddle time.


Exhibit was inside and therefore a great place for a snack and some juice. Here we were just sitting around, like all the other families.


Zachary playing in a tunnel that kids could crawl up to get a close look at the glass. He loved this, but did a good job taking turns.

Many more exhibits, both inside and out until it was finally lunch time.

Here we are, having a picnic outside, before I took Wyatt inside to be nursed.

Then we loaded back into the car and headed home. Two exhausted boys and two exhausted parents.