news from chicago: Almost 3

Yeah ... so about an hour ago, I realized James will be 3(!!!) in about 28 days.

Am I the only one who is wondering where on Earth MARCH went?????? Today, James got his hair cut with Doug and they both look so handsome :) Everytime James gets his hair cut, I feel like he looks like a little kid from the 1950s with a crewcut :)

I have some to post from last weekend when Doug's Mom came into town. Doug and James went up to visit Gran and help plant some flowers in the backyard. They had so much fun!

Also, James has been doing and saying some pretty funny/cute stuff that I wanted to remember and jot down before I forget - hope you enjoy my random rambling of stories.

The weather has gone back to our 'normal' spring which means it's chilly - in the 40s and 50s and windy - so I've been doing art work with James during the days he doesn't have school. He's been painting and drawing a lot at school so I thought I would follow his lead and we got crafty this past week - Easter/Spring style. I used one of my cookie cutters to make the butterflies and an oval puzzle piece to make the eggs and James and I had a blast in the Walgreen's school supply aisle. They make glitter glue! Hello! Do you know how much fun this is? I mean for a toddler? It's like amazingly fun. James actually carries these around in a ziploc with him, "just be case I need to do art mom."

About 5 minutes into both of us using the glitter glue, James decided that the glue was just for James and he needed to make it into a line on 'his side of the table.' He also refused to decorate any of the eggs. Those have been carried around all week as well :)

While we were gluing and coloring, I had our ipod on shuffle and "Girls" by The Beastie Boys came on. I didn't change it because there's really nothing too bad in that song and James, while listening to it, started laughing and then started singing, "Girls, girls, girls, girls. . . . bom bom bom bom bom ... Girls!" We've been treated to James' version of this song all week :)

What you are looking at below is the deliciousness that is Italian Ice. I've been having nap-dreams about this. Seriously. I had kind of given up hope that I'd find Italian Ice here in Chicago but then last week, we did our grocery shopping at a building a few blocks away because the street to our regular grocery store was blocked because of a 5K Race. I glanced at the frozen section and behold: Luigi's Real Italian Ice! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

After dinner, this was my exchange with James

"Mommy has a surprise for dessert tonight. Do you want to guess what it is?"

"Yes."

"Okay, remember when we went to New York this summer?"

"Yes."

"Remember when we went to Annie's house?"

"Yes"
"Do you remember what we had there?"

"Talian Ice! Talian Ice!"

"Yep."

Then a few nights later, we had all eaten dinner and we all ate a lot but then James said, "Mom, I starving." I said, "James we just ate, how could you be starving?" "Mom, I starving for Talian Ice."

Then we ate it again. Recently, I walked back over to the building with James and we purchased all of their Italian Ice. I have no regrets.

On Thursday, the sun was out but it was chilly. Like in the 40s chilly. Clearly, James should have had on a hat but I wasn't really on top of weather that day. However, we did manage to have a nice time at the playground. James has been swining on the "big boy swings" lately. James pointed to the seated swings with the little seat that's all enclosed and asked, "Mom is that baby swing?" I told him that he could swing there if he wanted to. Then he pointed to the regular swing and asked, "Mom is this a big boy swing?" I said that it's where the older children and Mommies and Daddies swing and he said, "I a Big Boy Mom." And then he climbed into the big boy swing. He loves when I say, 1 for the money, 2 for the show, 3 to get ready and 4 TO GO! And then push him really high.

"Really high" is pretty relative - I mean, I get nervous with him on this swing so it's a height I feel comfy with and I never knew if it was too low for James or too high or just right until we went on Thursday. I gave him a push on 4 to go and he laughed and as he was swinging he said this, "Mom, that scared my tummy. That scared my baby in my tummy." I tried to keep from smiling too hard and asked him if it was too high for the baby in his tummy and he said yes ... so we've adjusted :) I thought it was so cute how he described that 'whoa' feeling in his tummy.

As of late, James has become quite intrigued with a lady. A lady celebrity. I get People - I know it's highbrow reading. We went to get the mail two Fridays ago and we sat down to flip through Entertainment Weekly and People together. James turned to this page and said, "Mom - who this?" And was pointing to Diane Kruger. I said, "That's Diane Kruger." And James said, "I like she Mom. She is sooooo nice and fluffy." Here's the page - that's been torn out and carried around since then.