Hanging with the big kids

We've been very busy the past couple weeks and we had so much fun hanging out with Henry's older cousins, Lily and Nyle. They came to stay with Grandma and Grandpa Eichorst for a week and we were lucky enough to get in on some of the action. Most importantly (in my opinion) Henry took his first trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in order to tour the new Harry Potter Exhibit. John, Lily, Henry and I had a great time, even though several workers kept referring to Henry as a Mandrake and thought we were trying to swipe him from the exhibit (Harry Potter reference for those who that confused). Lily was sorted by the sorting hat into Ravenclaw and although Henry was a little too small for the sorting hat just yet, the young lady there claimed she could tell he was a Hufflepuff so I guess we'll have to wait and see.

We also took a fun trip to the Brookfield Zoo to see the dinosaur exhibit and Hank spent a lot of time looking around, but was unphased by the enormity of the giant lizards, he's a pretty tough kid. Not only did we hit up the zoo a couple times, a park and an icecream shop, but Henry also had his first trip to the sprinkler park with our friends Amy and Izzy. I walked him through a sprinkler a couple of times and although he was not quite giggling with glee, he was not totally opposed to it so we will make future attempts. The whole week with Henry's cousins was a great time and we'll miss them sooooo much until we get to see them again for Christmas.

I also had a brief look into my future when selling merchandise at The Wiggles concerts last Saturday and Sunday. Apparently these Aussie guys used to be a punk rock band called the cockroaches but realized that there was not much money in their future and so they decided to take out all of the swear words and sing about fruits, dancing, monkeys and other kid friendly things. The music wasn't terrible and I decided to get an album to see if this is something Henry might want to work into his music rotation so I'll keep you all posted on how it goes. I'm not too sure if I'm ready to imagine myself at one of these shows surrounded by over stimulated munchkins waving light wands just yet, I'm sort of hoping he wants to go to see Pearl Jam or something but I'll still give The Wiggles a shot for Hank's sake.
Anyway that is a less than brief update of what we've been up to so far in the month of August. I saw a few leaves on the ground and got excited thinking about pumpkin patches and apple picking......

Henry meets the Polaneks!

Hello everyone, well it looks as though summer has finally hit the midwest. Since it's sort of nasty outside Henry and I are hanging out in the comfort of our air conditioned condo today so I thought it would be a good time to update you on what he's been up to. This weekend Henry got his first chance to meet the Polanek clan in full at Sigrid and Rich's house in Elmwood Park. We had a great time and although I believe that Henry has some of my genes somewhere in his tiny body, the Polish gene so far has dominated his genetic makeup. He is obviously a Polanek and proud of it!
Besides the family party Henry has been keeping himself busy by growing....a lot! He is well over 14 pounds now and eating like a champ. He's plumping up like a proper growing boy and I can't quite imagine how I'm going to tote this guy around in another few months and many pounds later. Besides the hard task of growing, he is continuing to become more aware everyday and luckily spends quite a bit of time smiling, at us and his toys :) I see big things in this little guy's immediate future such as bumbo chair sitting, advanced stages of tummy time and longer stints of sleep at night (well I added that last part for my own sake, I know there's no guarantee that it is in our future....but a mom can hope....)