Why I Oughta...

We couldn't have had more fun at Wilder Park this past weekend both during and after the Easter Egg Hunt.  We spent more than an hour on the playground doing the swings and one of her favorites:  the slide with Daddy!  Nat snapped this photo with her phone and I've shared some of the photos I took of the day over on the Babe's blog.  If you know that address, you can go over there to see some shots of the Easter Egg Hunt. 

First....Dannee Polomsky won!  Yahoo!  Congrats to Dannee and her family! Now...on to the voter post:  The Babe is getting very experienced at voting!  This was her third time at our polling place in Elmhurst.  Here she was at just a little older than one month old in February of 2010 and here she is in November of last year at 11 months old.  She's not likely going to remember any of these voting experiences, but it certainly brings a new perspective to voting for me:  the candidates we're electing today are going to shape the Elmhurst of tomorrow that the Babe is going to grow up in.

We did it.  We pulled the trigger on the playground purchase.  After a few weeks of research, we came to the conclusion that we couldn't beat the deal on the Cedar Summit Panorama Playset from Costco .  We went down to the Rainbow showroom and while some of their sets are spectacular, the prices were a bit rich for us.  Menards has build-you-own kits, but I'm not sure we could design and build something as nice as this Costco set.  As you can see, it comes in six boxes - some of them HUGE.  It took some work, but with half of it on top of our car and the other half inside, I got it home.  It now resides in our garage awaiting a warm weekend.  I have some groundwork to do in leveling and clearing the site as well as thinking about timbers to retain/hold in the mulch.  Hopefully by Memorial Day, we'll have the Panorama up and useable.

The Babe's Uncle Charlie gave us these block by Fred back at Christmastime and we really haven't begun to play with them just yet.  She's not quite to the stacking things stage, rather whenever Nat or I stack something up, the Babe storms over like Godzilla and brings the whole operation crashing down.  At some point, she'll be into stacking blocks and when she does, she'll be the coolest hipster baby on the block.  Instead of the typical letter/object connections like A=Apple, B=Boy, C=Cat, D=Dog, these are a bit more fun.  M=Mustache, U=Underpants, W=Werewolf. Pretty fun stuff that I'm sure will be fun to laugh about as she grows up.  Thanks, Uncle Charlie!

I'm learning very quickly that time moves very fast with little kids.  One day they can't hold their own head up and the next they're rifling through the cupboards below the sink.  My little girl just crossed the 15 month mark and on pretty regular occasions, I'm seeing her do some very grown up like things.  They're small little actions or body language, but they're definitely there.  Or at least, in my head, they are there.  Take for example this photo.  We were at the Country House eating burgers this week when I caught her lounging in her high chair.  She looks so at ease and comfortable and the way she's carrying herself just seems so NOT like an infant/toddler. Every time I look at her I rediscover how adorable she really is.  I couldn't love her more than I do and am so fortunate to have her in my life.  Nat has been doing an amazing job with her and each and every day we're both learning something together! For those of you friends and f

Move over vegetable garden and garage pavillion, there's potentially a new entrant into the currently crowded backyard at the Parrillo household.  Behold:  this beauty.  The Cedar Summit Panorama Playset from Costco.   Comes with 3 swings and a tube slide.  Nat spotted this behemoth at Costco and after doing a bit of comparison shopping at a place like Menards (more expensive, I think) and Wannemaker's (don't sell these type of things any more), it appears to be a fair deal. It is a kit - so I'd be putting it together myself, but I'm up for that challenge.  The real issue is getting it home.  I'm going to head back to Costco to take a look to see if it will fit in Nat's car with the back seats folded down.  If not, it seems like I'll be renting a truck from Home Depot.  Yes, the Babe is likely too small for a lot of this, but certainly NOT the swings.  We take her to the park on a regular basis and she gets a kick out of the swings.  The whole fort t

You know you've reached a certain station in life when you start to think about how well you've secured your basement door with an "out of reach" locking mechanism.  Not quite sure what station exactly, but it seems to be somewhere between [mowing your own lawn] and [minivans]. 

She couldn't stop eating the snow, but loved being pulled in her sled.  What fun!

Each January, I take in my change jar to Harris Bank where they tally it up for me.  Starting last January, the proceeds have been heading to a savings account we set up for the Babe.  Prior to that, I think I just stuck it in my checking account and went on with my merry way.   I keep a quart mason jar on my desk and every time I have a few coins in the bottom of my pockets, I try to stick them in there. This year, the total was $19.60. Plus a few Canadians and a green marble (all of which I put back in the bottom of the jar). Which, when looking at the online records from last January, was pretty light.  2009's haul was more than double that at $53.51.   Maybe that's an indication that either I was spending less cash this year or that I was better about using available coins during my transactions.  I'm not sure.  But...next year, we'll have a third data point and that means we can start to claim things are starting to "trend"!

What a party Nat threw today!  Wow - she did a great job with all the details.  Thanks to everyone for coming! And...special thanks to Uncle Bill for his chalk rendering.

Nat had some shopping to do in Bolingbrook and I wasn't interested in trouncing around Macy's and Janie and Jack, so I decided to take the Babe over to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa.  This time, it didn't go as well as the first time she met the Big Guy . She freaked.  Poor girl.  When I went to pick her up, she was shaking and tears were streaming down here face.    Kind of felt nice to be needed so much by her. 

The Babe landed herself a new snugglepal.  I'm (obviously) attempting to get her started early mostly because she's taking to her mother's iphone like a fish to water.  Had to fight dirty with the Squishable !

The Babe is 2-2 when it comes to voting as she turned up at the polling place yesterday with both Mom and Dad.   We took her when she was SO young to vote in the primary elections back in February .  She wasn't even 2 months old.  Can't believe how small she was in that post. This is her now - her second voting day.  She made such an impression that she was lucky enough to get a sticker from the poll watchers. Nat took her in the booth with her this time as I was able to bring her with me in the primary.  Forget Cubs or Sox, this is too important:  R's vs. D's!

The Babe has made her choice(s) from Sonny Acres  in West Chicago.  Time to get busy carving the owls.  Last year we did two of them and I wouldn't expect to do less this fall.

Over the weekend, we went to a kid-packed Halloween party.  Of course, Nat made sure the Babe had a costume so she wouldn't be left out of the fun. Pink Ladybugs might now be my favorite kind!  Plenty more photos from the upcoming Halloween festivities I'm certain will be posted in all the appropriate places around the web.  If you know where to look, you won't be able to miss them soon!

This is what the Babe looks like when Nat tells her something wonderfully funny.  Scrunched nose.  Loud grunting laughs! Look, Ma!  No teeth!

With all the buzz going around about what Google Translate thinks "Lady Ga Ga" translates from Malay to any other language , I thought it was time to unveil the new Google Search secret.   No...it isn't Google Instant.   That's soooo this morning's news.  This is way more important - and pretty stinkin' cute. Thanks to one of Nat's friends, the Babe is sporting some new threads!  (note the "I'm Feeling Silly" button!)

I play the "Little Piggie" game with the Babe.  You know the one.  Our's goes: This little piggie went to the market, This little piggie stayed home. This little piggie had roast beef, This little piggie had none. And....this little piggie went wah-wah-wah-wah-wah all the way home. Turns out...I was saying it wrong.  As pointed out to me by Nat, in Geico's hilarious new commercial, the company points out that the piggie says "weeeee", not "wah".  Still not sure I'm going to change my version.

Someone gifted the Babe this set of bath-time toys from Infantino when she was born.  They're pretty cute and have gotten a good workout these past few months.  For whatever it is worth, they (the toy experts!) say, that you're supposed to throw out bath toys periodically - to avoid mold build-up - so these are probably on their last legs.  Apparently if you don't drain them very well, they'll just trap water and get all gross on the insides.  They'll turn into about the last thing you want your baby to be playing with during their baths. Each one of the specific toys has a blowhole where you can suck in water and squirt it out.  On some they're in their mouths, but on this whale it is right where it is supposed to be - his blowhole. He looks pretty cute and normal, right? He's just fine.....until you take a close look at the tail - all by itself. Seriously?!?  How did something like this get past the quality control folks.  You have to think that the