Good morning, good morning. 

One of my sweet friends asked me when I write these blog posts. I said, sometimes I write it the night before. And sometimes I write it while Ishu is at school. And sometimes I’ll write it while Ishu is sitting right next to me, drawing and playing with stickers.

But today? Today, I am writing this post while Ishu is watching Curious George. At 2:30 in the morning. 

He woke up at midnight, extra restless. I think our time at the pumpkin patch yesterday was great, but extra windy (and dusty) and his little body may be having a reaction to that. 

I tried to lay with him for two hours, but he lay there wide awake. So, eventually, we came out to the living room to play with Play-Doh. 

Except when we are only 2.5 years old, it’s read hard to control our volume when we are excited. So, in an effort to stay friendly with the neighbors, I turned the TV on and he’s sitting next to me watching a Halloween episode of Curious George. 

Going to type up our weekend recap while this show runs and then gonna try to get him back to bed for a couple hours. 

Aside from what’s currently happening, our weekend was ONE OF MY FAVORITES. 

Friday

Ankur worked an overnight shift on Friday night. So, I picked Ishu up a little early from school. We had a low-key evening at home since I had a 5pm evaluation meeting. And then we were both in bed by 6pm.

Saturday

Ankur came home from work at 8am and brought with him gifts of caffeine. A chai tea latte for himself. A latte for me. And a cake pop for the little monkey. 

At 11:30ish, we all got ready and headed over to Lincoln Park. (At a toddler’s pace). We had reservations for lunch at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Company. Ishu and I had lunch here with Katie back when she visited us and I wanted Ankur to try it out! 

He reported that it was well worth the trip. Pizza pot pies are a unique experience and the dough was so soft and yum. 

After, we drove over to Lottie’s Pub in Bucktown for their Fall Festival. They had a petting zoo for the littles and Ishu fed some sheep and goats and a baby piglet.

Ishu spent a good amount of time following the piglet around, trying to pick it up. I’m pretty sure if he managed to figure out a way to hold it, it’d be heading back home with us in the car. He loved that little guy.

After the petting zoo, we drove over to Walsh Park. The playgrounds in Chicago are so fun and every time we visit a new one, I tell myself I’ve gotta make a goal of trying to see a certain percentage of parks and playgrounds here before we leave. There are so MANY and they’re all so unique in their own way.

This one felt especially nice because there was an abundance of trees all along the perimeter and the colors were so vibrant and beautiful!

I could have happily stayed there all day under the trees, but we had plans to go celebrate Diwali over at Bubbles Academy.

We’ve never been to this location of Bubbles so Ishu had a fun time exploring all the rooms and their outdoor nature playground.

He also loved hearing the story of Diwali and, to my surprise, was focused and attentive for (most of) the full story.

In one of the rooms, they had a craft for the kiddos to complete. And Ishu liked decorating the craft with all the jewels they provided (which I think were just bindis, haha).

And then everyone went outside for the dance party. But Ishu was more interested in the play kitchen and the wheelbarrow on the playground. So we hung out ’til the end of the event (5:30ish) and then made our way back home!

When we got home and finished bathing him, feeding him, and putting him down to sleep, Ankur and I watched the final episode of She-Hulk. The ending was weird, but overall, I liked the show!

Sunday

On Sunday early morning, we drove over to Bengtson’s Farm at Jenn’s recommendation. And, she was spot-on with that recommendation. So many things for toddlers to do. It was like an amusement park designed for toddlers. Ha.

I guess it was also an amusement park/pumpkin patch designed for Instagrammers because MAN every where you turned, there was some beautiful backdrop to take a picture of.

It was so interesting to see these amusement park rides at a pumpkin patch, with the backdrop of all the beautiful, natural fall colors. Definitely an experience I’m happy we had. (I’m also happy we went early because that place was C-R-O-W-D-E-D when we left around 1pm).

We ended up having lunch there, but that may have been our one and only mistake. I stopped off at the first food truck we saw, not realizing that there was an entire food court type thing a little below. This place is MASSIVE!

Once you’re inside the farm, you can go on any and all the rides. So Ishu enjoyed going on a frog hopper one that bounced up and down. He also went on the honey bee one that mimics the teacups at Disneyland. And then we all went on the train together.

Needless to say, he had a real fun time.

Now we’re ready for our week ahead!

It’s DIWALI TODAY, so if you celebrate, HAPPY DIWALI TO YOU!!

Hope you are all blessed with good health and prosperity and happiness!