Good Bye Chicago!

After 2 very fast years of school, we only have 1 day left here in Chicago. The time has flown by so fast, I can't believe it is almost over. Before we came, it felt like two years was a long time to live here.

Things I will miss:
1. My wonderful friends I've made here. They have made my Chicago experience a wonderful one. They are some of the best friends I have and I am sorry to see us all move away from each other.
2. The food! Torry and I rarely have eaten at the same restaurant twice, and we haven't had a bad experience yet.
3. All the museums - the aquarium, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field, the Nature Museum with the Butterfly garden and the Children's Museum. Elaina and I spent many hours in all of these and I will miss having such fun and educational places to take her to.
4. Hyde Park Produce. Seriously the best grocery store ever.

Things we will not miss (by Torry):
1. South side Chicago customer service. We rarely had a good experience, with Treasure Island being a consistent exception - sadly, it's only been around for about 3 months, but the people there are very nice.
2. Hyde Park traffic - the laws are a little different down here. For example: At a four-way stop, it's not about what order you arrive in, it's all about who will "win" or who has the least to lose (strongly correlated to how big or how beat-up your vehicle is); if there's room for another car, apparently there's a lane whether it's marked or not; and the world is your parking lot as long as you use flashers (this one is convenient on occasion, but it's a nuisance waaayyy more often.)
3. Potholes on the south side. C'mon Mayor Daley - it's June! Can't we get some of these fixed?
4. Taxes on everything. If you move a quarter from one pocket to another, only 23 cents makes it to the other side.
5. The Traffic Management Authority. Essentially humans who just tell you to do what the traffic light is already saying, this seems like a work-welfare program, probably a bone thrown to union leaders by the city at the taxpayers' expense (see #4 above). This agency would be just as useful at about 10% of its current size.
6. High-rise living. Getting two kids to the car is a 10-minute endeavor. And if you get down there and happen to forget that shirt you need to return? Forget it, you'll just return it next time you go out. We're excited for an attached garage.

All that griping aside--most these are minor complaints--we're sad to be leaving.

Our Beautiful Elaina

We took Elaina to the University campus and tried taking some cute pictures of her. I think I took over 50 some odd pictures and these ended up being the only ones that turned out (the last one being my favorite). She was looking everywhere but the camera and moving everywhere but where I wanted her to go. I guess we'll have to settle for candids for the next couple years.

Congrats to Torry!

After two years of school, Torry is finally done! We have really enjoyed our time in Chicago and Torry has loved school. I think both of us are a little sad to see our time here come to a close, but we are also very excited for the making money part our lives to start. This time around, Torry will hopefully enjoy doing it! Graduation is on the 15th of June and both of our parents are going to be in town for the event. We are also going to bless Camden that day and in addition it happens to be Father's Day. I guess it's going to be a little busy around here. To top it all off, we are moving to Utah on the 18th! Life is just a tiny bit crazy. Oh yeah, and I forgot - it's my birthday on the 14th. Bummer huh? I've always enjoyed spoiling myself on my birthday - plan lunch and dinner out, go to a movie, maybe go shopping or get my nails done - let Torry wait on me and take care of the kids. Yah know? Sigh - Se'la'vie

This fits perfectly

Life is never boring with a two-year-old around. Today, Elaina decided that it would be neat to stick some plastic beads up her nostrils, one in one side, and two in the other. She came up to me and asked me to help her with her beads. I thought that she wanted help cleaning them up, but she started pointing to her nose and that's when I saw the first bead. I was able to get it out with a prong of a fork and I thought that was it, until Elaina grabbed the fork and started trying to stick it up her nose. I took her over to the light and discovered that she had an additional bead up each nostril. We ended up breaking our family goal, to stay out of the emergency room. We were there about 8 weeks ago for Elaina when she split her forehead open and had to have it glued shut, and once for me when I had a breast infection.

Elaina seemed to remember the place and upon arrival and asked to watch Ratatouille. (she watched that last time she was there) The University of Chicago has a brand new Children's Hospital, with it's own children's ER. It's really nice. We didn't have to wait at all to get her in and the doctors and nurses were great. They tried having me blow into her mouth in order to force the beads out the nostrils, but that didn't work, so they tried using forceps to get the bead out, but that only ended up gouging the inside of her nose. Blood was everywhere. Then they suggested that we plug the not-bloody nostril and have me blow into her mouth again. Why didn't they think of that before the blood? So I blew and ended up getting a face full of blood and snot! Plus the bead. Gross. If it was anyone else, I think I would have died. Isn't it funny how much you don't care about that kind of thing when it's your own child? They got the other bead out with forceps, all the while Elaina is just freaking out. I felt kind of bad for her, but I couldn't help but think that it was kind of funny too. It was such a two-year-old thing to do. Almost a right of passage. Hopefully she won't do it again.

Learning the Loo

Subjected to the tyranny of a 3-year-old's bladder, we've had to dramatically curb our activities away from home. She's picked it up in about a day, and stays dry very well now. However, the #2 portion of the affair has been a tough nut to crack. The first time scared her, so now she holds it as long as possible. This leads to constipation, then pain when it finally does come, and thus more fear and more holding. It's a rough cycle to be in, and we're scrambling to help her break it (hello, fiber: oatmeal, whole-grain pasta, lots of fruit and apple juice).

We just finished day two of the modified diet, which is yielding promising physical results but seems to have no psychological benefits for the subject. We continually find ourselves in a situation where, when she first realizes she has to go, she asks. But the she doesn't go. So she leaves, but asks again 5 minutes later. This repeats continues 6-10 times until she can't hold it any longer and finally gets a tiny bit out. A few hours later, it all happens again. It's very stressful, and we feel terrible for her because she's genuinely afraid and the look in her eye seems to convey a keen sense that she's trapped, that there's no way out except the hard way. (This is consistent with Heather's retelling of her own thought process during Camden's birth.)

We've offered to let her go back to a diaper when she needs to go, but she seems to like being clean and dry so much that even when she's wearing one, she refuses to take advantage and insists on using the bathroom. It's probably time to get her doctor involved, before she starts having health issues.

Camden's Blessing Photos

OK, so we haven't had the blessing yet, but we had to get pictures while he's still small since we won't be blessing him until he's 3 months old. We're waiting until Father's Day because our families will be in town for Torry's graduation. We were pretty impressed that these turned out pretty well, seeing as they came from Target. We had a sub-par experience at JC Penney with Elaina when she was at a similar age.

Our sweet little Camden

The time has really flown by this past month. I can't believe that Camden is already 5 weeks old! If time goes by as fast as it has , I better not blink or I'll miss everything. Camden has been a good sleeper from day one. He doesn't really cry when he's hungry. I kind of wonder how often he'd eat if I didn't wake him up. It certainly makes my day predicable. I can choose when I want to feed him. Elaina has really taken to her new baby brother and she loves keeping him company on the floor during tummy time. She has a doll that she carries around that she calls baby Camden.