Fathers Day

So what does a dad want to do on Fathers Day? Drive to his favorite hot dog joint at 10am. Then go for frozen custard by 11am. Then go train watching. Then race while waiting for more trains. Examine bugs. Cute.

Summer? Not Yet.

So up until this week, we haven't had a summer in Chicago. Rainy. Barely making it to 70 degrees. Just kinda lame to be wearing sweaters in June. But it's finally starting to heat up a bit. Nick asked if it was summer and I told him "almost". I was thinking official summer solstice this weekend. But he came back with "No it's not. You said the baby will come when it's summer and the baby isn't here yet!" Hmmmm, that makes sense.

So last night I woke up and wasn't feeling well, so figured I was in labor. (Anything slightly off these days and I think I'm in labor). Was telling this to Chris this morning and how I go around saying how ready we are for the baby, but when I actually thought it was happening last night all I could think was "I'm not ready! I still need to paint the closet and finish a project at work!" Chris agreed he wasn't ready yet either. He needs to recharge his batteries, that have been draining from work. But not Nick. He was quietly listening to this exchange and went straight to the belly to say "Come on out baby! I'm ready for you!"

Orphans?

Whenever we see bigger kids (ages 8-13) out by themselves or walking together, Nick gets really worried. "Where are their mom and dads?" He can't imagine a world where he gets to go out without one of us. It's really pretty sweet and touching, but funny to think in a few years he'll be one of those big kids!

Publish Post

Dinner Talk

We apparently need to rein in some of our dinner table talk. It's usually the first chance Chris and I get to catch each other up on "need to knows" before Nick starts in with games. The other night I was catching him up on my doctor appointment. The next day at school one his teachers somehow knew all the details of my appointment too! Seems little sponge boy had gone to school and repeated everything. Even the stuff I didn't think he'd understand to tell anyone. Ohhh, what else must they hear about us?!

Older Brother

Nick and I were hanging at Julius Meinl the other day (I needed a cold drink, he needed an expensive piece of cake) when we ran into our neighbor. Somehow we had never met his kids before. He has an older boy and younger girl. I asked the boy if he could give Nick some advice about being a big brother. Here it is, from a 6 year old's mouth - "Don't use your sister as a punching bag." Wow, that was honest. And probably very good advice. His dad looked like he would pass out on the spot. I just laughed. Little Nick, not even sure what he was thinking. Probably something like "hmmm, I should have orderd one of the mango smoothies like they did."

Heaven

What is heaven? Heaven is Paradise Pup. It's a hamburger joint in the burbs open Mon-Sat from 11am-5pm. Always a line out the door. I've been craving it for weeks, but we finally got there this past weekend. They have the most delicious cheese fries - with Merkt's cheese spread. Then a berry raspberry shake. The boys were trying to get their hands on my shake and offering to "share" theirs. Uh, no. My belly could not have been happier. It's what it's been needing for weeks. Sigh. Dreaming of the next time we get to go.

Remind me when you come to visit and we'll make a special stop.

Boy's Night Rocks!

So I've told you all about Boy's Night. Five boys get together every other week at one house while the other houses rejoice in the quiet! What do boys do for 4 hours on Boy's Night? Go to the park, wear themselves out, say the words not allowed at school (poop, stupid, idiot) and then refuel with ice cream! Then they come home, take a bath, cry that they want to stay dirty and collapse into bed. What do parents do on Boy's Night? After dancing the jig of joy, they peel themselves off the couch and head to the movies where they watch "The Hangover" and spend 90 minutes laughing and gasping.

Big Kid in Town

Most of the 5 year olds in Nick's school graduated last week. They're moving onto Kindergarten. So that makes Nick one of the "big kids" in school. We were reminiscing about his first day in his classroom (3-5 yr olds) when some of the older boys said "Are you a baby? You still wear diapers!" Oh little man! So what's one of the best things about being a bigger kid? Winning at musical chairs. Nick was telling us how they played the other day and then he paused and with a huge grin on his face he said "And I won!" As if he couldn't actually believe it himself.

Grateful Dads

So there's a hiking group around called Grateful Dads. But the nickname is "Grateful Moms" because it's a hiking group with dads and their sons. So the moms get the morning off! Nick and Chris woke up early this morning for their first hike. Of course it was raining. That's all it seems to do in Chicago these days. Sigh. We were joking last night about who could run the fastest if they saw a bear. (We don't have bears in Chicago). Which prompted Nick to grab a hockey stick, sword and baseball bat to take on the hike. Ha!

Names

We've got the baby's name. It's actually the name we had picked out 5 years ago if they'd told us Nick was a girl. We brought it back out this time, went away from it for a while, picked out another adorable name that we'll have to use on our dog now, and came back around to our name. But we're keeping it under wraps. We told Nick the name yesterday and he was severely disappointed. He had hoped we'd name her Stewie.

Oreos

So you know Nick likes anything sugary. The other day we were picking up a few things at the grocery store and he was so excited to lead me to the cookie aisle to pick out some Oreos. He likes them, Chris likes them, it all works. Except when we went to sit down to eat them. Nick eats the white middle and then stacks up the cookie parts. After he's eaten all the fillings, he then offers the licked cookie parts to me. Uh, no thank you.

Today I found out that he eats them this way at Grammy and Papa Jack's house. And apparently PJ is more than happy to eat the licked cookies. Now that's love. Or maybe the only way PJ can get some Oreos.

Fruit Baby?

We were in the car the other day and Nick asked "What fruit is the baby?" Huh? "What fruit is the baby now?" Ahhh, since all the baby books compare the baby to a piece of fruit (sizewise), Nick got a little confused. First she was the size of an apple, then a cantelope and now a small watermelon. We got a laugh and moved on with the conversation, agreeing she was the size of a small watermelon. Then last night Nick asked to see the baby book where they show you what the baby looks like at each stage of pregnancy. He couldn't believe how scrunched up she was. Then he asked "How did she get out of the watermelon?" Sigh.

Nick and Heather's Movie Review

Nick and I are quite the moviegoers. We've decided to start a new format every few weeks, giving our thoughts on the latest movies. We'll use a popcorn scale and give you our honest feedback.

This week, the featured movie is UP.

Nick says:"So, we were watching an UP movie and there was a lot of bad dogs and then they taked away the big bird and then the dog behind him, he was trying to scare the dogs away and it was too scary. And then at nighttime they were sleeping and waked up and it was daytime and then they run and the dog and the big bird was in a cage. And then the let him out. And then the bad man and the bad dog came to see the bird in the cage, but they looked everywhere and they didn't find him." Nick recommends this movie. He thinks people will like it, even though it has a few scary parts. Nick's favorite part of the movie was "I don't know". Nick gives this movie 5 kernels (although I have to say that he wanted to stand up for the last 1/2 hour and was ready to leave as soon as the credits started rolling).


Heather says:
"This looks like a kids movie, but really isn't. It had me crying twice (tears rolling down the cheeks), it didn't have any potty humor (which is necessary for a kids movie) and it had a ton of really scary dogs (which kids are afraid of anyway, so why mess with that?!) But it had a nice story line for parents, even if the ending wasn't anything special. It clocked in way too long for a kids flick, as our popcorn ran out with 1/2 hour to go.

Flip Flops

Every time Nick sees Chris and me wearing flip flops, he runs upstairs to get his. Remember these cute little flips from last year? Well, the feet have grown, but the flip flops still fit! And apparently once you graduate to a big boy, you can cut off the training straps. We cut them off Memorial Day weekend and little man couldn't have been prouder. He walked a little funny, but still proudly.

Host with the Most

We had a small cook-out at our place for Memorial Day. Nick was so tired all day, but insisted he didn't need a nap. Of course he crashed on the couch 15 minutes before everyone was supposed to arrive. Two of Nick's friends came over and I told him he was in charge of hosting them. Making sure they had drinks, food and fun. Apparently they had a rockin time. The weather turned cold so the kids had a picnic in front of the tv. Nick made sure their bowl of Frito's was well filled.

Bad Parenting?

So we all have our moments. But I feel like I have more than Chris. So this email secretly pleased me last week:


Bad parenting: I made him Kool-Aid this morning and gave it to him out of his sippy. We pretended it was milk, per his suggestion.

C

I have to admit that this was after we ran out of milk (of which Nick has to have his big, warm milk each morning).