Her Kind of Town

Amelia is a Chicago gal. She manages to get all over the city during a week's time. First she always travels with an entourage such as Rocky Mountain Bear, Louise and a random bear neither Mark or I swear we have ever seen (note to self ask Jenn if she knows where he came from). This was on her way to the Children's Museum with Jenn.

The girl's network is so large that even out at Midway she runs into people she knows. On our latest plane ride we were greeted at the gate by Amelia's best man Sammy who also happened to be heading to KC for the 4th of July weekend. They had a great time sitting across the aisle from each other, tearing apart skymall and eating each other's snacks.

Friday Amelia traveled to Edison Park to help teach Charlie how to swing. From the left; Charlie, Amelia & Georgia.

Friday night Amelia ventured over to Wicker Park to entertain Anna Wood who was visiting from Minnesota. The girls were very sweet walking home from dinner holding hands while wearing matching pink Crocs. The toddler's dined on French Fries for dinner and us parents enjoyed well behaved little girls and even some adult conversations.



Video: Amelia is a total Wiggleworms groupie. Today the Old Town School of Folk Music celebrated the Wiggleworms 25th anniversary with a full on concert in Welles Park. The Old Town School of Folk music knows how to throw a concert for tykes and their parents; great outdoor setting, toddler friendly time, music that engages toddlers and a beer tent for mom and dad! Her face clearly shows how serious the girl takes her Wiggleworms dancing and that she was not happy with the microphone trouble during "Milkshake."

Beer Me Mama

As a parent it is important to think about the kind of company you have around your children. In June we were lucky to get a lot of QT time with "the girls." Between a weekend at the Klein's lake house and then LB and Mills visiting Chicago Amelia got to hang with the girls lots. I'm bummed we didn't get a photo of all of us girls lounging in the raft at the lake but Amelia definitely enjoyed being "one of the girls."

Once we were back in Chicago things went something like this:

Skip ensured Amelia always had reading material. How can a girl go more than a few hours with her celebrity gossip?

Skip is definitely a hostess with the mostess and always takes such good care of us all. Even Amelia could help herself to Johnny Walker or Tangueray.
Mills brought home banana yogurt which Amelia devoured like dessert. I'm pretty sure it was all sugar.
Mills also encouraged and egged on "creative" projects with the yogurt. In Mills' defense at least she didn't introduce her to Diet Coke but I imagine she will take care of that during her next trip.


As for LB and the title of this blog. I came home from work one day to our home totally turned upside down and LB teaching our toddler to say, "beer me mama."

Happy Dada, Papa and Popper's Day

I feel like a lucky Mama. While it wasn't Mother's Day last weekend I got to spend Father's Day with my dad for the first time in I really don't know how long. And Amelia got to spend it with Dada, Papa and Popper. We kicked-off Papa's trip to Chicago with a visit to the Aquarium. It was free. How cool is that? Oh wait, if you ever think free days are a good time to go to museums in Chicago think again. Then again I imagine the rest of you could have told me what the problem would be with free days. Yes, we were greated to a 2 hour line when we arrived. As if we were going to wait in a 2 hour line in the sun with a toddler. Papa did his best to be positive, I kind of tried to be but Amelia did not hold back on her feelings. With a meltdown imminent I headed to get the car while Papa waited with Amelia in the shade. I came back to a happy girl who was eating her first popsicle! I will give Papa credit for thinking of a way to keep Amelia happy and cool her down. Of course where was Papa when I had to take away the popsicle to get Amelia into her carseat? Right, he was sitting in the car checking e-mail.

and she was able to use the car ride to catch up with friends on her iPhone.

See the nice construction? We have been loving the sewer replacmenet project that has been plauging our street for a couple of weeks now. It really is irritating, loud, dusty and makes our garage hard to get to.

See even Amelia is distraught. HOWEVER the inconvience of the construction doesn't appear to be our biggest problem. Amelia loves watching the work from our window. Jenn was pretty smart and put a little foot stool at the window so Amelia can climb up and watch the workers whenever she feels like it. This seemed like a great idea until Jenn turned around one day and Amelia was facing the construciton workers with her shirt up over her head. The girl loves showing off her belly.

Remember my post about being excited about having guests come? Be careful what you wish for. Papa went back to Arizona and left us with a toddler who now insists on "cheersing" whenever we sit down to dinner. After one round of cheering she will do the sign for "more" while saying, "more cheeeeeeeeeeer." I suppose she is ready for cocktail parties.....

A visit from Papa would not be complete without ample time in the kitchen. I won't scold Papa for having our toddler on the counter and digging through a draw full of kitchen utensiles because I know Auntie M will for me.

The morning of Father's Day took us to Millennium Park where Amelia's favorite part was definitely The Crown Fountain. Now that she can get herself around the freedom to splash in the water is way cooler to her than seeing herself in the bean.

On Father's Day Sunday we had folks over for dinner. Little Miss Sweet Tooth of course loved the dessert. I can't say she ate any of the other food but the dessert did have pineapples in it so that at least counts as a serving of fruit, right?

Why am I posting a blurry photo? Well little miss Wiggleworms wasn't about to sit still when she had Popper, Dada AND Papa all on the couch with her! What a luckily little girl to get to spend Father's Day with her three leading men.

p.s. In case you are wondering why my daughter is wearing nothing but a pair of tight, tie-dyed spandex which her belly doesn't exactly fit in please know I'm thinking the same thing too. All I can say is that it was Father's Day so I didn't get to pick out her outfit.

Summer Kick-Off

We kicked-off summer with a visit from GranAnn and a picnic dinner at Lake Michigan. Although we live within walking distance of the lake and I have now lived here for over seven years this was my mom's first trip to the Chicago beaches.

Our little princess apparently wasn't interested in eating on a picnic blanket and insisted on eating in her little red wagon.

All done! Chocolate cupcakes make a well rounded dinner.

The royal treatment continued with a ride home across the sand from Dada.

Oh wait, since Miss. Amelia sits still for all of about 15 seconds getting a lift from Dada got old very quickly. Type "A" Amelia had to take over (hm, I wonder where she gets that from).

The cops were out in full force over the holiday weekend. Amelia had to put on a straight face and explain to the Cop that all she had was milk and chocolate cupcakes. He let her go.

All Work No Play

Now that Amelia has turned 18-months and summer has arrived we decided she needed a little more direction in her life. She has been very busy with:

forced family photos at the Botanical Garden,

dance parties with G

grocery shopping for the family,

cooking her own meals,
cleaning up trash along Lake Michigan,
getting her morning exercise and
making sure daddy gets his exercise.

House Guests

Apparently if you tell enough people that you really do love having house guests someone is bound to finally give in. In May two people gave in so we were treated to weekends with both Auntie M and Carla. Hm, they both gave Amelia all kinds of attention and left Mark and I with empty wine bottles....

Just in case anyone is wondering Auntie M kind of likes her namesake and so far it looks like the feelings are mutual. The pictures of Auntie M's visit look like the weather was nice but it was really freaking cold so we spent a lot of QT with take out and our pajamas. The girls have to wait until the 4th of July to be together again. Boo hoo. I miss you sister!

Carla is homeless so we took her in last weekend. As she prepares to make her move west she is living out of her suitcase thus we were happy to provide her a comfy floor to spend her weekend on.

It is hard to imagine more fun than Auntie M and Carla but they might get a run for their money. Next weekend brings us GranAnn, rumor has it that Mrs. Duffy is making an appearance in early June AND Father's Day weekend will bring us Papa! Between Grandma and Grandpa Lang being back in Chicago for the summer and our doting (over Amelia at least) house guests I don't think Amelia will be deprived of attention..... In all seriousness we LOVE house guests and bought a larger place for a reason so bring it on.

My First Architecture Baby

The College of DuPage Health and Science's Center aka COD was my first architecture baby. Once at a luncheon one of the speakers explained how watching your first building go up brings you the same joy as your first baby. Well I don't agree with her as a building could NEVER be more rewarding than Ms. Amelia but COD still holds a pretty special place in my life.

I began working on COD when there was nothing more than room square footages on paper and worked on it full time for three years until there was a building to move into. In a way I/we grew up with COD as during my COD tenure Mark graduated law school, passed the bar, clerked for a judge and then moved onto a "real" job and then onto another "real" job. During the time I took my licensing exams and became a legitimate architect. Personally we got engaged, planned a wedding and got married. And finally I continued to make site visits until the Thursday before I had Amelia.

A day does not go by in my professional career in which I don't pull from my COD experience. In summary we have a building the client loves and did some cool sustainable/environmental things with the building which I am proud of. I won't bore you with examples of these lessons as well frankly I realize very few of you actually care to hear architect talk.

As for personal lessons I learned that I am not cut out for suburban Chicago car commutes. Boy was I grumpy when I got home on Thursdays after my 2-hour bumper to bumper commute. Mark as a rule of thumb didn't talk to me until I had had a healthy serving of red wine. I also learned that hard hats on women will NEVER be cute, cool or stylish. Why do they make us wear them? Ms. Hughey Quinn told me once that as long as I didn't wear my phone on a clip on my belt she thought I could still be stylish in the "field". I'm also proud to report that I have never or will never wear my cell phone clipped to my pants.

I am well into my next architecture baby but just got around to saving pictures onto our home computer so I thought I would share.