Month: July 2008

We had a nice time celebrating Auntie Beth’s upcoming nuptials at Grandma’s last weekend (Maeve and her tissue paper!), and then had a busy week around town. Maeve and Mommy went to see Justin Roberts in Millennium Park on our way back into town Sunday and then Maeve had her first trip to our local library on Monday. She is too young to get her own card, but we read many books together and did some puzzles. She is entered in the summer reading challenge and will receive a t-shirt once I read 25 books to her (thanks Nikki for telling us about this!). We read together every day, but she usually only wants to read her favorites, so the trick will be reading 25 different books by the end of this week. We are more than halfway there though so I have no doubt we can achieve it!

Tuesday morning Maeve and Daddy spent time in a new park while Mommy took the rest of our family to the vet (both girls checked out great!). We enjoyed a Wiggleworms pajama party with many of our friends on Tuesday evening in another park. Wednesday and Thursday’s highlights were riding the train – downtown and then to music class. Maeve is such an enthusiastic traveler! Friday morning we had a fun playdate with Leilani and her daughter Olivia – who can beat chocolate ice cream at breakfast?!

This weekend is action-packed too with a trip to the Shedd Aquarium Saturday morning and our friend Mia’s 2nd birthday party in the afternoon. Sunday we are hoping to get back to the Skokie pool with the Steeves family! We are jealous that Nanna and Grandad are touring in Italy this week – I can just see them cruising around in a gondola now…

Maeve is getting more and more coordinated and is getting both feet off the ground when she jumps now. She loves to jump off the little ledges in our house and in doorways along the sidewalk when we are out walking. Unfortunately, when she gets tired she tends to fall down more and this week’s mishaps resulted in another bad knee scrape and a split lip (Daddy came to the rescue with a popsicle!). Our favorite new Maeve phrase is “oh gr-eat!” where great sounds like two words. She uses this a lot when pretending to talk on the phone or when she does something that she thinks was a great idea…hilarious! Maeve, our little artist, did a beautiful painting this week too. Photos are slowly but surely being added to the gallery.

Daddy put together Maeve’s new play kitchen this weekend and it is a big hit! In fact, last night Maeve cried when we told her she had to stop playing kitchen because it was time for bed. She says “chicken” though which is adorable. When we got home this afternoon from a fun morning playing in the Millennium Park fountains with our friend Mia, she walked in and saw the kitchen and exclaimed “oh boy!”

Maeve also has zeroed in on some favorite books and shows. She was hooked on the Neighborhood Animals Baby Einstein video (much to my dismay, although I do like how it shows real animals most of the time) and now has gone back to a prior fav – That Baby DVD which has contemporary music with hopeful messages (Christine McVie, Natalie Merchant) and pictures of kids singing and dancing. It has a companion CD that we listen too all the time in the car, but the DVD is such fun to watch. She is off Elmo and Dora, which is ok by me for now! She requests several books before nap and bed time, so we are reading 4 or 5 now as part of our routine. The current favorite book is Binky, which Maeve will sit and read out loud to herself – we think it is from memory and not her actually reading it, but she turns the pages at the right time!

This afternoon consisted of two favorites – Maeve stopped several times on our way to the store to bend down and kiss her shadow on the ground. She also waved to it! This is a big improvement since it was just a couple of weeks ago that she discovered her shadow and was afraid of it. She loves oranges, so we bought one at the store and she carried it all the way home, kissing it several times. She only dropped it twice!

It’s supposed to stay hot this week, so we’ll likely be back at the pool or in the baby pool in the backyard most days… We were invited to try a My Gym program with a friend from playgroup too, so we’ll do that before music on Thursday. We are looking forward to a trip to Grandma’s this weekend for Auntie Beth’s bridal shower too! Is Maeve really going to be 22 months old already???

We’ve had such a busy week with many fun adventures – and a couple of bonks on the head. Independence weekend was filled with many family activities, but the highlight for Maeve likely was riding the child-sized train again at the Zoo! She hasn’t stopped talking about the green choo choo car she rode in… We rode the big train downtown on Tuesday too, with a visit to my old office followed by a trip to Millennium Park to listen to music and read books.

We’ve been back to the wonderful pool we found in Skokie and Maeve practiced swimming while lying on her tummy in the shallow water (followed by a big spill that resulted in the first goose egg on her head). We had more water time in Friday’s heat with a trip to Foster Beach with our playgroup and a pool party with our neighbors Efa and Finn and our friend Olivia in the backyard (where the 2nd goose egg was formed).

Sadly our Marquette rendezvous this week was cancelled… We are disappointed, but we are enjoying the Chicago summer weather and making alternate bbq plans closer to home. We are attending one tomorrow and another one possibly on Sunday. Also, fresh off his win at the ginger cookoff last month, Chris is a last-minute entry in a bbq sauce contest tonight at our neighbors’ so wish him luck (7/4 update – he won by a landslide even though neither of us voted for his sauce – congrats are in order again for the master chef!)

We had a fun outing to Ms. Julie’s year-end music class last weekend with Grandma, and Maeve is enjoying being back in Ms. Tisa’s music class for the summer. The highlight of this week was the glorious morning Maeve and I spent at a new pool in Skokie yesterday. We went with our friends Sarah and Olivia and the girls had so much fun splashing in the zero-depth (like a beach!) toddler end of the pool. I couldn’t resist an urban photo shoot this morning as Maeve and I did some shopping after music class in Lincoln Square (photos in the gallery). Little Miss Independent was working hard on her jumping skills today!

We are gearing up for a 4th of July parade in the park tomorrow morning and a patriotic celebration at the Andersons’ home in the afternoon. We hope to fill the rest of the weekend with additional fun outdoor activities like the Zoo, the Green City market, and we may even get back to that great pool! Happy 4th of July and have a safe and fun weekend…