Traveling Folks

Hello again internet world. We are back for another installment. In May we had the opportunity to take a trip to Arizona with my family to celebrate my cousin Joe graduating from high school. Daddy got to come with us on this trip along with Mimi and Papa. Also, Great Grandpa Tony and Great Grandma Jo came in from Florida for the occasion, and of course we got to visit with cousin Joe, Uncle Ron, and Auntie Anne.

"How much is that doggie in the window?"

Cousin Joe....he's so cool.

Gentuso Men

We had a nice visit with some swimming, a zoo visit (it was so stinking hot that most of the animals were hiding and sleeping in the shade, bummer), and lots of yummy eating. Sadly, we ended the trip with another ear infection. I saw the same signs that we experienced on our Texas trip so I rushed him to urgent care to get checked out and get another prescription. We caught this one sooner so there were fewer days of unpleasantness.

"Look Miles, an animal that's actually awake. Quick!"

The saving grace of the day, a splash park. He was dry in 2.9 seconds.

Sure, we'll count that as an animal since we haven't seen any real ones yet.

Ahhh, finally, real animals. See the giraffe in the background behind my head? See it???

Another giraffe sighting

Texas....Yee haw!

Miles and I took a trip down to El Paso last week to visit a very good friend of mine from high school and her family. She has a fun 2 year old son and a brand new little girl that we just had to meet.

So we were off!

Airplane backpack....check!

"Mom, what is this thing? I've never come across one of these." "Well son, that's called a PAY PHONE"

The boys had so much fun and it was neat to see them play together. Miles is getting to the stage where he is actually playing with other kids and not just parallel playing. They had a wonderful time the first day and Miles LOVED having a backyard to play in with a "big boy". They got super messy and super tired which was great.

Pals in their PJ's

Boy stuff

And baby girl was just too adorable. She even took a nap on me which was just the best. I love squishy babies.

Everything was going so well. The boys were playing great together, Miles actually ate TWO helpings of mac and cheese for lunch, they all slept at the same time for a little bit giving the mommies time to catch up and then disaster struck. It started at dinner with Miles refusing to eat which is not a new thing, so I wasn't too worried. Then he kept waking up during the night screaming. This is out of character for him. Usually he's a great sleeper but I just thought it was because we were sharing a room and he was in a pack n' play instead of his crib. Well, the next morning he was super clingy (very unlike him), was all around fussy, and was refusing to eat again. He didn't sleep well at nap time and then he was burning up. His temperature got high and out came the Tylenol. Cling fest 2012 continued the rest of the day and I had to make the judgement call to cut our trip short and head back home. Better to have one sick kid quarantined then to get all others sick.

Rare photo of a Miles snuggling with mommy. Poor little guy.

Once we got home I took him to the doctor and he had a double ear infection. Poor kid. Considering this, he did extremely well on both flights. It was sad to cut our trip short but it was the right thing to do. Guess we'll just have to go back again soon!

Thanks K family for hosting us! We had a great time.

Miles with Auntie Jenny before we took off

P.S.- Miles is usually not allowed to have his pacifier unless he is sleeping, but I thought I'd throw a kid a bone since he was miserable. Felt like I had to mention this since he is pictured with it in... oh... almost EVERY shot :)

Mommy pity party... for one

So do you ever have those days when you just feel down right sorry for yourself? You know it's pretty irrational and in the grand scheme of life it's not that big of a deal, but you just allow yourself to have that moment.

Well I had a pity party for myself on Monday this week. Miles and I had gone to visit a good friend and her family in Texas the week before (post coming about that) so that meant I had two plane rides (standby mind you) with a little one which always makes me on edge and is never relaxing. Miles and I happened to get sick while we were there and had to come home early. Went to the doctor and found out he had a double ear infection and a cold. I too was fighting a bad cold. Nick had to work most of last weekend which meant no real break for me from the sick little guy and all I wanted was a little rest to try and fight this cold. So by Monday I was on edge. Miles was cranky and ornery beyond belief. He'd ask for something, then once I gave it to him, he would throw a fit and look at me like I was an idiot for giving him this object and that he clearly didn't want it, so I took it back. Then he would throw another fit wanting it. To top that off he was in "distructo" mode and was going through the house taking everything out of the cabinets and my closet, etc.

Exhibit A:

Finally I just sat down and cried a little. I couldn't understand why I couldn't handle this. I thought of a lot of my friends that handle way more stressful situations; friends with kids who have no family around to help, my friend Shauna that has infant twins and a three year old, parents doing this on their own, having to juggle home and work life. If they could handle it, why couldn't I handle my one child? I also felt terrible that I was feeling so much anger towards my little, helpless baby. I called my mother-in-law in my moment of weakness and she said something that made me feel a little better, "just because it may seem like they are handling it, doesn't mean they are all the time". Ahhhhh. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way but I almost feel guilty feeling this way when I do consider myself very lucky.

So, I'm writing this as a reminder to myself and for others that it's ok to have these feelings.  We all do no matter what our situation is, right? :) If you are reading this and have had these moments, please write me a little note...it sure would help :)

Not a baby anymore...

Well, I finally did it. I had all the clothes that Miles no longer fit into shoved into a container, which was then spewing out of the the container and residing on the floor of his closet. Enough was enough, it was time to properly pack his baby clothes away in hopes that we will get to use them again one day.

So I gathered up all the clothes and started organizing them and putting them into vacuum sealed bags reminiscing about his baby days, which outfits were my favorites, and just how little he was. 

Didn't think I would have gotten so sentimental about it all, but I did and had a little mommy moment on the floor of my living room. Then I pulled myself together and.... SUCKED all the air out of the bags which was, sadly, fun for me.

So now they are neatly put away and I hope and pray we have another one someday that will be able to wear them because this boy had A LOT of cute clothes!

I came across this tag while sorting that just made me laugh. No kidding shirt, could have figured that out on my own.

So my little boy isn't so little anymore and with that comes both sadness and happiness. I love the stage he is at now (although exhausting) where we can play and interact together, but part of me misses those squishy baby days. Then I remember the sleep deprivation and nursing and snap out of it. I guess I'm mostly sad about how fast time is going and I try to remember to cherish each day. Every night I think to myself "did I do everything I could to hold on to today's moments? Did I get too frustrated with him and not remember the sweet little boy moments?" and then I vow to make sure I do the next day...until he does something that makes me frustrated :)

Pretty soon he will be off to work in his suite....

...but I still have some time :)

This and That

There is not too much structure to this post, just wanted to show a few pictures of our little guy and what his day sometimes looks like.

Back in March we had a few weeks where it was above 80 everyday (March, in Chicago?!?!?!) so we took advantage of the nice days and were outside quite a bit. It just gave us a taste of what the summer will be like. Don't worry, the nice weather didn't last and we were back to being in the 40's for awhile.

And this is why the box had to be taken away...he was pushing it across the room and using it as leverage to reach the things out of his reach. TROUBLE!

His first taste of the sweet life. There's no going back buddy!

Is it ok that the truck is pink if he is wearing a superman shirt?

You don't RIDE firetrucks, you CARRY them, silly

First pair of crocs

Just being super cute in his first man chair.

We spent lots of time at the park and eventually he was able to go down the big slide by himself.

Orlando

So, I have a confession to make...I love Disney World. There, I said it, it's out there and now you know. I could go there every year, with or without children, and be ok with that. It's just such a happy place and I LOVED the movies when I was younger (and still do). My friend Julie was surprised that I had seen a recent Disney animated movie when my child is clearly not old enough to sit through a full length movie and I had to confess that I really enjoy those movies and watch them without children :) Having a mother who is a flight attendant and also loves going, meant that we visited probably more then most families.

Nick's parents were able to get a week in January to Orlando through their time share and graciously invited us to come along with them. The happy thoughts immediately started dancing in my head and the idea that we could start those memories with Miles just made my heart happy. Now, I would never dream about taking him to Disney World at this age intentionally, but since we were going to be in Orlando, we HAD to take him. It was are parental duty as I see it.

So we went. We got such a good deal on airfare that we actually bought Miles his own seat and what a great idea that was. I honestly don't know if we can go back to lap flights after this. He did so well.

The flight was right around his nap time so we thought he would sleep through it, but of course he didn't....until literally five minutes before landing. That's ok though, he was a champ and we kept him entertained.

While we were there Auntie Andrea and I took Miles to Sea World while Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa golfed. It was actually pretty chilly that day but we bundled up and made the most of it. Miles really enjoyed the Shamu show and petting the sting rays (which kind of creeped mom out).

Then it was Disney day!!!!!! So I knew I had to lower my expectations a little bit when taking a 13 month old to Disney, but I probably should have lowered them a little more. Don't get me wrong, he did ok, but not what I had in my mind and it was partly my fault. When we walked in we saw some characters and I wanted to get a picture with one for him (like he cared) so we had to wait in line for that.

Then I really wanted to get him one of those souvenir Mickey Mouse ears with his name on it (like he cared) which took a little time.

Because he was a fairly new walker at this point, that is all he wanted to do which we couldn't just let him do around the park. So we had to find someplace he could walk around and explore which meant Tom Sawyer's island. Not that exciting for adults, but he had a good time.

Luckily for the adults, my in laws (who weren't that excited about going to Disney) were going to pick Miles up in the afternoon so he could take his nap and the rest of the adults could hang out as long as we wanted. We wanted to have Miles go on at least one ride before he left, but of course all the little kid friendly rides had such long lines, but we were determined. We chose small world because it had one of the shorter waits. I did not realize that you can not bring your strollers in line with you so we took turns holding a squirmy child. About 20 minutes into waiting they made an announcement that the ride was shutting down and everyone needed to leave. So we walked around and found the shortest line for a ride that he could go on and settled on the tea cups. Now none of the adults do well on spinning rides, so we weren't too thrilled but they actually weren't too bad and we all survived.

So now it was time for Miles to head out and I was a little sad that we hadn't been able to do more rides with him but we did check off a few things that he I wanted to do.

1. Picture with a character....check!
2. Mickey ears....check!
3. Ride...check!
4. Completely stressed out at an amusement park...check!

After he left, Nick, Andrea, and I had a great time reliving some of our childhood memories and we can't wait to take Miles back....when he's a little older.

But I do think my goal of turning Miles into a Mickey lover went over well although I could have killed the sales person in this store for giving him this huge Mickey. The fit that followed was real fun to deal with.

 He had a blast playing in the fountain for a VERY long time but when it came time to go into the pool, he was scared. Go figure.

Dad was very excited to see him with all these legos (dad was a BIG fan when he was a kid). I had a minor heart attack...so many tiny pieces....for a little guy who puts everything in his mouth! Luckily we left without having to do the heimlich.

Playing the "piano" with Grandpa Doc

We had a great time and I can't wait to take him again!

Happy Easter!

This Easter was fun because Miles was able to enjoy and understand some of the festivities of the holiday. He got a little Easter basket and had a good time taking stock of all his loot.

 

Maddie was just making sure there wasn't anything for her in the basket.

We were able to celebrate with my family this year which entailed church and then brunch at Olympia Fields. One of the nice things about going there is that there is a golf course and practices greens for little boys to explore and explore he did!