you know you're the parent of a toddler when...

...you catch yourself standing next to the department printer shamelessly and absentmindedly humming the theme song from elmo's world...or blue's clues...or dora the explorer...

...but how can i complain, when the aforementioned toddler is this adorable? it's almost enough to make me sing 'LA-LA-LA-LA, LA-LA-LA-LA, Elmo's World!' at the top of my lungs for all the world to hear. the operative word in the previous sentence being almost.

...well, it seems that we have survived the heat wave. the temps are back down to heavenly regions of the mid-to-upper 70s, at least for today. we did brave the heat on sunday evening to visit our friend and realtor yvonne carns, who was having an open house for the condo development she lives in on the lake in east rogers park. they have a huge patio that overlooks their private beach, and a lot of the residents and their friends were out grilling and swimming and chilling. it actually felt really good, since the whole patio was shaded by that time of the evening.

...cadence was too chicken to dip her feet in the water (which was still quite cold, btw), but she loved combing the beach and throwing stones into the big old lake. the movement of the waves fascinated her, and she seemed to drink in the scenery.

...coincidentally, we ran into someone i went to high school with who happens to live in the same building as yvonne. kiljoong graduated a year before me and is friends w/ my olarn, who was in his graduating class. kiljoong and i were in orchestra together (he played violin, i played cello), but we didn't really hang out too much outside orchestra or korean club related stuff. but i got an email out of the blue from him about 3 years ago because he found my blog after talking to our mutual friend olarn. turns out he used to frequent the same venues i was going to at that time--empty bottle, the fireside, the metro, etc...i think we thought about catching a show together, but i was so busy back in those days, we just slipped out of touch...

the crazy thing is, in looking at my old email, i saw that he had invited me to a beach party at the very property where i would run into him this past sunday. he and his wife heather (his fiance at the time) had bought a condo in that building. i had no idea! what a small world! i'm going to have to call olarn and get us all together one of these days.

well, we're going back to that beach on saturday to hang out with yvonne again. she and ted are going to have a chess rematch (she clobbered him the last time). i think i might bring along a kiddie pool for cadence, since she's too scared to go in the lake. should be good times regardless...