The Park Splashes

Summer is unbelievable this year. It has been so disgustingly humid and hot, as we were in the park, Brian and I just shot out the water from the fountain and let Jack have his day.

The Anticipation

We are about to go on our first family vacation trip by car that lasts more than 2 hours in the car trip.
Jack now realizes that enough is enough when he is in the car for too long. And he does get a little antsy.

I want out? He will say. And please know that he does say this as nicely as possible. And he does say it in the form of a question.

My fear is that he will be growling as soon as we pass by the Sears Theatre on I-90. Sorry, I have no idea in what suburb that is in.
And then when we reach Rockford, he may just growl a bit longer. And when we get to Wisconsin and we stop at a rest stop, it will be over. Because Jack will want to stretch his legs and run around. He is 2 1/2. He doesn't understand the concept of a rest stop yet.

Our end of the journey will be St. Paul. MN, a lovely 7 hours away. I think we have been spoiled this whole time where the most we had to go by car is New Buffalo, MI. And that is only two hours away.
OK, I lied. We did go to Minnesota when Jack was 8 months. But he was so little at that time, that he mostly slept the whole way. So that wasn't a real test for us.
So here we are, on another milestone in Jack's life. I wanted to do a flight to Minnesota, only because I wanted to cheat ourselves and endure just an hour and a half trip for Jack, and delay the 7 hour trip for another time. No such luck.
Wish us luck, one week and counting til the big trip.

The Great Photo

Just because......

The MP3

The great discovery of this weekend is a little thing called the MP3 player.

I wanted to see how Jack would like to listen to something so close to his ear, so I had listen to Pixar's Greatest Movie Songs. ( is there a day that we do not do something Pixar-ish? I don't think so.)

The first song was from Monster's Inc. Jack had this intent look on his face. It was like God himself came down and showed himself in the form of melodies and rhythms. I wasn't sure on where the volume should be placed for a kid his age, so I placed it on the lowest setting possible.

Yet , with that, he still shouted to me over the music saying "This is the song to Monster's Inc!"

I started to laugh and when I came back to the room, I found Jack lying down, listening to the music. He was definitely in a deep trance.

The New Friend.

Wouldn't it be great if Buzz Lightyear really could talk? This was Brian's Buzz Lightyear, back when Toy Story came out, which was 1995? 15 years later, Buzz has found a new home and playmate in Jack.

The Bed

Jack's crib was one that was passed down from Brian's aunt and uncle, Joyce and Rich Yurko. They have four daughters, and all four Yurko cousins have used the crib before Jack. It had a small chest with three drawers attached to it. However , as Jack got older, that chest became somewhat of a climbing device for him. The first time we found him on top of the chest was about 4 months ago. Instead of finding Jack lying in the crib, he was on top of the chest. He knew that was a place that he shouldn't have been on, and his little face was somewhat worried and said "great, now how do I get out of here?" It was then that Brian and I decided to change the crib to a bed. Yes, it took us that long to change the crib. We liked the morning ritual of Jack singing in the crib, and we knew that once it would be a bed, he would just walk into our room and the morning singing would stop. That was something we did not want to lose.
However, it had to be done. That was done on Monday. I thought that I would cry when I would see Jack for the first time on the bed. I didn't. My mind did race to the Ikea catalog, because finally, my son's room can look like one in the photos! And he can be that happy kid that is jumping on his bed, race car bed sheets , with an easel in the corner of his room for the artwork that he will soon start to create. And all because he has a new bed!
He does look like a champ, so big and so grown up in his bed. The first night, we placed pillows on the floor, in case he would do a roll over onto the floor. He didn't.
I went in and out of sleep that night, because I thought that Jack wouldn't be used to the new bed. He slept the whole night.
The second night, his toy cat fell on the floor, and he woke up crying calling out for kitty. I thought "here we go, now the cat is going to fall every night and Jack will know that cat is not with him on the bed. And we will have to get up every hour to get the cat and give it back to him."
The cat only fell once. Jack slept the whole night.
From the pictures, the sheets are not from Ikea, but from Target. The Brian photo was taken by Jack.