Boy of Summer

It is really rare that I get home from work early enough on a perfect weather day and have the energy to take Dylan for an afternoon at the "big" park, as he likes to call it. The big park being Wicker Park which is walking distance from our house. Being pregnant though, I saved my energy and instead of walking we packed up the truck with a wagon full of sand toys, a toy bulldozer and drove there.

Here are some photos of an afternoon spent climbing, sliding and playing in the sand. Dylan is quite the daredevil now and can pretty much climb up on anything himself (he is born year of the monkey, afterall!) After taking about a dozen photos I sat down and actually read a magazine for about 10 minutes uninterrupted (a true luxury when Dylan is around, let me tell you!)

I really enjoy reading Real Simple magazine and this month they have a Family edition that has some great parenting tips and stories. If you like www.Dooce.com (one of my favorite parenting blogs) you'll want to pick up the magazine, she has a short piece in there.

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Have I mentioned that Dylan doesn't sleep? I thought a few hours in the park after a day at daycare would bring on some serious sleep, but no such luck. He was up again at 3 am until 5:30 am this morning. UGH. So hard when I have to be up at 6 am for work. I am averaging about 4 hours a sleep a night these days.

We're busy with 2 major projects right now.

Joe & I have had a very busy summer working on two major projects; our pregnancy with our second son and renovating our old house.
Joe can talk more about the home renovation (like I know anything about stucco, new window installation or gutting out the kitchen!). I'll talk about being pregnant (since I am the expert on morning sickness, bloating, round ligament pain etc!).

Let me start off by saying, I am really happy this is our last kid. I am not complaining or anything, because I truly feel so blessed to be having another baby, but girlfriends.. pregnancy just doesn't agree with me. Compared to my first pregnancy though this one has been a breeze. Hardly no morning sickness (I had it the whole nine months with Dylan), less weight gain in general and overall I feel much healthier this time around.

Joe and I waited a little before finally deciding to have this baby as we really wanted the kids to be 3 years apart. Although, if it were up to Joe we would have had 3 kids by now. Funny story.. when Julia Roberts was reported pregnant with her 3rd kid (she had her twins about the same we had Dylan) Joe was like, Julia is pregnant again so that makes us way behind. Like, are we trying to keep up with Julia Roberts?! He was kidding of course but since I am 38 going on 39 years old I knew that if we wanted another baby we'd have to act soon.

Another reason I was scared to have another baby was because of Dylan's heart defect. Doctors told me that we had a 2-4% chance that our next kid may have a heart defect, not to mention the higher risk of having Downs etc, due to my "maternal" age. That really scared me. Is it irresponsible to have another baby knowing these odds? But as my OB said, we could look at it like we have a 98-96% chance that the baby would be perfectly healthy. Anyway, we took a leap of faith and got pregnant.

I read this in another of my favorite blogs recently (Sweet|Salty at http://ingliseast.typepad.com/ingliseast/) and it really hit home to me:

Even with the freshest of slates, getting pregnant requires a huge leap of faith. You may have a glorious labour and a robust baby only to have that same child become sick ten years later. Or, twenty years later, fall in with a bad crowd and become addicted to some vice and break your heart. To become a parent is to become unspeakably vulnerable, but there can’t be true joy, or discovery, or growth, without risk. Everyone knows this, senses it on some primal level — but mamas and dadas like us know it so much more vividly, having been struck by lightening.

So far all our tests (amniocentisis etc.) have come back with no abnormalities, thank you God! Also, so far the fetal echos don't show anything abnormal with the baby's heart. I say "so far" because at 20 weeks pregnant with Dylan, his heart also looked normal. Dylan was born with a few heart defects, the major one being a coarctation of the aorta and that kind of defect usually doesn't occur until later in pregnancy. But I have faith, and the doctors seem sure that this baby's heart will be normal.

The hardest part of this pregancy has been my 3 hour roundtrip commute to Chicago everyday. Getting up at 6 am and getting home at 6:30 pm five days a week really takes a toll on me (notice how tired I look in the photos). I will work until the day I have the baby (like I did with Dylan). Luckily, my boss has let me leave early many days and that has been wonderful.

Another difficult thing has been trying to decide on the baby's name. Joe and I don't really have any names that we absolutely love. It is so hard choosing another boy name! I have resorted to posting name polls on internet chat boards to see what strangers think of a handful of names and that still didn't help (the most popular one being the one that Joe & I likes least!). Dylan suggested we call the baby Rugrat. I think he has seen the Rugrat cartoons one too many times!

Anyway, I am now in the third trimester, so it won't be much longer before this kid is here. I pray that he is healthy, mentally and physically. I also hope that he is a good sleeper, as Dylan is NOT. And if we get really lucky he will be as handsome as his big brother. However he comes out, I know we won't have any regrets, this baby will complete our family and we can't wait for him to be here. Like Sweet|Salty's post, I feel that this baby will finally fulfill the void that I have always felt before having babies. Being mama has been the job that I was born to do, and I love every minute of it.

Photos were taken at 20 weeks, 25 weeks and 28 weeks pregnant. I have gained 27 pounds so far and should gain about a pound a week until the baby is born. YIKES!

Memory Lane

I was in the basement earlier tonight looking for some paperwork when I was serendipitously sidetracked by a packet of pictures I hadn't seen in some time. Naturally I put aside my search in favor of this short trip down memory lane. The photographs I found were mostly of Dylan, taken not that long ago, but seems like eons. I find it amazing, funny and somewhat sad to see how much he's changed in the couple years since the pictures were taken.

Amazing because being a first-time parent, I still find it hard to think that this bundle of laughter and poop is my son, our son, who has changed so much since the day in photograph. It's amazing to see how much he's grown living on a diet consisting mostly of warmed 2 percent milk and gummy bears. (Mom, if you're reading this -- yes, we do feed him real food, too ... you know, chocolate chip cookies and apple juice.)

Funny because I can see in Dylan's smile then the same smile today, only now it's tinged with mischievous intent. It's that smile most 2 1/2-year-olds make just before he swing's a pillow wildly at daddy's head or rushes to pounce on his reclining mother.

Sad because even though I see Dylan day after day, it's takes a forgotten photograph to remind me of how much he's grown, how much he's learned so far and how much I wish I could stop time to keep him at this playful age forever.

(sigh)

Now where is that darn piece of paper ...

Quyen and I should have started ths blog around before Dylan was born, but, hey, better late than never!

Dylan will turn 3 on December 14, about three weeks after our next child is born. Dylan will have a little bother to terrorize come late November. We haven't decided on a name yet, so please don't ask.

Dylan amazes us every day. He can carry on a conversation with us, using words perhaps only mommy and daddy can understand. He's been reciting the alphabet for about a year now. The letter he has the most trouble with is the only letter with more than one syllable. (I can about hear everyone recite the alphabet, smiling sheepishly when they get to "W")

He loves playing with his cars, the little match box kind that hurt like hell when you step on one without wearing shoes. Before he became fond crashing them, it was so cute to watch him line 'em up oh so carefully like a train. He would organize them buy color -- all the yellow cars over here, the blue cars over there -- a trait, no doubt, inherited from his Aunt Julie. One day he turned all the cars upside down, turned to mommy and daddy and said, finger to mouth, "Shhh. Cars sleeping." Where does he get this stuff? His burgeoning imagination is a joy to watch and hear. We sometimes catch him talking to his cars, and making them talk to one another.

His favorite car: Lightning McQueen from the "Cars" movie; his favorite move for a long time. I swear to God, we have had to sit through that damn movie dozens of times. I think we know every line. His new favorite movie is Rug Rats. He has two or three of them.

Well, it's time to mow the grass before the next weeklong thunderstorm rolls in and makes my grass grow even taller. With any luck, Dylan will be pushing his little mower behind me. I love him a little more each day.

Welcome to life with the Grecos!

Hello internet! this is my first blog post. Not even sure where to start. I am assuming that my audience consists of friends and family from Indiana, Illinois, Texas and Australia. So hello peeps! and WELCOME to the Greco Family blog
Here are a handful of photos taken over the summer. We have been busy remodeling our 1926 English Tudor (more on that later!) but managed to squeeze in some time this summer for the Shedd Aquarium, The Taste of Chicago, a weekend in Saugatuck, MI, walking Charlie and lots of visits to the parks and exploring our new neighborhood. Dylan even helped daddy mow the lawn!