"jishush!"

Last night my sweet tooth got the better of me and I needed something sweet to eat. I baked a loaf of lemon poppy seed bread and a slice of it warm hit the spot.

Fast forward to a little bit ago--my daughter was eating lunch ("mac-cheese"--all one word--her favorite), and she saw me eating a piece of the bread. She didn't know quite what it was, but she knew she wanted a bite. "Bagel? Waffle? Toast?" she asked....whatever it was, she wanted it, so she tried about everything she knew. I said, "No, it's bread." So she asked for bread. I gave her a bite. She held it for a minute and then said, "Cake!" I told her yes, it was sort of like cake. So she took a bite.

"Mmmmm......jishush!" she declared.

"Delicious?" I asked.

"Yeah. Jishush, Mommy!"

friends

With Allecia moving, we've had more get togethers in the last few days than normal. It's been busy, but great fun.

Friday night was girls' night out with all of my best friends. It was the most fun I've had in a long time. We went out to dinner and then sat outside at the outdoor shopping center where we ate and talked for hours. We haven't gotten together like that in a long, long time. No kids to try and feed or entertain....no one to worry about but ourselves....it felt strangely, wonderfully freeing. And we couldn't believe it when we looked at our watches and it was 10:00!

So here we all are....Sara, Amanda, and Christa on the top row, and Allecia and me sitting down. Such good friends!

Saturday was Founder's Day in the community where both Allecia and Amanda live. Amanda invited us to come because they could bring guests. So we went and swam and ate dinner at their community pool. Last time R and I went she didn't want to have anything to do with the water. This time she loved it. Here she is splashing with her friends, Kaden, Jada, and Jillian (Jada and Jillian are Amanda's girls). Jada was born the week between Kaden and R, so they're all very close in age.

Then this morning R and I went to the church that our church planted about a year and a half ago--that's where Allecia and Amanda now go with their families, and they were doing a send off for Allecia and family, since this was their last Sunday in church. R was so excited to find out that she was going to Kaden and Jada's church to play today!

After church there was a potluck and the kids loved running around the lockers (they meet in a high school) and playing after lunch. Here they are taking a brief break: R, Kaden, Leah (Sara's daughter), Jillian, and Jada.

So it's been a fun, friend-filled few days. I don't want them to end....

And just because I think it's funny, here's a picture of you know who this morning. She was still in her PJs, but worked so hard to put her shoes on all by herself. I didn't have the heart to tell her they were on the wrong feet, because she was so proud of herself! And she thinks that half of this shape sorter toy is a bike helmet, so she puts it on and gets on her bike to ride around the house. What an imagination!

trauma and touch a truck

Let's start with the trauma....

I've been having an ongoing conflict with her hair lately. Last time we got it cut we decided to let it grow and just have her bangs cut. But in letting it grow, it's getting rather unruly and I've really wanted to put it up or at the very least put barettes in it to keep it off her face.

No, she'd have none of that.

She's always been really sensitive to having her ears checked (or even washed in the bathtub), her hair brushed, or anything that involves constricting her head for even a second, and makes sure the whole world knows just how much she dislikes it. In the doctor's office it takes every ounce of muscle I have to hold her down while she screams and tries to thrash so the doctor can look in her ears.

Yesterday I tried to put barettes in. Nope. She started crying and shaking her head from side to side. The barette fell out before I had a chance to clip it and I decided not to attempt it again. That's what I usually decide--that it's not worth the battle. There are other more important things I think are a little more worth the battle, so I try not to make a huge issue out of the more unimportant things.

Until this morning. I decided to battle. I don't know what got into me. A full nights' sleep, maybe? (I haven't had many good ones lately, so after sleeping really well last night I guess I felt inviogorated!) I decided to take the plunge and try pigtails again.

She was watching TV, which I thought may distract her enough. She immediately started shaking her head and telling me "no ponytails." I said yes, that we were going to do ponytails and she needed to sit still. I sat on the floor behind her and wrapped my leg around her to hold her down. She actually held her head fairly still, which was a miracle in itself, as she continued to cry huge crocodile tears and said, "All done ponytails." I got them both in with lots of tears, but without too much trouble and told her how pretty she looked, as she continued to cry and try to pull at them, unsuccessfully. I said, "Let's go look at them in the mirror!" So she went over to the full length mirror in my room and though she continued to cry and say, "All done, ponytails," she also was laughing and touching them, obviously pleased with herself. She kept shaking her head to feel them touching the side of her face and neck and laughing. Off and on the rest of the morning she'd do that, say, "Ponytails," and sometimes, "All done ponytails," but then smile, like she was enjoying them.

Mission complete....and only a small amount of trauma. Here are the results....you can see her semi-smiles mixed with tears.

I think I am just going to have to do it for awhile, putting up with the tears, until she gets used to it.

Okay, so on to Touch a Truck.

For those of you not familiar with Touch a Truck, it's done in lots of communities, where they bring all kinds of vehicles to one spot and kids get to get inside them, touch them, pretend to drive them, and so forth. I saw it advertised a few months ago and planned to go, and I invited Kaden and Allecia to come with us, because Kaden is crazy for trucks and big vehicles. It was extremely crowded with tons of moms and strollers and kids of all ages. There were horns honking everywhere (kids sitting in the drivers seats, just laying on the horns!) and long lines to get into the various vehicles, but I think our little ones had a great time. We mostly just walked around and looked at all of them up close, since the lines were pretty long, but a few of the shorter ones we decided to stop and get in. R wouldn't get in by herself for awhile--she clung to me every time I tried to put her in. So I got in with her when we came to the mail truck, one of her favorites. She also really wanted to get in the school bus (she looooooooves seeing school busses on our street or whenever we're out and about), so we waited in line for that one.

Here she is with Kaden on a couple, too.

Afterwards we went to another park to hang out and eat a snack.

It's a great park with a sand pit area, a little train to climb on, and a couple of different play ground areas.

It was a fun morning. Kaden and family will be moving a week from tomorrow, so we're trying to squeeze in as many of these opportunities as we can. It's so sad to think that they won't be growing up together anymore (not to mention my own sadness at losing my best friend, but I don't want to discuss that...), but hopefully if we take enough pictures and keep showing them to the two of them, when we're able to get together they'll still remember each other.

her hat

For some reason, the last couple of days she's been wanting to wear this hat all the time. She never likes to keep hats on, but this one seems to interest her.

Today I decided to take some pictures, just because.

Here she is gracefully trying to get on her bike.

And after successfully getting on her bike.

mommy pay

Every day, many times a day, I hear, "Mommy, pay? Mommy, pay?" She's actually asking me to go play with her in the dining room (aka R's toy room). Sometimes I go, sometimes I don't because I'm busy doing something else. This morning she asked while I was reading the paper. I was almost done and was going to go "pay" with her in a few minutes, which is what I told her.

Then she came over, gently put her hand on my arm, and quietly said, "Mommy, pay, peeese?"

We've been working so hard to get her to say please when she asks for something. She's finally starting to remember on her own sometimes and say it. So how could I resist when she not only came over and asked me so gently and sweetly, but also said please, all on her own!?!

So we "payed."

ochidama

Did you know that "Ochidama" had a farm? I'm listening to her sing it right now, and that's how his name sounds when it comes out...."Ochidama had a fahm....." My husband is getting her ready for bed and he just said, "Is he Japanese? I thought he was Irish with a name like MacDonald!?" I couldn't stop laughing.

And in addition to being Japanese, he also has the following animals on his farm, according to my daughter's singing:

-turtle
-giraffe
-lion
-penguin

along with the usual:

-duck
-dog
-cow
-horse

They must have some strange farms over in Japan.

In other news, she just heard the story of "The Three Little Pigs" for the first time tonight. She sat for the whole thing and afterwards laughed and laughed while going around the house saying, "Huffffff, Puffffff, BLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!"

And I almost forgot....her new phrase of the day, "I non't know." Which she says only when she really does know and would rather have me tell her.

orange cake

Yesterday we went to a birthday party for the son of some good friends of ours. There were lots of friends, lots of kids, and lots of fun. I was too busy during most of the party, supervising my little one in the kiddie pool, so I didn't get many pictures. But I was able to grab it during the cake eating portion of the party. The kids had their choice of chocolate cupcakes with orange icing or white cupcakes with blue icing. R told Daddy she wanted "Orange Cake," so he grabbed her one with orange icing. She went to town.

Of course, after she ate all of the icing and a couple of tiny bites of cake she then decided she'd like to try "Blue Cake," but Mommy and Daddy wouldn't agree to that one.

(Note--despite the bib, she still ended up with orange icing all over her clean white shirt. Never fails!)

make 'em laugh

It's always something new to make us laugh around here. Here are her latest phrases and antics....

*I went in to get her up this morning. As soon as I turned the light on she said, "Watch dis!" (she's never said that before, to my knowledge). She then proceeded to get on her tummy and pretend to swim on her mattress. Several times this morning she said, "Watch dis, Mommy!" and then did something that she thought was pretty great.

*Her favorite thing to do the last few days is to start jumping around and saying, "I dancin' Mommy! I dancin'! She's been dancing for year or more but she's just now, out of nowhere, started telling me that she's doing it.

*Whenever she's done doing something (pretending she's swimming, dancing, or some other humorous stunt) she now says, "Ta Da!" The women in the nursery said they taught her that. Why, I don't know, but it's pretty funny.

*I had an ice cream bar earlier tonight. She took the stick when I was done, stuck her tongue out, put the stick on it, said, "Ahhhhhhhh," and then said, "Doctah!"

*She sings to herself all the time. Her favorites are "Old MacDonald," (complete with animal noises), "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and the "ABC" song. She gets about 1/3 of the words close to correct and mumbles the rest, but it's pretty funny to listen to. She'll just burst into song in the backseat of the car, in bed as she's going to sleep, in the bathtub, or just about anywhere. One of these days I need to get some video of her singing. I'm a little worried about her inability to sing on key....as a music major in college, it's important to me! (But I'll still adore her if she doesn't develop that skill!)


*She's been counting to 10 for awhile now....but she doesn't understand the concept of counting--she just has the numbers memorized. If she's counting three things she'll still count all the way to 10. Anyway, in just the last few days she's started going past 10. Here's what it sounds like: "One, Two, Fwee, Four, Five, Six, Seden, Eight, Nine, TEEEENNNNN!!, Eh-den, Tewve, Firteen, Firteen, Firteen, Firteen....." you get the idea. (She gets very excited about 10, as you can see, and then goes on.)

She's quite the little clown.

my little ladybug

Back in February or March she was obsessed with ladybugs. I decided to have a ladybug birthday party for her and bought her a ladybug dress to wear at the party. I learned my lesson that two year old obsessions tend to come and go quickly. By the time her birthday rolled around she was no longer into ladybugs so much as she was Pooh, so we had a Pooh party.

But I still had this ladybug dress...

It was sleeveless, and it hasn't actually been hot enough on a Sunday for her to wear it to church until just recently. So she finally wore it for the first time.

She was so excited to see the ladybugs on it and immediately went to get her ladybug wings and antennae!

She then buzzed all around the kitchen, just as cute as she could be (If you watch the video clip, please ignore the bag of garbage that hadn't made its way out to the garbage can yet!).

they once were lost but now are found!

They've been missing for over a month. I looked everywhere for them, and was so frustrated that I couldn't find them. She's asked for them at least once a day and always got sad when I told her I didn't know where they were.

So today she was playing with her aquadoodle and dropped the water pen to the side of her play house. I kept hearing "Mommy, ge' it? Mommy, ge' it?" so I went to see what she wanted me to get. She said, "Cayon," (crayon--what she calls all pens and pencils!), so I knew what was missing.

I pulled the house away from the wall. As I moved the house I heard something move behind the other wall of the house. I got the water pen and went around to the other side to see what had fallen.

Lo and behold, what did I find but the missing beads!

She was SO excited! And I was so relieved to finally know what had happened to them. She put them all on one by one right away and ran around the house shouting, "beads! beads!" Then she took them off and put them on Mommy one by one. I was a little less thrilled in my response to having them on, but enjoyed her enthusiasm!

model material?

This picture is from our vacation. My husband thinks she looks like she's trying to pose like a model. I just like the picture.

Anyway, I ran across it while I was loading some pictures to a photo site and remembered that I'd been wanting to post it.

an eventful week

Monday: took R to play with Kaden while I taught my scrapbook class (next week is the last week for that--I'll be glad when it's done, but I'm also glad I did it). Picked R up and stayed for lunch to catch up with Allecia, who had been out of town. We don't have many opportunities left because she's moving in just a few weeks. But I'm not letting myself think of that until it happens, so let's move on to Tuesday before I start to tear up. (Spent the afternoon in the pool in the backyard, by the way)

Tuesday: went to school (where I used to teach) and talked to my former principal about a job opportunity she presented me with a few weeks ago. She needed to know the next day whether I was interested. Spent the day deciding "what I want to do with my life" (at least for the next year anyway). Agonizing, because it meant leaving my little girl with someone else every morning. Morning is prime time with her, since she naps in the afternoon. I realized later in the day that maybe I could do it in the afternoons instead. Presented her with the idea, and received an email that night that we could probably make it work! So if we can work it all out, I'll be returning to school part time in the fall, working in the library in the afternoons while R is sleeping. Now I'm in the market for a nearby babysitter who can come stay with her while she's napping so she doesn't have to nap somewhere else. Spent the afternoon going to Michael's to get more supplies for my scrapbook class.

Wednesday: took R to play again with Kaden while I taught my class. Spent the afternoon in the pool in the backyard.

Thursday: went to Bible study where I "made a new friend" (I told Allecia it sounds like I'm in elementary school, saying that!) and hopefully some connections for babysitters (she said she may know some people in my area). Picked R up from the nursery, where they told me she was "an angel." Always what you want to hear about your child! I'm glad other people don't see her at home some afternoons.....

Late in the afternoon, when my husband got home from work I left to go do another of the market research things I get called about from time to time. This one was about diapers. I had to stick my hands in a black box and feel a diaper I couldn't see, then feel another one, and tell which was softer. I got paid $50 to do that. Took a couple of minutes. Then they asked me to stay (they only asked a few people....don't know why they chose me--do I look like a diaper expert? ) and do an interview. They stuck a video camera on me (I asked if they were going to sell it and they said no) and handed me a big stack of diapers. I could see them this time. They had me rank them in order of softness, and then asked me questions about why I chose the ones I did, what made one diaper softer than another, and so forth. They asked me to describe how it was soft. I seriously couldn't think of one adjective for the word soft! Have I been talking to a two year old that long that I've lost my vocabulary? I felt like an idiot. Anyway, it took another 10 minutes, maybe, and they gave me another $50. Gosh, I'll do that any day if they pay me $100 to touch (clean) diapers!

After that I met a friend for coffee (a decaf mint mocha frappachino, to be exact). Decaf was because it was evening and I had been up since 2 AM the night before, unable to sleep. When I got home I took a tylenol PM before bed. I was exhausted and wanted to stay asleep as long as possible. Well, staying asleep means GETTING to sleep first. I couldn't. I was up until after 1 AM. I finally went to sleep and then at five this morning I heard some weird vehicle going up and down the streets of our neighborhood. I thought they were cleaning our streets--that's what it sounded like. Brian thought they were spraying for mosquitos. I don't know, but whatever it was, it was LOUD and was interrupting my few short hours of sleep, so I was frustrated.

Friday: went to a MOMS club event at a house across the street. It's nice not to have to drive somewhere to meet people! There are four people in my neighborhood in the club and they were all there, along with three or four other moms from neighborhoods nearby. I enjoyed it, and R enjoyed having new toys to play with.

So there you have it. My week in a nutshell. The highlight (and most unexpected) being the job possibility for the fall. I wasn't really looking to go back to work, but I'm looking forward to it, if it works out. It's strange to me--My whole life I thought I wanted to be a stay at home mom, but now that I've done it for two years, I'm realizing that maybe it's just not for me. It's definitely lots harder than I thought it would be. I don't want to change things a lot, but a few hours a week out of the house will be nice, I think. Especially because I won't miss much of her awake time. If I was missing every morning with her, I don't think I could do it. I'll keep you updated with how things progress.

the fountains

The outdoor shopping place near us has fountains where kids often play in the summer. My daughter has looked longingly at them several times, but we've never gone with that in mind and weren't prepared for her to get all wet.

Yesterday it was a hot day, so we decided to get her ready for the water and head over to let her experience playing in the fountains.

She was so excited to see them, but scared to death when it actually came to getting up close to them. One of us had to go with her (which meant I got pretty wet, which I wasn't prepared to do!) and hold her over the water for quite awhile. She finally got brave enough to stand in close proximity. Mostly she just enjoyed watching the other kids have fun and jumping up and down with the water. Next time maybe I'll be more prepared to get wet and take her in there with me until she'd be more willing to try it on her own.

"simmum"

We got her a new pool today. It's bigger than I would've liked, but my husband chose this one.

We got it set up during her nap. When she woke up she saw me holding her swim diaper and she said, "simmum?"

I said, "Would you like to go swimming?"

"Okay," she said. "Gammaw house?" That's where she remembered swimming, was last weekend at her house while we were gone.

"No, look out the window!" and I opened the blinds so she could see in the backyard.

"Pool!" she said. "Big pool!"

I couldn't get her ready fast enough. She was so excited.

She loved sitting on the side, kicking.

She tried to get her baseball tee into the pool, but it floated. Instead she set it outside and decided to hit the ball from inside.

happy 4th

In the year of the bicentennial, I was 2 years old. In honor of July 4th that year my grandma made me a special outfit.



Here's my little one wearing the very same outfit. It's not even 70 here today, so it's too cold to wear it, but I just put it on her this morning to take some pictures. My husband says, "Where's the part that covers her up?" I told him that's what the strategic placement of the points of the star are for.... But I know he's glad it's too cold for her to wear it more than 5 minutes for pictures!



Maybe one of these days I'll get the picture of me in the outfit from my mom and scan it in so I can post it for you to compare. Just picture my little one with a little longer, little blonder hair, and that's what I looked like in it!

meanwhile....

...back at Grandma's house....

Here's what our little girl was doing while we were busy in Chicago.

Swimming

Using the hose

Using the hose to fill up the back of the car (and then getting in to "swim!")

Playing with Mommy's old Raggedy Ann doll (Grandma told her it used to be Mommy's, so she started calling it "Mommy").

Playing Super Bunny, climbing up in the high chair over and over (and over and over, according to Grandma)

Playing at the park

They went out for pizza, chicken, and ice cream. Seriously. Heaven for my two year old.

corn

Her first ever corn on the cob....

First she finished up Daddy's ear,

And then she got one of her own.

Chicago

Okay, so here's the story of our trip for those who care to hear about it. I've been working on it for two days, so I hope someone wants to hear about it!

Thursday after work I picked my husband up and we left right from there. We headed to my parents' house, which is about two and a half hours north. It was nice that our little one was already up there and we didn't have to worry about entertaining her. We enjoyed adult conversation and arrived in time to play with her for about an hour before bathtime. She was happy to see us but clearly was in heaven at Grandma's house. The living room was covered in toys and she walked around like she owned the place.

We decided to take the train because it was cheaper than paying for gas and for parking in downtown Chicago (what we saved in parking alone would have paid for our tickets!). Friday morning we left for the train station at 5:45. When we arrived we found out it was running about a half hour late. Not a huge deal, since we were only a few minutes early in the first place, so we really only had to wait about 45 minutes. The train came and we left. All was fine for the first hour or two. We made a few stops and moved quickly in between the stops. But a couple hours into the trip we started slowing down. And then stopping now and then for no reason. We learned that freight trains have the right of way, so Amtrak trains need to yield to them and allow them to pass. This slowed us down tremendously and we were over an hour late arriving at Union Station in Chicago.

We took a cab to our hotel--the craziest cab ride ever. The driver sped down the roads and around the corners so quickly that we were moving all over the back seat and holding on for dear life! We kept looking at each other with big eyes, thinking, "What is this guy doing??" But we made it. They had a room ready for us, even though it was way before check in time, so we were able to go up to our room to drop off our stuff and decide what we would do with our day. We had planned things ahead of time, but it was supposed to rain, so we kind of left some things up in the air, depending on the weather.

We set off walking for the boat dock on the river to buy our tickets for an architectural boat tour. You're supposed to buy them ahead of time because they sell out on the weekends, so we bought our tickets for Sunday morning. Then we walked down to Grant Park, where the Taste of Chicago had just started that morning. We decided to do that for lunch, so we bought our strips of tickets and pushed our way through the crowds to buy little samples of various Chicago food. It was pretty crazy--very crowded, hot, humid, and expensive. But like I told my husband, it was a once in a lifetime thing and I'm glad we experienced it.

At Grant Park is the famous Buckingham Fountain. And they had the Clydesdale Horses there as well...my husband made me pose for this picture.

We then continued on to the Field Museum. My husband was excited about seeing Sue, the dinosaur. It was an interesting place, but my feet were already hurting from all of the walking we had done, so it was hard to want to walk around some more and look at things. We stayed a couple of hours and then left. We found out that in the summer Chicago has a free trolley system that runs to most of the famous, touristy spots, so we waited for that, unwilling to walk all the way back to our hotel on already exhausted feet.

We rested a bit, cleaned up, and set out for deep dish Chicago pizza for dinner. There are many places to choose from, but we chose Giordanos because it was pretty close and had good reviews. Well, everyone else must've read those reviews too because we had to wait an hour to get seated! They have you pre order your pizza, though, so it didn't take too long after we sat down to eat. While we were there we met a family from the next suburb over from ours. It's always fun to meet people on vacation from where you are from. And we always seem to manage to do that, no matter where we go! Anyway, the pizza was great.

We had a great view from our hotel room, by the way. The Wrigley Building clock tower was easy to see, and straight ahead was the new Trump tower, still under construction. It was a beautiful view at night too with all of the lights.

Saturday we left after breakfast at the hotel for the hop on-hop off trolley tour of the city. I always like doing these in big cities, even though they're as touristy as it gets, because you get to visit all of the important spots and see the city while learning little tidbits here and there about the city. We decided we'd ride all the way around (it was a two hour tour) and then go around again if we wanted to see something and get off. So we drove around in a double decker bus seeing the sights, like the Sears Tower, Navy Pier, Chinatown, and Oprah's studio. The second time around we stopped at Hancock Tower, currently the second tallest building (soon to be eclipsed, however). We took the elevator to the restaurant on the 95th floor (the top). There we had lunch and enjoyed some spectacular views.

When we came down we went to see the Water Tower (one of the two buildings to survive the Chicago fire) and I briefly walked into the American Girl store on Michigan Avenue just because I wanted to see what it was like (you know, I have a daughter who will someday likely be interested, so I wanted to see what the hoopla was all about). I didn't see much because you have to go upstairs to see most of it, and it was crowded and my husband was waiting outside, so I decided not to take the time.

That night decided to check out Navy Pier, also as touristy as touristy gets. We were going to take the free trolley down there, but after waiting forever for one to come, it was so packed that we couldn't fit on it. We had to walk--much to my dismay, since my feet were still killing me. We got there and it was just wall to wall people, food, souvenirs, and rides. I didn't like it. We hung around a little bit so my husband could take pictures and then decided to go up in the ferris wheel, because he had never ridden one before (yeah, that was news to me, too!). We had great views of the skyline and I'm glad we went.

We decided to head back soon after that. We went to wait for the free trolley. Just as we were walking up one was pulling away. They supposedly run every 20 minutes. We waited. And waited. And waited. We even saw the 10:15 fireworks we thought we would miss because we were heading back early. I would've much rather have been on a trolley. People who were waiting too started dropping like flies, taking cab after cab because it was taking so long for another trolley. Unfortunately I had left my purse at the hotel which held all of our cash, so we couldn't get a cab. After about a half hour of waiting we decided to start walking back (on my poor, exhausted, aching feet). Wouldn't you know it....as soon as we left, another trolley pulled up. We tried not to think about it, but we were both so frustrated. I kept trying to look at it as, "Look at all the extra exercise we got!" (But who was I kidding? I really wanted to ride!)

Anyway, we made it back. Sunday was our boat ride. It was really interesting, as we went up and down the Chicago River learning about the history and architecture of the various buildings.

After the boat ride we went back to check out of our hotel, and they held our bags for us for the rest of the day, since our train wasn't leaving until 7:05 pm. We went to Millennium Park after that. We had been there briefly on Friday, but my husband wanted to take some pictures, so we went back. There's this really weird bean shaped sculpture, which we enjoyed. It's a mirror, so you can take a picture of yourself taking a picture.

They also have two towers of glass which pour water over the sides. Every so often an image appears behind the glass. In this picture the face started spitting out a fountain of water! There were kids galore playing in the water and couldn't wait for this to happen. We were wishing our daughter was here with us at this point because she would've loved playing in the water.Next we went and had lunch (sitting outside right under the El--it was SO loud!), and then passed time going up the escalators at the old Marshall Field's (now Macy's). We were waiting for our commuter train which would take us out to Hyde Park, where the museum of Science and Industry is located. My husband was interested in seeing the German U-Boat sub they have there. So we found the subway station we needed, asked until we found the right train, and made our way outside of town to the museum. We got there around 3, my husband's tour of the sub was at 3:30, and he got done at 4. Our train back was at 4:40! That didn't leave us much time to see the rest of this huge museum. So we did a quick run through and then left to go get our train back to downtown. There was a lot to see and we decided we'll have to go back when R is a little older, because there's a lot there for kids.

We walked back toward our hotel (yes, more walking....) and ate dinner close by. We went back to get our luggage and the door man was trying to get a cab for us, but it was raining and they were all taken. He stood in the street forever whistling (he whistled SO loudly and it echoed through the streets--it was funny) but no one came. Meanwhile it was getting closer and closer to the time we had to catch our train home! Finally a limo came and stopped. He said he'd charge us the same as a cab, so we rode a limo to the train station! Instead of enjoying it, though, I was all stressed that he was going to charge us more and our cash was dwindling! But he was true to his word and it cost about the same as our first cab ride.

We found out which track we needed and then found a huge line of people waiting to get on the train. There was a lady I nicknamed the Train Nazi, because she was ordering everyone around and wouldn't let us walk past a certain point until she was ready for us. Finally we were allowed out to the train, but then we had to wait until they told us which car to get in. We were confused and got in the wrong car, so they sent us back. They were all so stressed and could've all been called "Train Nazis" because of the way they were shouting orders. So we got all stressed, too. Finally we found the right car, got seats, and then were told we were supposed to be upstairs! It was a double decker train. So we had to leave again and find different seats. Ugh. Finally we found them and I called home to let my parents know we had made it, and to say goodnight to our little one. She had just gone to bed, so I was really sad to have missed her. I wouldn't get to see her until the morning.

Well, we had a very, very slow ride home. We were supposed to get in at 11:55, but at 11 we were still in South Bend, IN, which is only about halfway! We didn't get in until 1:30ish in the morning. My poor dad had to get up to come get us at the train station. And then he had to get up and go to work the next day! But we finally made it and I was happy to see my girl the next day, even though I was completely exhausted. We drove back home and all took naps when we got here. Yesterday I napped while she was napping, too, and I woke up finally feeling caught up.

It was a fun trip, and great to spend time together without having to worry about entertaining our daughter. We missed her, but we enjoyed the time away. It's good to be home, though, too.