Another Big Family Weekend

Well, we did it again, the WHOLE family got together this week, and as usual, it was crazy, crazy fun of course! My sis came into town on Tuesday evening and spent the whole weekend up here. The kids were in absolute heaven when they were together!

We spent a lot of time at Jido and Nunna’s house and Uncle Tarek and Aunt Ola’s pool. Know what that means? No time at my house, kidding, I love having my fam over, and for the record we did spend some time at my house, at least my sis and her kids did.

I was really proud of Z in the pool. He was not afraid to float around with his floaties and even started warming up to jumping off the sides, baby steps…

Private lessons start this Friday, so we’ll see how that goes…

Then Saturday, we had Jude’s party at our second home Treetop Family Adventure.

The kids played lazer tag, which considering their love for guns and shooting bad guys was awesome! Then they did the go carts. Also, awesome. I love watching and photographing go carts, because the adults always look like they are having the best time!

Then we had pizza (treetop’s finest, which is really is great!) and cake! Fun times for all and Lu loved the pizza.

My sister’s son turned 4 in June, so we celebrated his b’day too.

Our attempts at family photos. Lu looking away and Z fake smiling so he can hurry up and go play.

It was so fun, and as usual Z was too hyped up on sugar and excitement to nap when we got home, but oh well.

Little Kid Problems

Little kids have problems too. They have no control over what they are going to do from one day to the next. They don’t know where they’re going or what their parents have signed them up for. There is no better example of this for me or for Z that the following.

Swim lessons. We talked up swim lessons to Z, but he had no idea what they were going to entail, now two lessons in, he knows, and he wants nothing to do with it. We even heard him saying in his sleep, but I don’t want to go to swim with teachers….

Soccer. There is a neat little soccer program at school that Z has been participating in for the past year or so. I had thought I would give him a break for the summer, since it’s hot, etc. Then, the day before the first lesson, he saw the paperwork in his cubby and started talking about it, like for sure he was going to be going. Mom guilt kicked in, and I started picturing him sitting in class when the soccer guys came in, thinking he’d be going and them telling him, nope sorry you’re not in this time, your mom didn’t sign you up… So, I did what any crazy person good parent would do, I called and got him enrolled at the last minute, and how does he show his appreciation? Tells me he doesn’t want to do it!! This very morning, he said “I want to stay in the classroom, I don’t want to go to Soccer Shots.” Perfect.

Z has gotten pretty good at coping with this lack of control by eventually giving in and saying “Ohh-K, I’ll do x, y. or z” as in:

“Ohh-K, I’ll go to soccer shots, eat my cookie after dinner, wear my sandals, drink out of my blue cup instead of my red cup.” You know, really important stuff.

He’ll be going back to swim lessons and he’ll be doing soccer shots, because that’s what being a kid is all about, doing stuff you don’t want to do.

Incidentally, Z really warmed up to the baby pool and did pretty well in the big pool with us when we went back on Sunday. And Lu loved it!

Weekend Away

About a month ago Nick informed me that he would likely be needing to go to a conference in Chicago for work in June. He half-jokingly suggested that I come along so we could check out RPM Italian, you know because me and G are tight. I really didn’t think it would be possible, so I didn’t do anything immediately, then we started talking more about it, and mom and dad offered to babysit, so we decided to go for it.

I’ll admit it took some convincing, but we were seriously overdue for a little time away. We left Saturday afternoon, which was kinda great, because I still had my Friday and we got to spend most of Saturday with the kids before we had to leave.

Saturday morning Z had his first group swim lesson. He has gotten back his fear of the water this year, so I am going to try and do as many lessons as we can. There were some kids there that were doing so well, it was encouraging to think we could get there.

We loved the teachers at the Y, they were so encouraging and sweet to Z. Can’t wait for more!

After swim lessons, Nick took him fishing with his new Star Wars fishing pole, and he caught a fish!

Can you tell we were trying to soak it up before we left? (especially Nick because we was going to be gone till Wednesday, I was coming back Monday).

We put the kids down for their naps, and headed to the airport. The plane ride was SO easy. I forgot how easy it is without 1 or 2 children squirming around threatening to freak out every second of the ride! It was 2 hours, but it might as well have been 30 minutes! We arrived, changed, and went straight down to Michigan Avenue (our hotel was right off of it). Nick ran into one of his friends from college, who told him another of his friends was in the city that night, so that was really cool. After we talked with them for a bit, we went to our late reservation at Capital Grill, where we had a massive steak dinner. It was too much a lot of food, but we enjoyed it.

On the way back, we stopped on the bridge where they were shooting fireworks. It was beautiful!

Sunday, we got up and had a nice breakfast buffet, which held us over for a day of shopping. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get a lot because I only had a carry-on bag, but it was fine. I just bought small stuff #winkwink.

We walked down the Navy Pier and took in the sights. The weather was great!

Sunday night was our 9 o’clock reservation at RPM. That was the earliest we could get and we booked a month in advance! Crazy! I was bummed because (according to her twitter) G was in Chi-town on Saturday, but I think she left on Sunday, so no sightings for us, but the restaurant was super cool! Great vibe, really good food, and just all around fab. We spent most of the dinner coming up with a clever tweet that we thought she might retweet (I’m not even kidding), but she didn’t.

We did have their famous Brussel sprout salad (delish!) and Mama DePandi’s pasta and meatballs, among other things and this wonderful hazelnut ice cream wrapped in a ganoche shell for dessert. It was tre fab, and not that pricey, suprisingly.

Monday we walked and shopped a little more, just to get some fresh air, before I had to be in airports and airplanes the rest of the afternoon. And listen, I know there’s a lot more to Chicago than eating and shopping, but hey, that’s how I chose to spend my two short days, so don’t judge, kidding, but Nick did discover a lot more coolness in Chicago after I left, but since my main day was Sunday there just wasn’t much going on. We’ll have a lot more to see the next time we go (maybe with the kids!).

We got lots of updates about the kids, most were really great, some were at 9 or 10 and mentioned nothing about beds, but Z had the BEST time with his cousins. I could tell he was so happy, and Miss Lu was getting the royal treatment from my mom, so she was very happy!

So, even though they didn’t follow any of the detailed instructions I gave, or the schedule I wrote out, the kids had fun and that’s what matters.  That’s what I’ll tell myself anyway!

They actually did really great, and Z was fine until bedtime or when he would get in trouble for anything, then he would cry for me/us. Mom said it was pretty pitiful, but he got over it. He was so exhausted from the no nap and late bedtime that he had no choice but to fall asleep eventually.

We had a great time, but we were both so happy to get home and pretty sure we won’t be leaving them again anytime soon.