Wisconsin - come for the wedding, stay for the beer. And family.

We just returned from a week long Blum trip to the great state of Wisconsin to celebrate Z receiving a new aunt, aka, the marriage of Joe's brother Zac to the ever charming, hilarious and delightful Karlee. Z got to spend an entire week meeting all of his great aunts and uncles, regular old uncles, cousins, great grandma, etc etc. Good thing the child can't understand all of the praise lavished upon him or he would be spoiled rotten. Now it's only Joe and I that are spoiled and mildly haughty with pride over our adorable little son. It doesn't hurt that he looks great in a bow tie.

Cute in a bow tie. Bow ties are cool.

 Z was a gem on the "harrowing" (Joe Blum) train rides to and from Chicago. Maybe spent a total of 5-10 minutes crying out of oh.... about 30 train hours. He was the best part of the exhausting trips and we couldn't possibly have hoped for him to do any better than he did. He handled all the people, confusion, chaos and excitement of the entire week beautifully, especially considering that he discovered his hands in a whole new way over the last week. He now spends a good portion of time in very focused, serious contemplation of holding his fists to his mouth and sucking them. Every now and then he gets ambitious and attempts to figure out how to release his thumb from his tightly balled fist and get it in his mouth. This usually results in an increase in intensity and grunts as he. just. can't. get. that. thumb. He has succeeded a couple times, which seems to result in confusion and uncertainty about why he wanted this thumb thing in his mouth in the first place. It's just not all he thought it would be. Unfortunately for him, his memory of this event doesn't seem to stick because a few hours later he's at it again. I admire your tenacity my little son.

Capturing the wild thumb

Z's also gotten great at smiling at me and Joe. When we smile at him he will light up and smile back. Pretty heart melting. It makes this whole parenting thing seem more real when I realize that Z knows us and wants us in particular. It's crazy to realize that I'm that person now in someone's life, the one who you want when something bad happens to you or you are sick or sad. I'm not sure if boys are like this as much as girls, but when I last had a bad stomach bug and was sitting weakly on the bathroom floor after hours of vomiting, it was my mommy that I called as soon as it was not an ungodly hour of the morning, even though I knew she was miles away and could do nothing for me. I just needed her to know that I didn't feel good and tell me to try to drink something when my stomach settled and get some rest. Oh sure, I knew those things already but for some reason it made me feel better to have my mom tell me what to do. I hope that someday when Z is grown, he will still want me sometimes to cook for him or send him a package or whatever people do in the future. I want him to be standing around with his friends someday telling goofy stories about me being crazy with the undertone that says, "My mom is nuts, but I love her."

This is what happens when I boop his nose. It's serious.