New Digs

Check out our new look for Spring!  You will see some cool slide shows in the right hand column as well.   They are linked from the Picasa site.  Pretty cool :)

Doin' the Crawl

On Sunday, Layla and I were playing in her room. She suddenly got excited and started crawling, really crawling, towards the door. I turned to see what she was so excited about. Across the hall to the Den she was watching the screen saver dart across the screen.

If that doesn't get you crawling, nothing will. I have been trying to post the video but it is very stubborn. Now she is crawling everywhere!

Oh Tom the Toad

Songs written for kids, and sung in these sweet high voices are kind of deceiving. Here is just one example. If you think about any old songs or rhymes you know you will find many of them equally disturbing:

Oh Tom the Toad, Oh Tom the Toad
Why did you hop onto the Road?
You were my friend and now you're dead
You bear the marks of tire tread.

Oh Tom the Toad, Oh Tom the Toad
Why did you hop onto the Road?
You did not see the passing car and
Now you're spread out on the tar.

That's the whole song. And yes, it is stuck in my head!

The Good, The Bad and The Just Plain Awful

First, the good: I passed my Structural Systems exam! The letter came yesterday and I was nervous opening it and very relieved to see PASS at the top. I now have three exams left before I am officially a licensed architect. This has been a long, drawn out process and I am hoping to finish in the next few months. I am definitely feeling a confidence boost in passing this one, which I think is probably the toughest. Once I am licensed I will be able to register in Illinois (and apply for other states) and stamp my own drawings for permit. In many parts of the country, particularly in rural areas, stamped drawings are not required for permitting residential projects. However, in our area it is a "must have" when you are out working on your own. I am getting my own website up and running in an effort to bring in more work on my own. I will keep you posted on that.

Second, the bad: although we are celebratory of many of the milestones our little peanut is reaching, the most recent is not my favorite: separation anxiety. She doesn't seem to have an issue with strangers (thankfully), but has been very clingy to Mom and Dad. It really has just come on in the last week and is the worst at night. She wakes up and, not seeing us, proceeds to howl and carry on for some time (sometimes hours). According to the books, this is totally normal behavior, although incredibly frustrating. She doesn't want to sleep with us either (we've tried). We were just getting into a good place with the sleep schedule and are lamenting this setback.

Lastly, the downright awful: I had to visit the doctor yesterday on short notice. One might call it a "sick call" or emergency visit since I had to see the OB on call. Now, considering our false alarms this winter, I wasn't too keen on visiting the doctor, but the nurse insisted. After introductions and initial exam the doctor says, "good news! You don't have to be admitted to the hospital." I say, "good news indeed, I had other plans for my weekend." What I have is mastitis. The women probably know what this is and for the men, let me just say that it is an infection that women who are nursing get and leave it at that. It is very rare considering Layla's age, but very serious nonetheless. Tricky little complication, that sneaks up on you: my symptoms were less than 24 hours old. So, I am on antibiotics and feeling much better already! As a side note, the doctor says this is not something that I could have prevented. It helped me reflect on my weekend: a group of my friends are in Hilton Head this weekend and I was unable to go. Had I gone I may have ended up in the emergency room instead. I guess everything does happen for a reason.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Layla and her sock monkey are in matching outfits on her 8-month birthday!

We are back in Chicago and enjoyed the trip to Minnesota immensely. We were thankful Jason could join us for the last weekend and share his exciting news: Jason has been made the Design Group Manager for Orren Pickell Designers and Builders. He has been filling this role since his supervisor left abruptly last August and Orren has decided to make it official. We are very proud of him and know he is already doing a superb job in this role!

Allie was a terrific host on our visit. She took some vacation time of her own and Layla got to spend lots of time with her Aunt, including bath time every night and lots of play time, reading books, and meals together (an adventure mostly for Allie!).



We enjoyed visiting with many cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends including Bud's 90th Birthday and Christian's 7th Birthday.

Uncle Bud, Aunt Jeanne, Cousin Laurie and Cousin John

Layla with Uncle Bud, Aunt Jeanne and cousins Katy and Ben

Christian's AWESOME skateboard birthday cake!
(Way to go Jen!!)

"Bapa" poses on the stair with his grand-kids,
Christian and Samantha, and grand-neice, Layla

On our trip, we also had many reasons to celebrate with friends: Kate had a wonderful baby shower celebrating the TWO girls she will be having this spring. We saw many old friends and Kate's family at the shower which was a lovely party with goo-oo-ood sweets and treats.

Before our trip, Tamara welcomed her new baby boy, Tristen. We were thrilled to get to spend two separate days with their family! The weather was good and we enjoyed play time at the park together.

Enjoying a little play time with Danielle before she jets off to Hawaii!

Tamara and Tristen snuggling.

**More pics are up on my Picasa site, email me if you need the address.

Go Layla Go!

We are enjoying our week in Minnesota, seeing lots of friends and family, and have more to go.

Layla is getting two new teeth on the top (a total of six in various heights/progress) and working on more milestones. I realized that I hadn't been a diligent recorder in her baby book of these things and thought I better write them down!

Two weeks ago she waved bye-bye for the first time. She is not very consistent, but definitely is getting the hang of it and sometimes waves at herself in the mirror. Then, last week she got to sitting on her own - she first sat alone at about 5 months. This has been frustrating for her over the past month. She finally realized that sitting up from her back wasn't going to work and has been practicing how to get her legs underneath her so she could push herself up from her tummy. She is now doing it regularly and happily can wiggle, worm, and flip herself almost anywhere she wants to go!

Yesterday, she learned to clap. This is something I have been working with her on for a few weeks, but she balls her hands and resists if I try to actually clap them together. So, I mostly just demonstrate and clap for her when she (or anyone) does something fun or exciting. Yesterday, she clapped her hands, in excitement, without prompting (of course, after that we kept prompting her and she kept doing it). One hand was still partially balled up so it wasn't a lot of noise. This morning she was lying on the dresser (our makeshift changing table) and clapping her hands. She turned and looked at herself in the mirror, frowned at her balled up hand and then opened it up so she could clap palm to palm. It was amazing, and I just stood and watched her.

Today Layla crawled, for real, about 3 feet. Do you want to know what amazing thing I put in front of her to finally get her going forward? My hair. That's right. It's better than any of her toys and it always makes noise when she pulls on it!

Aviary Show

Sunday was the opening for a new Aviary show: "An Artists' Passion for Birds" at the Brushwood Gallery at which Rachel's work was shown. The Gallery is in the Ryerson Conservation Area in Riverwoods, not far from our home. It is a beautiful area and the Gallery is in the historic home of the Ryersons. There was a lot of terrific art in a variety of mediums that we all enjoyed.

Yes, they had real birds too. Layla was fascinated by this hawk. I was afraid of it.

Layla and Rachel playing at bath time.

We didn't get to spend as much time with Rachel and Victor as we would like, of course. They had a lot of family and several friends come to Chicago for their engagement celebration and were very busy. We are grateful for the time we did have together, especially Rachel taking the time to spend a whole afternoon with Layla and I, and look forward to seeing more of them.

Cookie Guilt

Jason and I were watching The Biggest Loser the other night and they had a challenge which had to do with chocolate chip cookies. Rather than learn about practical eating and exercise, we both really craved cookies. So, on Thursday I made a batch of really delicious oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I don't know if they are quite as good as Carrie's pseudo-Potbelly cookies, but they were pretty good. As usual (for all women?) I sampled the batter. YUM!

At about 8 p.m. as I am sitting down to a lovely dinner of frozen pepperoni pizza and beer (I am not joking I really do love the DiGiorno rising crust pizza) I get a tummy ache. No big deal I think as I head the bathroom. 5 hours later I am finally able to make it back to my bed and sleep, restlessly for a few hours.

Food poisoning? Stomach Virus? You choose. It was simply awful - the worst sick I have ever been in my life. Friday was a slight improvement, I ate approximately 10 crackers and tried desperately to replace my electrolytes with Gatorade. I lost 8 pounds in two days - now that is a Biggest Loser diet. I will not be eating cookies for a very long time.

The worst part was missing Rachel and Victor's engagement party last night. I didn't have the strength to stand or even sit for a long period of time, so I decided to stay at home and not spread my germs around. Layla did get sick in the night, but seems to be doing fine today, so I am praying she doesn't get what I got.

Baby News!

Tamara welcomed her new baby boy, Tristen, into the world yesterday, March 5. He was 6 pounds, 2 ounces and 19" long, Mom and Baby are doing well.

Congratulations!!!

Whole Lunch

Layla and I went to Barnes and Noble this morning. For some reason I was desperately wanting to read Fox in Sox. It makes me giggle and I felt we needed to own it. So, as it happens our B&N is just down the way (that's suburban talk for in the same strip mall) from Whole Foods. Tonight is taco night so we decided to pick up an avocado. It turns out a surprising amount of people eat lunch at Whole Foods. Now, the people at the Deli and Salad bar weren't not too shocking, but the woman chowing down at the guac and chips bowl for five minutes was. I am not one to turn down free samples, especially at Whole Foods, but at least take a trip around and see what else they have. Apparently, for some people lunch at Whole Foods is FREE!!!