i scream, you scream

we have several ice cream trucks that have been traveling through our neighborhood recently. e hears the music and gets really excited, in spite of the fact that she doesn't always love ice cream. last weekend scott took her to the park and told her they would get ice cream if they happened to hear/see the truck. unfortunately, they didn't run into him. e was sad and disappointed.

for the next few days it was rainy, so all was silent on the ice cream front. friday afternoon, the tides changed. i was in the living room and heard the magic music. being a woman that rarely carries cash, i knew i had to act and think fast. suddenly, i remembered that i had $2 on my dresser upstairs. i dashed to retrieve it before calling for e as i didn't want to get her hopes up (in the event that we missed the truck). e heard the music as i was dashing down the stairs waiving my money. together we headed out the front door (abandoning poor d in the house). we took off down the street and found him at the corner. after analyzing his stock, e settled on a popsicle. she was a bit intimidated, but paid the vendor and walked off happily with her treat.

i would also like to report two things.

1. somehow, in the midst of the furry, i remembered to grab my camera that was sitting right by the front door.

2. e never ate the popsicle. she put it in a bowl and let the poor thing melt. i kept telling her this would happen and tried to encourage her to eat it, but e is e and wouldn't budge.

delaney

i feel like d gets left out of the blogging a lot. she's so laid back, she just comes along for the ride and let's e take the front seat. her chubby roles are edible, her laid back nature is refreshing and her little laugh (at anything big sister does) is intoxicating. and in case you were wondering, she's still into her toes. she's proving to be quite flexible and now uses them as a teether.

s'mores

last fall we bought a chiminea for our housewarming party. at the last minute, both scott and i thought it might make a nice activity for the kids if they started getting restless. i can't recall if it served its purpose for the party, but it got a lot of mileage in the weeks that followed. e, never having had a s'more, fell in love. and so for the rest of the fall and into the early winter we would build a little fire in the chiminea every saturday evening and make a s'more for each of us. it was a nice little ritual that all three of us looked forward to each week.

tonight we kicked off s'mores season. it was just as good as i remembered it... watching daddy and daughter bond over gooey marshmallows and melted chocolate. it's the little things in life, isn't it, that make it so sweet!

if you're in need of some ooey goodness, stop by any saturday evening around 7ish. we'll be out back.

mrs. cristoff

e had her spring performance today at school. we were worried about her because she didn't quite make it through the winter one. somewhere between song 3 and 5 she started loosing her grip and burst into tears. as it turned out, the babe had to go potty and didn't know how she was going to get herself there. a tear down the cheek did wonders and sent her daddy flying to her side to rescue her (momma had her arms full of newborn d).

but that was a few months ago and months in the life of a toddler can make all the difference. today, my little muffin sang her heart out for most of the songs, and yawned through a few she didn't care for. she had a little solo of sorts and did her momma proud. the theme for the show was weather. they sang songs about clouds, rainbows, picnics, and ducks. it was quite a show! i sat in my little toddler chair watching the performance thinking about the process of getting it all together. e's teacher and the classroom assistant are amazing. i'd love to be a fly on the wall during the weeks that lead up to the performance.

at the end of the show we learned some sad news. our highly regarded mrs. cristoff, first ever teacher of e, is retiring after 35 years of teaching. e and i have grown to love this woman. she is old school and has a heart of gold. almost weekly she tells me just how much she loves ellie and that ellie is such a special gift to her classroom. my heart melts every time she tells me that and little e gets a grin from ear to ear. it does wonders for both of us.

at the end of the day, scott and i were chatting. we started thinking about this beautiful teacher and realized that she has been teaching long enough to have been OUR preschool teacher! that is a REALLY long time in the classroom and that is a lot of lucky little toddlers along the way. i can imagine that this woman makes all of her student's parents feel the way she makes me feel.

love alone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYQ8RWYPw5Y

i love this band. they touch my heart song after song, inspire me, humble me and cause me to drop down on my knees before my maker. i heard this song a few weeks ago and can't seem to get it off my heart. the trials that our world is standing in the middle of grieve me.

i'm in the middle of some big transformations of my mind. i'm being challenged in the way that i think and am having to go back to things that i've always believed to be true and rethink them. it's a strange place to be in but i know that i am standing right where God wants me to be- questioning my belief system and checking to see if it is in alignment with His.

and while this is happening to me, the world around me is spinning with all kinds of trauma of its own- war, hunger, loneliness, emptiness, abuse, violence, toxicity, lies, disbelief... it's a lot for all of us to process.

i'm not sure that i even have a point with this entry. just enjoy the song. maybe it will make you look toward heaven to the only hope and true love that can transform us.

mischief

our dear friends paul and kristie are moving to our neighborhood, provided they sell their condo. (if you know of anyone looking to buy an awesome vintage condo on the north side, let me know.) anyways, they put an offer in on a house and had their inspection today. we watched their kids while they were at the inspection. they arrived at our house at nine and played fabulously for three hours. it is always nice when you have play dates where your kids play without incident.

and then... there was incident.

things had been eerily quiet for a few seconds and i could just tell they were up to no good. i went into our front living room where they were playing to discover the three of them hiding under my console table. they looked guilty. all three of them tried to play it cool. but they are little and they haven't had much experience in mischief making yet.

i asked what they were doing and they all just smiled and laughed (dead give away). e, who is usually pretty truthful, blurted out. "i was coloring on the wall." i looked around and discovered a few blue lines on the wall and a piece of chalk on the floor beneath the artwork. cayden, about to burst with guilt blurted out, "makenna colored too." a few moments of silence passed and then, "and so did i". apparently these two little ones have a passion for honesty, too:)

i sent cayden and makenna to sit on the stairs and sent e to bathroom (where punishment takes place in our household). first, i went into the bathroom to take care of e and then i had a chat with cayden and makenna. they were all very receptive to our chat. they all knew that coloring on the wall was wrong, they were receptive to the idea that being a leader for what is right is more important than going along with the group. we talked about Jesus and how much he desires for us to obey and we talked about forgiveness for the times when we've missed the mark. i told them that i was proud of them for telling the truth, but disappointed in their choice to do something that they knew was naughty. all three accepted responsibility and said they were sorry and thus, reconciliation was complete.

i then handed each of them a sponge. being little, i didn't have high hopes for them to actually clean the mess, but i knew they needed to help. the four of us went to the living room and started scrubbing. when it looked like the mess was cleaned up i began to collect the sponges. cayden stopped me and said, "but what about the playroom?". the playroom????

i turned the corner to discover that on every wall of the playroom were chalk drawings. BIG chalk drawings! needless to say, the sponges were not collected. i think they might have had a little bit too much fun cleaning up the mess. moments before paul and kristie returned, i went to get scott. i felt like i needed to hammer home the message that wall drawings were naughty and that this wasn't a game. (if you look at the picture you can tell e is way too excited with this activity.)

after they left, e divulged that the whole plan had been her idea. all in all, there was really no major harm done (we're planning on painting the walls anyway), but the truths that they gained were valuable. i think all three of them walked away having learned a few lessons. hopefully, the lessons stick and if not, i hope they stick with chalk as their medium.

ready for planting

it was another grueling weekend for scott. he hauled 20 cubic feet of organic soil from home depot to my garden. it is beautiful! (i know, getting excited over dirt sounds a bit crazy, but i've never had a real garden in my entire life. my mom grew rhubarb plants and that's it.)

thank you, honey! i promise to do my best at growing some veggies for you and our family. i can't promise that the bunnies won't eat everything, but i'll give it my best effort:)

*above is scott, doing his best at humoring me. he's not a big fan of being in photos like this one, but he did it because he knows blogging is important to me. ahhh, what a good man!

arf arf

we got a dog.

not a real dog, but a loaner from e's pre-school class. the teacher has a stuffed clifford dog that she sends home with each of the kids for a few days. e has been talking about clifford for weeks. when her teacher introduced the dog to the kids a few months back, e went to school hopeful every day. after a few weeks of still not getting a turn, her optimism turned to despair. each day she would tell me who the lucky soul was that had been granted possession of clifford and each day her heart would sink a little deeper. although i was sad for her, i knew this was a good real life lesson in patience. and sure enough, her patience paid off!

on tuesday she came bursting out the school doors carrying the coveted basket that contained clifford. she was beaming! as soon as we arrived home she went through the contents of the basket and showed me the ropes. clifford comes with a food bowl, bone, brush, two clifford story books, a towel, and a notebook. each caretaker is to fill out a page to put into the notebook before returning him to school. it was quite adorable. we read through the pages of the book and learned about all of clifford's exciting adventures. many of the entries even included pictures.

it just so happened that we had scheduled a play date in the city for one of the days we were taking care of clifford. and it just so happens that this particular friend (cayden) has a clifford lovie. e was so excited to bring clifford with her to the play date to show him off to cayden and cayden's clifford.

as we were leaving the city, e was showing clifford all of the sights that we pass on our way out of city. i happened to have my camera on the seat of the car, so we were able to get some drive-by photos of clifford by buckingham fountain and clifford by the sears tower. e was pretty excited to return clifford to school with her photos and was very proud of her accomplishment of having provided clifford with an exciting visit.

once upon a time i taught kindergarten. i did this same activity with my students and always loved reading the entries that each family sent back for the doggie notebook. but i must say, i never really knew how cool this was for each of my students. having seen it from the perspective of a mom was pretty amazing. e's quite young, but i think she might remember this one for years to come.

building day

we have a little plot of soil between some arborvitae that we planted and the alley behind our house. it is the sunniest spot in our very shaded lawn, so i thought it would make a good spot for a garden. as i started planning it out, scott discovered that my soil was a bit more like rock- not so good for growing.

scott, the good husband that he is, agreed to make me a raised bed that i can fill with soil, solving my rock dilemma. he also put in a watering system underneath the bed to help use run-off water to quench my produce in the hot summer sun. the project was pretty grueling, as he had to dig through the rock to lay the watering system.

my mom has a really green thumb. somehow, mine is not. hopefully scott's labor will not be in vain and hopefully i'll be able to show you my bounty in a couple of months.

happy mother's day

since my blog title is in fact "diary of a suburban momma", i feel it fitting to pause and give a shout out to all of the mommas out there. to suburban, urban and rural mommas of the world, i love you and am thankful for the many hats that you wear on a daily basis.

i keep thinking about our impact on the world- the media is buzzing with all kinds of ways in which we leave our mar with the ways in which we live our lives- through fuel consumption, recycling, consumerism etc. and while i believe all of these things to be largely significant, the critical impact that we have on the world is demonstrated by how we live our lives. as mothers, we have the ability to love like there is no tomorrow, to listen as if each word were the last we would hear, and to encourage like mother theresa. do this! do this with other mommas, with your children and your friends children, and with your husbands. if we have any say in our imprint on the planet, let it be an imprint of love.

happy mothers day!

he loves me

and while ellie was busy being a pirate, i fell in love with my husband all over again. the first year of a new baby in the house can put a lot of distance between husband and wife. scott and i certainly felt this disconnect when e was born, and again have felt it with the birth of d. the chasm isn't as great the second time around. maybe because we knew what to expect and tried to carve out couple time. but it's still there. we both have spent a lot of time in the past months just missing one another, in spite of the fact that we see each other every day.

vacation was a wonderful opportunity to reconnect. we were able to just sit and chat each night after putting the girls to bed. our conversation was like a meandering river and we could just take it where it went. there wasn't a rush to get through a conversation or any agenda to flesh out. and while i love my husband every day and recognize what a gift he is, these conversations reminded me of our courtship. when i fell for scott, these conversations were the root for the love i felt for him. i love to hear his ideas, his thoughts on politics, his interesting interpretations of things.

i return home with a full heart and the knowledge that even when we feel distracted and pulled in a hundred directions our hearts our very connected.

*the picture isn't very good but considering i took it myself, it could be a lot worse.

we went to the beach last week, and while there, ellie became obsessed with pirates. throughout the vacation she collected pirate related things- an eye patch, a pirate hat, shells, shark teeth, a treasure box etc. we had a wonderful time together as a family and got some much needed relaxation and rest. it's amazing how salty air and lapping waves can soothe the soul and leave you feeling rejuvenated. although i'm still getting up with d two or three times a night, this vacation gave me the umph that i needed to get over the lack of sleep hump and push me forward till that little babe decides she is ready to pull an all nighter (in the crib).

5 days and counting

d hasn't let go yet! i kid you not, if the babe is awake, she's reaching for those toes. i think she might even be waking up in the night to make sure that they are still there.

bff

ellie was walking by my "office" (a little table in the hall) this morning and saw some stamps. she brought them to me and asked me if she could use them to play stickers. the teacher in me decided to seize this teachable moment and explain the united states postal system to her. after we talked about the mailing process she decided she wanted to write her friend payton a note. we found a note card, drew a picture and then my little love bug wrote "love ellie" at the bottom of her card. she sealed her envelope and placed the stamp properly in the upper right-hand corner (almost). it was an exciting moment in the life of my little 3 year old. it was also a little bit sad- payton is her best friend and e misses her terribly. the girls met when they were 4 months old and have been bff ever since. we used to see each other weekly, but the burbs and preschool have made it much more difficult.

above is a snap taken of payton and e last summer having a tea party. they have seen each other more recently, but e and i love the memory of this day and speak of it often. i also made e pose as she prepared her little note.

this little piggy went to market

our little d is growing so fast. this week she discovered her toes. once she found 'em, i think she was scared to loose 'em. she has hardly let go! she even got a little miffed with me today because i needed her to let go for just the briefest moment in order to get her leg into her pants. she's been showing her toes off around town, too. i had a dr's appointment today and when the doctor paused to say "hello" to her, she reached down and grabbed hold of the one that had roast beef. later in the day we were in a store and the salesman stooped down to check her out. wouldn't you know it, she showed him both of the ones that went to market.

requiem

on saturday evening, my mom and i went to see a performance of requiem by hector belioz at wheaton college. the guest conductor, john nelson, graduated from wheaton with my mom in 1963. while the symphony isn't my favorite performance to see, this one was quite spectacular. watching mr. nelson conduct helped me develop a new found appreciation for this art form. he conducts with his whole being. his entire body goes into the piece. as i watched him, i kept thinking that if one were deaf, he would be the conductor to watch. his physical interaction with the piece allowed you to "hear" the music just by watching his body.

the piece that was performed is a mass for the dead. they collaborated with niu students and dedicated the performance to those that lost their lives earlier this year. it was quite moving.

i found the second movement to be my favorite. the theme of this part was judgment and without judgment, it is hard to come to peace with what happened on that campus. for me, the belief in a just god helps me to rest in the fact that God will not let senseless acts like this go unpunished.

the above picture is of my mom in the side yard by the chapel. she doesn't get to visit her alma mater often, so cherishes the times when she does.

organic foods

when i became pregnant with e, scott and i switched over to eating mostly organic foods. originally, we didn't feel a huge impact on our wallet. since then, organic food has gotten pretty pricey due to the trendiness of it as well as the increase in the price of gas to get it to my local grocery. here is a pretty handy list of the top 12 things to eat organically grown and the bottom 10- where you can save $ by eating conventionally grown and are exposed to minimal risks from pesticides.

buy organic:
1. beef
2. milk/dairy
3. coffee
4. peaches
5. apples
6. bell peppers
7. celery
8. strawberries
9. lettuce
10. grapes
11. potatoes
12. tomatoes

corner cutters (ok to buy conventionally grown to save $):
1. asparagus
2. avocados
3. bananas
4. broccoli
5. cabbag
6. kiwi
7. mango
8. onions
9. papaya
10. pineapple

a blast from the past

today our adventure was to travel a little ways south of us and check out the historic district of orland park. there is a block of many antique stores to peruse. believe it or not, ellie really likes antique stores. she has specific things that she hunts for and then plays with them using great care to be gentle.

growing up my grandparents owned an antique shop. it was their hobby to carry them through the retirement phase of life. they traveled to several shows across the country and then ran a shop that was attached to their garage. as a little girl this was part of my play space when visiting them. i can remember going out to the shop and playing store with my sisters and cousins. i gravitated towards the jewelry case trying on fancy rings and pocket watches. i can't explain what it was, but holding a pocket watch was magical to me. something about the silkiness of the metal and the weight of the piece while you help time in the palm of your hand. i can't explain it, but it was special to me.

taking my girls into a replica of my childhood play space feels like a right of passage to me and i adore watching ellie enjoy this as much as i did. i hope that it continues for years to come. it was also fun to watch my mom in her hunt. she loves antique stores, too. every time she visits she is on a hunt for something specific. last year it was a bedside wooden turned candle, this year it was a transfer plate. she found what she was looking for, so our trip was a success.

jane addams

sandy has been dying to go to the jane addams hull house museum for quite some time. on her last two visits to chicago, the museum was closed for summer and for renovations. i expected to find another reason for it to be closed this year, but was excited to discover that it was wide open.

maybe the past two years of it being closed increased to our expectations of this museum (you really want what you can't have), but i must say, the museum failed to deliver. it is a fancy house smack dab in the center of the uic campus. and while it had lots of artifacts, it was lacking in substantial information. i walked through the rooms and read the descriptions of each item- searching for clues about jane or hull house, but was met with a lot of unclear information.

it was disappointing, because from what i saw, i think jane might have been pretty amazing. and i also think that hull house had a very kipp (knowledge is power program, the school that i worked for before having e) mentality that i most likely would have connected with. but the museum did very little to connect the dots and create a clear understanding of how hull house operated and the role that jane played in the project.

what was clear though, was that jane's mentality was met with a considerable amount of resistance in her day. she stood up for her beliefs (anti-war, member of the NAACP, member of the ACLU, fought for the women's right to vote in illinois, pro education of minorities, pro equal pay and fair work conditions etc.). these are the things that people initially feared her for and then later recognized as valuable (awarding her a noble peace prize). her spirit inspired my rebellious side- the side of me that gets all stirred up when i think of how poor children are neglected, or how the elderly are medically neglected etc.

i'd like to say that i'm going to get to the bottom of this woman and really read up on who she was. truth be told, i don't have much time for reading these days. the last book i read took me about three months from start to finish, and it wasn't even a challenging read. these days, reading us weekly feels like an accomplishment. if you know anything about jane addams, please share:)

i'd also like to report that we ate lunch in the uic student center. it was an out of body experience. i was surrounded by all these kids chatting about the great party they went to over the weekend or commiserating about a professors upcoming exam etc. i started to get excited- to get that college campus enthusiasm running through my veins... and then i looked around and realized that i was eating lunch with my mom (not cool), was wiping my three year old's nose (gross) and breastfeeding my infant under a blanket (REALLY uncool). the wind flew right out of my sails. to make matters worse, i ran into one of my cool friends on the way out of the building who really is a young hip uic student. ahh... to be cool again!

grand dukes

yesterday we spent the afternoon watching the masters. it made me miss georgia even more than i already do. here is ellie perfecting her golf skills and getting tips from the pros.

in addition, my mom is visiting from virginia. she makes the trip about once a year and when she comes she makes me be a tourist in chicago. she is always up for new adventures and allows me to see my city with fresh eyes as I take in new experiences. my mom's mother was an immigrant from lithuania. scott and i recently saw an episode on check please! (a local restaurant review show) featuring lithuanian cuisine. it looked pretty tasty and looked like something sandy (my mom) would LOVE. to kick off the week with my mom, we went there for dinner last night. it was very authentic and incredibly delicious.

my mom tried the roasted beet soup and the pork stuffed cabbage, scott had the authentic lithuanian plate (it featured sauerkraut, zeppelins, fried potato sausage and kugelis ), and i had the wild boar wrapped in bacon. ellie had a grilled cheese:) in addition, my mom had a glass of lithuanian sparkling wine, while scott and i sampled the beer. we were so full that we did not indulge in dessert.

the menu was rich with text concerning lithuanians and their eating habits. here are two of the sayings that i found to be funny:

"why did god create potatoes?" " so poor people would have something to peel the skin off of."

"if you ate some beet soup and some bread with bacon, then you will have the strength to work hard."