He caught his cold at the end of his first week of day care, which he started when I went back to work May 4. Although we wish we could spend more time with him and not have him in day care at all, we're happy to have found a loving, fun place for him to spend his days while we work, and he loves his caregivers Karla, Lola, and Diana, who call out to him "Aaaa-li-oooot." He's had a couple of pool parties with his friends Penny, Murray, Maddie, and Claire, and they learned all about The Very Hungry Caterpillar last week. The highlight of both mine and Ben's day is picking him up and seeing his smiling face.
Elliot loves to roll and roll!
Kicking it poolside in the cabana with Murray
Elliot went to his first community meeting on Tuesday to help save Humboldt Park beach, Chicago's only inland beach, where we were planning on spending summer days splashing in the sun. It's important for both Ben and me to introduce him to activism and community involvement at a young age, and he definitley was curious, quietly looking around the room with wide eyes at the speakers and the many toddlers running around. Also I was happy that it was cool enough and he was big enough to wear his 6-month-sized Marimekko puffer suit from GG at least once before he grows out of it--look how cute.
"Thanks GG for my very stylish snowsuit."
With Elliot being sick and me having a stomach bug too, we had a pretty quiet weekend. Ben hung out with Elliot on Saturday morning so I could sleep in, and later our friend (and my distant cousin) Erich stopped by for a visit with Elliot's cousin Vinny and Roeser's donuts. That afternoon, we picked up some plants at the Kilbourn Park organic plant sale (the chickens immediately found and ate all the kale, which was intended for them anyway but was supposed to grow a little bit first) and Ben redesigned the perennial beds in the backyard in preparation for the construction of our new decks.
[photos of the garden]
We took off Elliot's socks and let him roll around in the grass for a bit. It was fun to see his clothes all dirty, just like a little kid should be, and we're really excited for there to be even more of that in the years to come.
One final highlight from the last couple of weeks: Elliot got to meet his Aunt Shannon, who was visiting from Rhode Island! Shannon, Auntie CC, and Auntie Em brought over delicious noodles on Friday night, and came over for Mother's Day brunch. Elliot says, "Hi Auntie, I can't wait to see you again!"
