MichaelandChrissy.com

Chrissy and I took Aiden and Gavin to the Taste of Chicago for our annual slice of Eli’s cheesecake on a stick, cheesy garlic bread and anything from Sweet Baby Ray’s. This was Gavin’s first trip to the Taste so far. We packed the boys into the double stroller and made our way through the lunchtime crowd on opening day.

The midway was fairly light on vendors this year. Usually there are two rows of booths leading west towards the Ferris wheel, but this year there was only one. This left more room to maneuver the stroller though, and plenty of spots to stop and eat in the shade. Security was more lax as well; we saw lots of people panhandling this year.

We sampled “taste portions” from the usual shops, so Aiden and Gavin got to try lots of new things. Gavin got his first taste of the awesome pad thai. We brought along our small cooler of pop and water again (which saved us about twenty dollars). Gavin got a little cranky towards the end of our trip, but we all had a good time in Chicago.

Chrissy and her Mom took the boys and Taylor to Johnson’s Farms in Hobart to pick some strawberries. The weather was nice (despite the recent rainstorms), so they had a good time in the fields. Aiden loves strawberries, and he was eating them right off the plants.

Chrissy and Mom took turns carrying Gavin in the Baby Bjorn and that seemed to work out nicely. Taylor helped pick strawberries too, and didn’t seem to mind that the rows were muddy. It was a successful outing; they left the farm with six bushels of fresh strawberries!

The siding on the house and the garage is finally done.  It was a big job and took a couple of weeks to complete. Glenn and Kevin did fantastic work, and you wouldn’t recognize the house at all now! I think that it actually makes the house look bigger. You can see that there is now a 100% difference.

BEFORE

AFTER

We still have some work to do though!  The doors need to be painted, the lighting needs to be wired on the garage and the back porch, and the street numbers need to be hung.  Not to mention the fact that our back door is nailed shut because of the unfortunate ten foot drop to the concrete below (dude, where’s my deck?). 

Once a month, Chrissy takes a day off for scrapbooking.  She drives to Schneider with some friends and they spend the entire day (10 AM to 10 PM) working on their scrapbook pages.  It’s a sanity day for her, but effectively strands me at home with the kids.  Most times, the boys and I have a good day and nothing goes wrong, but sometimes there are troubles.  Today was a mixed bag.

Felice and Chrissy brought home donuts before heading out this morning.  Aiden said “Auntie Felice” (sounded more like “fleas”, but the effort was there) and Felice almost cried.  Felice was actually staying with us to help out when Aiden was born, and this was the first time that he had ever said her name.  It was a touching moment, made that much more special by donuts.

We had one errand to run today: swing by Target.  As soon as we got in, Aiden says that he has to go potty.  I had just asked him if he had to go before we left!  I took him to the bathroom (which was thankfully clean), but it was a very difficult visit because I had to hold Gavin as well as position Aiden on the regular-sized toilet (and wrangle the underwear).  I was NOT putting the baby on the bathroom floor.  Happily, we made it out without incident.

I announced bath time and Aiden ran for the bathroom, with Gavin crawling after him.  Before I got there, Aiden had closed the bathroom door with Gavin inside and the baby managed to lock himself in.  It wasn’t really a locked door (that’s what butter knives are for), but the bottom vanity drawer will block the bathroom door if it’s opened while the door is closed.  We spent half an hour trying to get the baby out, and both boys were panicking on either side of the door while I toiled.

Aiden suddenly decided that Ellie was named “LuLu”.  He wandered all over the house calling for “LuLu”.  He came to me and whined for LuLu, but I had no idea who or what LuLu was.  I was wondering how old you had to be to have an imaginary friend.  He finally found Ellie the elephant and brought her to me, and proudly proclaimed “LuLu!” Great, we got Ellie, now off to bed!  Chrissy later told me that Ellie’s full name was “Ellie LuLu Wilson”.  Okay then, good to know.

I finally got both boys to bed by 8 PM.  I was ready to relax and check my Twitter when I heard Aiden yelling upstairs.  I went up, hoping that he hadn’t woken up the baby, and checked on him.  He just wanted some water, but directly above his head was a big spider, dangling from a web attached to the ceiling fan.  Yipes! I took care of it and Aiden and I sung “Itsy Bitsy Spider” once before putting him back in bed.

I recently heard about the Transformers candy dispensers that will be given away as promotional items by Target.  Chrissy and I shop at Target all the time, so I thought that we could pick up some M&Ms and order me one.  From the picture, it looks like it will be pretty big, like a decent-sized gumball machine.  We’ll have to see what the quality is like though, as it’s a freebie after all.

I dig this new commercial, even if it doesn’t have Peter Cullen’s voice in it.  We didn’t see the new “strawberry and peanut butter” flavor at Target, but I’ll be sure to grab some when that trailer comes crashing down on my local store!  I still need about ten more bags for my free candy dispensers.  Well, not so much free, since the big bags of M&Ms are on sale for 2/$5 right now (and you need five for one dispenser).

Aiden will be turning three in August, which means that he will be starting pre-school in the Fall.  Because he has Childhood Apraxia of Speech, he’s considered to be “special needs” by the school district.  This means that there needs to be an Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting to determine the level of care that Aiden will require.  For many people, these can be difficult meetings.

Chrissy, Felice and I met with some people at the NISEC office, including the case worker, one teacher, a speech pathologist and the district supervisor.  We had already given them a lot of documentation on Aiden’s progress, including reports from two speech therapists and a set of recommendations from First Steps.  From that, they had determined what they believed his needs were.

Their recommendation was for two days (three hours per day) of inclusion pre-school per week in combination with one half-hour session of speech therapy.  We had already toured the classroom and determined that Aiden would be all right, but students are bused there.  The alternative was for one half-hour speech therapy session per week at our local school, without the interactive class time.

After some negotiations, we were able to get Aiden two days of AM pre-school per week (Tuesday and Thursday) with a half hour of one-on-one speech therapy on each day.  Aiden will also be attending private pre-school at TLC two mornings a week (Monday and Friday) and an hour of additional speech therapy at St. Margarets once per week.  He’ll be a busy little boy, but we’re doing all we can for him.

I turned 36 years old on Tuesday, June 2nd.  Now before you start with your condolences, know that I’m perfectly happy with getting older.  I was in a much better place at 26 than I was at 16, and I’m in a much better place now at 36 than I was at 26.  That said, I’m looking forward to seeing 46.  Time is my ally, and a powerful ally it is.

I had a great birthday this year.  I took the day off of work, so Chrissy let me sleep in (I stayed up way too late watching cartoons).  While I was sleeping, she took the boys to Dunkin Doughnuts to pick up a dozen of my favorite types of donuts.  That was a nice surprise, and I got Boston Cream and Apple Crumble donuts for breakfast.

I opened my birthday cards from my boys between donuts, and then Chrissy told me that I would be picking out a new grill as a birthday present.  Our old grill was way too small, and our new deck will be needing a nice new barbecue to sit on top of it.  We shopped around and picked out a red model from NexGrill with free assembly.  We then said goodbye to the old grill with steaks for dinner.

It was a good day, but my birthday wasn’t over yet.  Chrissy and the boys sent me a very tasty Edible Arrangement at work the next day!  It was a very nice surprise.  I shared with my office workers, since there was an awful lot of chocolate-covered fruit there.  I brought the balloons home for the boys, and everyone was happy.