Very Little House on the Prairie

Poppy and I are not complete city dwellers so we do have a yearning at times to be in the open country. We tried our local forest preserve but found some unauthorized fire pits, luckily minus the people who created them. This led us to the Arboretum, which is not near our house at all, but totally worth it. Since we rarely have a chance to wander, the girls enjoyed running freely. Being outside, with trees and grass on all sides was great until the mosquitos started biting, which reminded me that I do like the city for a lot of reasons too.

There is no perfect place, but luckily we have outlets for our city genes and our country genes.

Helen 10 Day Update

The recovery period for Helen's procedure is 10-14 days. I thought we might have a shorter period because she seems to heal so fast. I was wrong. She's had good and bad moments and some really good moments recently but she is still recovering and in pain during certain times of the day. Particularly at night sleeping. I'm thinking maybe because she's not distracted by anything and acutely aware of pain and her need for sleep. She did not get any pain meds last night because we were trying to see if she needed it and we were feeling like we were starting to overmedicate her. Turns out we should have given them. I've spoken with the ENT nurse and have it all straightened out now so she should get a good rest tonight.

The pics are from this summer. We found another great hangout, the Morton Arboretum. It's not as convenient as the zoo but has some great little trails where you can pack a lunch and forget you are part of the big city. In addition, it has the BEST kids playpark. I'm sure we took more pics, I'll dig them up for later posts. It's good to remember how fun summer is as a motivator to get through winter.

Party by the Pool

Helen had a backyard pool party again this year. Her birthday is a great intro to summertime!