Chicago Mama Spot

Getting out of a rut

I am being punished for drinking too much champagne.  I must have compromised my immune system because I caught Sweet Pea's cold.  I am grumpy with a cold.  Luckily for Sweet Pea, today was Papa's day to watch her, so she still had fun.

Isn't it amazing how the weather tricks you into thinking it's getting close to summer.  It's supposed to be cloudy, rainy, and not too warm for the next week.  I was just starting to enjoy my umbrella drinks - it's just not the same when you drinking one while you eat chili.  Of course, I'm laying off while I recover from my cold.

We're in kind of rut over here.  Not summer, not winter.  We're doing the same old classes that we've been doing.  They're fun, but I'm looking for something new.  There's a little toddler soccer class that sounds fun.  The parents get to do it with the kids.  I've always thought it would be fun to join a women's soccer league.  Okay, you're more likely to find me sitting on the couch watching tivo.  But, it sounds fun. 

One of those little ADD symptoms that I have is THINKING that everything sounds fun.  In the past day, I've literally looked at:

Cooking classes here
Mandarin classes here
Soccer classes here
Midnight Yoga here
Knitting here
Flamenco (yes, Flamenco - doesn't it look fun?) here

I mean, what am I thinking?  I spend so much time looking and then I never do any of them.  Maybe this summer, I'll get away from my tivo.   That's one of the mixed blessings of living in a city with lots to do.  If you don't do any of it, you feel a little like you're wasting it.  What looks the most interesting?  I think I'll try to pick one (instead of my usual - jump in with both feet - pick two or three, overcommit and end up doing nothing!)

There I am at my class recital!  We had our honeymoon in Spain and loved the flamenco.  I thought it would be a little corny, but it wasn't, it was fantastic.

Paying the Price

It is no fun being a mommy when you've been a little party girl the night before.  Thankfully, Sweet Pea is a snoozer.  She is still sleeping past 9:00 am.  Today was almost 9:30.  Yes, I drank too much champagne and ate too little for dinner.  I had to fit into my "hot" jeans, right?  Nothing hotter than a "had a little too much drink" girl wobbling around in heels. 

I think all I did today was feed Sweet Pea.  She woke up, we had breakfast.  By the time, we were done it was almost lunchtime.  After lunch, naptime.  She slept until after 4:00 and then, it was almost dinnertime.  Bedtime at 7:00.  How can she sleep so much?  She's has a cold and is getting some teeth in, but still.  She's sleeping like a newborn.

I know this is a very boring post and I'm sorry about that. I'm trying to get my drunk post off the top.  I could delete it, but it seems like cheating.

Envy

We had a fun night out at a surprise party for one of Daddy-O's friends tonight. Great nightclub spot in Chicago.  All I really wanted was his adorable family. 

I want more than just my one little Sweet Pea and it just seems like it's getting harder to accept, the older she gets. 

Venting, venting and venting.

I know I need to get over it and I thank everyone for reading/listening.

As Sweet Pea would say "Boo Hoo Hoo said the baby."  I know I'm lucky as hell to have just one.  Why am I so damn greedy?

xoxo.  (Drunk post?  Yes)

High School Fashion

(Forgive the mis-aligned pictures and text.  I don't know what my problem is, but I can't get it aligned right.)

At least I know I'm not alone.  The warm weather is making my brain stop working. 

This is just the best I can do right now:

They say that your core fashion likes and dislikes are based on what was in style when you grew up - I assume "they" meant high school.  I can't remember where I read about this, but I think it holds true for me. 

Preppy was in when I started high school and I embraced it with my whole little fourteen year-old self.  For a while my dad insisted on calling me Kiki.

Check out my preppy self.  Don't I look happy?  How about that posture?  I'm not sure if you can clearly see the lovely bows all over my head.  After spending what looks like hours with the curling iron, I braided back one side and then just pulled back the other.  So cute, huh?

Again, with the great posture.  I loved the striped polos.  The hair is looking lovely with a french braid down the back.  How chic!

So what's the point of flashing my humiliating pictures for all to see?  I think I'm projecting my high school fashion sense on to my poor Sweet Pea.  Here are a few pictures I took of her this week.  I noticed the similarity in fashion when I was going through some old pictures during my intensive, get organized campaign yesterday.

Hey, plaid just like me.  If only I could get that fine hair into a french braid.

Here's Sweet Pea decked out in whales.  You can't really see them in the picture, but she's covered.  She's checking out her boo-boo and her cool Dora band-aid.  I loved the whole whale theme in high school.  My favorite store was actually called "The Whale."  (It was actually the scene of my one and only shoplifting experience - purple Ralph Lauren crew socks - very embarrassing.)

Later on in high school, I started dating someone who was very into the punk scene.  I hope I don't start dyeing Sweet Pea's hair burgandy and dressing her in black (yes, I went from preppy to burgandy, spiky hair).

It does seem like Sweet Pea is coming up with her own twist on my past.  Last week, she insisted on this look:

Looks like she loves the bows just like her mama did!

I have to say I still lean toward the preppy.  I'm glad it's made a comeback the last few years. There are some big things going on here this summer.  (Is there a topic that isn't blogged about?)

Espadrilles, I've missed you!  I'm so happy you're back in style.

Links and excuses

I've been on some kind of cleaning/organizing/throwing stuff out binge lately.  Daddy-O is out tonight.  It's past 11:00pm and I just sat down.  I've been so busy that I haven't thought of anything I want to say.  Plus, lately I've been so enjoying reading all the blogs out there that I find myself at the end of the night with no Mama Spot post.

So, I thought I'd share a few things I came across today on the news and in blogland.

Before I became the cleaning freak that I've become in the past few weeks, I thought a Roomba might be the answer to my pet hair woes.  Check out the adventures of this Roomba in New York City.

While Daddy-O gave Sweet Pea breakfast, CNN kept talking about this.  It made me uncomfortable just watching the simulation (they wouldn't stop showing it).  Can you imagine traveling this way with a toddler in tow? The company is denying the story, but I'm buying it.

Yet another crib caught my attention.  This one is for the lower tech parents out there who want to save the earth.

I'm off to check out my Bloglines.  I just can't stop!!!

 

Hurt, hurt, hurt

It is just the worst feeling not to be able to fix something for your baby.  Sweet Pea scraped all the skin off of the top of her hand.  I'm not exactly sure how it happened.  Papa was here on Monday and it happened then, but he may not have noticed.  Poor thing woke up once already tonight and as soon as I walked in she said "hurt, hurt, hurt" and held out her little hand.  It's too big for a band-aid and I want it to get some air so it will heal. 

We may try to get her first hair cut tomorrow.  She is all about the mullet right now.  It was absolutely freezing today and rainy, so I pulled out a few hand-me-downs from her cousin that probably won't fit by the time it gets cold again.  She wore the cutest little plaid skirt and red sweater to our Bubbles class today.  Her hair was in little pigtails. If I do say so myself, she looked so cute.  Until she pulled the pigtails out.  The mullet with pigtail marks is not such a great look.  I mean, I still think she's adorable, but she won't be on the cover of Cookie sporting hair like that.

Shopping

I've mentioned more than a few times that I have not really been at my fashion forward best lately.  I honestly haven't bought much in the way of warm weather clothes since before I was pregnant with Sweet Pea.  I didn't really lose my baby weight until right before Sweet Pea turned one and happily, now I'm about 10 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight.

The only clothes that I have that come close to fitting are from five years ago.  Not only do I have no interest in the shorter shorts, etc., that I wore then, the few things that fit are hopelessly out of style.  The worst part is that I have no idea what IS in style now. 

So, Daddy-O suggested that we have a shopping day and that I get one of the free personal shoppers from Nordstrom to help me figure out what the heck the cool moms are wearing.

We scheduled it for last Thursday.  I was kind of nervous beforehand.  I'm not sure quite why, but I was a little intimidated.  When we got there, Daddy-O went to the second floor to get the personal shopper.  I had a picture of what she might look like.  Her name sounded kind of French and sophisticated.

I pictured her looking like this:

or maybe this:














I caught sight of Daddy-O and the woman who was supposed to make me hip & hot coming down the escalator.  NOT quite what I had in mind . . . more of a hmmmmm. . . Julia Child look-alike. 

She was wearing little tennis shoes, limping pretty badly and I wouldn't have put her in the fashionable dressed category.  It was all I could do not to look at Daddy-O because I would have started laughing or maybe crying.  She seemed nice though, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. 

Turns out she was pretty good.  It took a little while to get in sync, but once we did she picked some pretty good things.  I looked mostly at their private label stuff with a few designers thrown in.  There was no pressure to buy and she definitely wanted me to be happy.

I came away with some good buys and a great start on my new wardrobe - a few pairs of summer pants, a few dresses, some basics like t-shirts and a few fun things.  It was really fun and it was nice having Daddy-O there to make me feel like I looked good. 

There were a few odd things about Julia.  One dress I tried on pretty much ruled out any kind of bra, so I asked her what I should do about it.  She said that during the summer, her rule is as little underneath as possible.  Go ahead, look at the picture of Julia holding up that fish again.  Now, imagine her with nothing on underneath.  Exactly.  It's a picture I just can't get out of my head.  Ick.  And, she kept saying it!

All in all, I highly recommend it if you're looking to change your wardrobe.  Their private label stuff is very reasonable - for example, the t-shirts were around $20 and they fit really well. 

I ran across a few quotes while I was looking for a picture of Julia Child. 

"Drama is very important in life.  You have to come on with a bang.  You never want to go out with a whimper."

"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it."

"It's fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day.  That's what human life is all about -- enjoying things."

 

She may not have looked like a model, but she knew how to live.

cool or creepy?

One of the things I loved about being pregnant was checking out all the great baby gear.  Unfortunately (for me, probably not Daddy-O) I had a lot of hand me downs from my sister, so I didn't need much of it.  I loved looking though.  Since my sister is pregnant, I've been occassionally cruising the baby gear sites again.  It's amazing in the two years since Sweet Pea was born, there so much new stuff out there. 

Check this crib out.  It seems kind of creepy to me, but maybe that's just because it's different.  It kind of reminds me of one of those little boxes they put mice in when they conduct those little tests.  Thank godness, it's not a toddler bed or I might spend hours trying to figure out if it's the next big thing.

No raves for Julia

I  am not a huge Julia Roberts fan or anything, but I like the way she stays under the radar.  She isn't one of those celebrities who say they want to be left alone, yet do things that bring out the paparazzi in droves.  So I feel badly for her that she seems to be getting early slams on her Broadway debut.

CNN.com - Julia draws bad reviews for B'way debut - Apr 20, 2006.

Luckily, I won't lose any sleep over it since I'm already an insomniac. 

Neighbor date

So much has transpired in neighbor-land.  Yesterday when we were out on the swingset, Neighbor asked if we wanted to come over for drinks tonight.  Yay!  We're in.  Actually, I was totally normal.  Not too high school.  We had a great time.  I didn't drink too much out of nervousness and we got home at a relatively early hour - not too early, not too late.  They had us and three doors down neighbors over.  It was nice enough that we could sit on the deck.  We had a lot to talk about and there wasn't too much of that uncomfortable "I don't know what to say next" feeling.  Three doors down neighbor and her husband seem really nice too.  She seems almost like the mayor of Bucktown because she knows everything about everyone around here.  We got all kinds of good dirt history on the whole neighborhood. 

Now that we're getting in on things, I'm lstarting to love the suburban feel of the new place.  Hopefully, we don't blow it.  Daddy-O can get a little fed up with the whole scene, so hopefully he stays nice.

Way off topic, we re-stained our deck and so, Charlie couldn't go up the stairs outside until the paint dried.  She wouldn't even come up on the inside from the basement to the first floor.  What is up with that dog?  I can kind of understand the open steps.  It's a little scary when you can see through them (even though Sweet Pea has no problem), but the basement stairs???  They're solid wood.  This dog - she is going to drive me crazy.  On a positive note, after the stain dried, she did go up the stairs near the garage.  There are five or six of them and they are open.  We've had then covered with old rugs, but thought we'd try it without.  She did it.  Baby steps, right?

Happy Weekend!