bou-tang clan: spring forward

Spring is here and its been awhile since we last blogged. Winter has seemed so long for us, even as we move into Spring. We have had some sunny days but for the most part Chicago has been gloomy, rainy, and windy (of course!).

We had a great visit a couple weekends ago from the Carnot Family - great Grandma Mary, Grandma Chris, Aunt Kathy, Aunt Lisa and Aunt Mary Jo. Unfortunately it was a short visit and we didn't get photos ... but it was great to see them. Here are a round of photos from one of those sunny days (at our neighborhood park).

Mom's friend Anne was in town for a conference and Jackson and I drove her to the airport. Jackson was a trooper and spent almost 3 hrs in the car with little toys and no snacks. I know, bad mom, right? Well, I decided to treat Jackson to "Old McDonald's" (aka McDonald's). We've only ever gone a handful of times, mostly when traveling long distances. But Jackson knows McDonald's, just like he knows the character "Diego" even when we don't have cable. Jackson asked for a hamburger but little did he know I got him a Happy Meal. Yes, I did it. We took it home and ate the whole hamburger and sliced apples. I had to at least "make" something and had to also feed him something healthy. He was curious about the Happy Meal box but didn't investigate what else was in it until near the end of dinner. After taking a peek, Jackson noticed the toy. "What's that Mom?" and "What's this?" soon followed. He is so wonderful and still refers to McDonald's as "Old McDonald's", especially when playing with/talking about his toy.

Jackson loves Mumford and Sons. He asks us to play the "banjo song" and refers to a specific part of the song as "he's going nuts" when ... well, when the banjo goes nuts. Anyway, here Jackson is "going nuts" with his own guitar. Daddy calls this his "power stance" whereas I call this his "Johnny Cash stance". Sometimes Jackson will hold his guitar high up and close to his chin and dip his hand up and down while moving kind of slow when dancing. I know this probably makes no sense to everyone and I wish I had video of it but I didn't.

So Jackson is in a big Daddy phase. It truly is awesome to see the two of them together, laughing with each other. Its sometimes hard at times for me, like when I'm about to help Jackson put on his pull-up but he quickly changes his mind and insists (and man, do I mean insists) that Daddy does it. "Daddy, you want to do it?" I know it seems silly to think that this is difficult but what's difficult is that there is no rationalizing or communicating the simple act and time it will take to put a pull-up on. So until then I just let Dad do it and need to remind myself to not take it personally ... and to watch videos like this:

Finally made it to the Shedd Aquarium. It was a lot of fun but super crowded, which was mostly annoying. The Shedd is a beautiful building but I wasn't all that impressed with it. I thought the Columbus Zoo had an equally (if not better) aquarium. Maybe my opinion was swayed by the massive (and did I mention annoying) amounts of people there and the ridiculous price to get in. Luckily we had a free pass (usually 34 bucks a person and kid) but the upgrades were still ridiculous and totally not worth it. Alright, now I'm just going off on a negative tangent and that's no fun. We made the most of it and did have fun, especially seeing everything through the eyes of Jackson.