"You Can Play With Your Food...

...As long as you eat it." Which has totally transformed the way my daughter eats mashed potatoes. Now, instead of a pile of white mashed potatoes on her plate, with a little food coloring and creativity, she eats a mashed potato volcano.
While it seems weird to eat purple or green or yellow or red potatoes they now get eaten. Of course now I'm wracking my brain trying to figure out how to make more foods, especially vegetables, exciting...

I saw an armadillo the other day. Exciting!!! It was dead on the side of the road (poor thing). It was super cool looking, like it had tank armor covering it's body. It was super ugly, but so bizarre and neat-o that I almost pulled over to look at it. If I wasn't stuck in the middle of commuter traffic I would have pulled over to check it out. But don't think I didn't go to work and tell everyone I saw an armadillo. I'm really intrigued by them in all their ugly armored glory. A couple days later I'm watching TV and of course an animal show comes on and it's all about...yep, you guessed it....the armadillo! So I'm finally starting to get over my armadillo experience and I see another one dead on the side of the road! I'm trying really hard not to obsess over these stupid creatures but they fascinate me. I kinda want one now. I know you can't have one as a pet, but I do - want one as a pet. I wonder if I could catch one. Is there a trap I could make for it or just make some sort of insect trail that it could follow into a cage that I could keep it in? Hmmm. I know it wouldn't be nice to keep one so I won't, but I want to.

Oh The Irony

I love irony. I just find it fun to come across in everyday situations and I especially love it when it was an accident. Like when my company sent out a notice to the approximately 350 employees in our building trying to boost participation in a charity function. Anyone could wear jeans for a donation to be sent to the diabetes foundation. All those who want to support diabetes awareness make your donation and come have some ice-cream. Oh yes...they did! Ha, ha, you have an advanced degree and just sent that out! The irony was not lost on me!!!!!


I had to take this picture because as I was driving down the road and saw an old friend in the passenger seat. Her name is Fern...

I See You

30 foot statue watching over Chicago. Of course we had to go visit. There is no way my eye obsessed son would spend the summer in Chicago and NOT go see the eye. I feel so honored that he waited until I got there to go check it out.






Me and the most handsome 16 year old boy on the planet. Being silly while under the watchful eye...







Proof we went Go Kart racing. You'll just have to take my word for it that I'm the most awesome slick track driver in our family. Here's my 16 year old tearing up the track!

So Much To Say, So Little Time

My sweet boy is back home and caught up on his sleep. It was very rare for him to ever take a nap but after the study, he would take one almost daily once we got home. Guess the nap study worked. :)

I had fun in Chicago when I went to pick him up. So Devan spent his 16th birthday in the sleep lab. The doctor running the study was super nice and made him a cake and all the research assistants gave him a card and had a big birthday sign over his bed. My sister went to spy on him and take him a present to open on that day too. They were not allowed visitors during the lab time but visitors could come watch them on a monitor from another room. It was very thoughtful of them to try to make his birthday special in the middle of the study. And especially nice of the doctor to make the cake and bring it over because she got called to Boston and only had time to swing by and drop the cake off before heading to the airport. We took him out for dinner the night he got done with the study and the next day we went shopping in downtown Chicago. Later that night we went Go Kart racing. There was a track that had a slick track and a regular track. I am AWESOME at drifting! For those of you who don't know what drifting is, its fishtailing - on purpose. I had the best lap time first time and second best lap time on our last race. Next movie in the Fast & Furious franchise: Fast & Furious Suburban Mom Showdown.

Hard to believe my baby is 16. He's loving it! I guess I am too. He helped me drive about 3 hours coming home from Chicago. That was nice. He probably would have driven longer but since our car is a little small and he feels kinda cramped driving it, he couldn't sit that long. He's too tall and needs to stretch out.

Things are back to normal now. School has started now and we are back to schedules and bed times. Well, I'm a little soft on bed times, as long as they go to bed within reason. Devan is going to do marching band again so practices will be starting for him soon (already started for the rest of the band but he wasn't here and it ordering himself a new bass. Fairly heavy school load again plus marching band, if I didn't know him better I would say my son has turned into a geek. A tall sixteen year old who calls him mom to tell her he just took two trains and a bus to get the Best Polish Sausage in Chicago.