the glamorous life

Yep, it's about as glamorous as you might think being a stay at home mama to two littles can be.  Especially when Brian goes out of town for 4 days on a fishing trip.  Then things get REALLY glamorous.  Like pack up the car and go visit Gigi and Boppi glamorous.  Oh, those are the fancy names Fletcher calls my parents if you were wondering.  So we went for a visit.  Fletcher loves visiting places, especially if they have fun toys!  And Fletcher was super helpful (I'm sure) with Mom's plantings.  Uh, I'm going to insert a warning here about the plethora of pictures I have.  Sorry.

Fletcher was THIS HAPPY.

And Rowan was this happy.

No, she was happier than she's putting on here.  She just likes to play it cool around her Gigi and Bop.  She also started a reading club with Gigi.  After this they had a very interesting discussion on the author's commentary on life in Green Eggs and Ham.

And then Brian came back from the fishing trip and while he went through eggs-steaks-meats-beers detox, he watched the kids so I could hang out with one of my very best of best friends, Karen.  She lives very far far away, and so I get to see her about once or twice a year.  A sad but true fact.  I will probably see her even less once we move away since we're now not too far from where we grew up.  We went lunching, shopping, dinnering, wine-ing, movie-ing, and then coffeeing the next morning.  It was FUN.  We talked, we laughed, and I felt like my batteries got recharged.  (And I highly recommend Bridesmaids)  Plus the kids LOVED hanging out with Auntie K.  The fact that she brought fun presents probably didn't hurt.  Also, she shares a birthday with Rowan.  How cool is that?

Birthday Buddies

After Auntie K left to go back and hang out with her family, we packed the littles in the car and headed downtown to Chicago.  Fun!  Brian had to drop off his gear for the National Guard.  Goodbye, National Guard!  I will not miss you.  So we waited in the hallway in a dank Armory until we could bust out into the sunshine in Millennium Park.

As we drove up to the amphitheater, Fletcher says, "What IS that??"  He was excited to see it.  And also the bean.

 

But I think his favorite was the face fountain area. 

He made his own faces at them.

And Rowan liked the faces, too.

And then Fletcher tried out the water area...



And then REALLY tried it out.

Until the big kids came splashing through and he got thoroughly splashed.

"I'm ALL WET.  Help me, I'm ALL WET."

Unfortunately, while mama did think ahead to a change of clothes, I did not think ahead to a change of sock and shoes.   So we ended up in the bathrooms with Brian furiously drying out socks and shoes under the windtunnelesque hand driers while Fletcher screamed, "IT'S TOO LOUD, PAPA!!"  I could hear him all the way in the woman's bathroom. 

At this point we met up with Grandma (no fancy names for Brian's parents) who had come downtown on the train.  We stuffed her in the backseat between two tired and squalling littles.  She apparently loves us anyway.  Then she fed Rowan 2 big bottles on the drive back home while we commented, "Wow, she must be so hungry, she never drinks that much."  Yep.  Then we got her out of her seat back home, brought her inside, where she promptly vomited all over me and the floor.  Then she looked up and smiled. 

Like I said, glamorous.