July 6th - Week 12 - movies, new friends, the beach and BBQ

We had a long trip back from lake of the Ozarks. You know mom and dad's life has changed when they voluntarily get up at 5:30am to get on the road. I did pretty good for them though. I slept the first 2 1/2 hours and once mom fed me in the Wendy's parking lot, I was out again until we pulled off the exit in Bloomington. We did have to make one pit stop between Bloomington and Chicago when I got a little fussy, but overall I was a trooper! I got to see Grandma Etcheson 2 days in a row this week because she came up for another visit on Monday. She babysat me while mom went to her follow-up dermotologist appointment. Uncle Matt finally convinced her to get her moles checked out. It was a good thing too..mom had to have 4 moles removed, one of which was pre-cancerous. She received sign-off from the doctor today that all the pre-cancerous cells had been removed so Grandma took mom to the Cubs game to celebrate. Grandma had won great seats on the radio and the Cubs came through with a victory!

On Tuesday, we went to our very first movie - The Hangover. Each Tuesday, there are movies that you can take kids to. Mom's are welcome to feed us, walk us in the isle if we're fussy and bring the strollers right into the theater. There were probably only 20 people in the entire place so there was plenty of room to stretch out. We met mom's friend Mindy and Alice from her water aerobics class there. Mindy's little girl, Riley was less than 2 weeks old. Alice's son Ben was about 6 weeks, so I was the oldest kid in the group. I wasn't fussy at all and didn't even spit up on mom after she fed me my bottle!

Mom is amazed at how much more observant I'm becoming of everything around me. On Wednesday when she put me in my car seat, I noticed my yellow lion for the first time. I smiled, talked and flirted with my new friend for 8 straight minutes. If mom was more on top of her game, she would have captured a video but I was just so cute, she couldn't take her eyes off me! She did snap a few shots on her phone to send to daddy since he wasn't at home to see me in person!


On Thursday we went downtown to watch dad run in the Bastille day race with some of his friends from work. He did great in his race and then I made my first trip over to Greek-town for dinner. It's great having so many outdoor restaurants in the city so mom and dad can still go out with me!

I've been giving mom quite a hard time when she tries to do tummy time with me. I hate it. If she leaves me on my stomach more than 5 minutes, I get so mad there's nothing they can do to calm me down. Mom and dad did find a trick though...the hair dryer. No matter how mad I am, when you turn that hair dryer on, I go into a zone. Mom's heard the sound of the hair dryer is very similar to the sound that I heard in the womb..I don't know if that's really the case but either way, it works.

Over the weekend, I made my first trip to the beach. Aunt Beth was playing in a beach volley ball tournament so we walked down to see her. Her team ended up getting 3rd place in tournament and we got to take some great pictures of the skyline! It's summer days like this that remind you why you put up with the Chicago winters! After we hit the beach, I got to experience my first Chicago beer garden!
Dad's friends Jove and Meg both graduated from graduate school and we went to celebrate with them. They picked a great venue - Cody's bar. It has a huge outdoor patio with grills, darts and bags game. Daddy's friends brought their kids as well - Baby Maria and Baby Alexa were there to play with. We were all laughing about how different this summer was to our previous summer's in the city. We also got to catch-up with daddy's friend Mike Yang. He lives out in Aspen with his wife Kathy. Mom and dad took a trip out to visit them during the ski season in 2007. Mike was able to find a cheap last minute flight to surprise the Taino's at their graduation party and they gave me the cutest outfit from baby gap!