Fishes + Exercise = ??

Perhaps one of the sweetest pictures we have. We drove downtown to visit Shedd Aquarium on Saturday. Even though the large Oceanarium is closed for renovations, there is still a ton to see. Luke's first amazement was the Caribbean Reef, which is basically this large tank in the middle of the building with all sorts of large aquatic life swimming around and mesmerizing everyone, young and old. Daddy let Luke out of the stroller to take a closer look, which offered a whole new world warranting exploration. He soon lost interest in the fishes when he discovered lights in the floor (you know how they sort of bury flood lights for effect, right?). It was hard to peel him away, but we soon found something even better - a tank of sting ray buried under the floor so that you could walk on top...very, very cool. Didn't matter that there was an enormous tank of sharks behind him. No sir. Just give him lights under the floor and you have a happy toddler for HOURS. After walking all over the place for the better part of 2 hours, he finally sat down in the middle of the floor, completely worn out. And, within 2 minutes of being on the way home, he promptly fell asleep.

Life has been more challenging to find time to do things like blogging. Luke is a very active little guy with tons of energy. Each day, he's trying something new. This week, it's bringing you books to read to him (oh to steal your heart!). Yesterday, he figured out how to open the baby gate if it isn't tightly latched.

He is now waffling between 1 and 2 naps a day and the length of time has been a bit variable. My first priority during this desperately valuable nap time is to workout. I have gotten extremely serious about trying to lose 30 pounds - the last of the baby weight and some more for good measure. I'm trying to get at least 5 workouts done a week, and then I tend to get busy with trying to clean my dirty house and alas, no time for blogging before he wakes. So far, so good though, as I'm already down 8 pounds. And, it's great because I read while I'm working out and I've read two extremely sappy romance novels - Pride and Prejudice and The Lucky One, both of which I highly recommend.

Since it's my blog, I must brag about my little guy just a bit. He is the absolute best eater, and not just yummy stuff like graham crackers and all of the things Mommy can't have on her diet, but vegetables as well. I think his favorite thing in the world might be oranges as I find him at the table pointing at the bowl of fruit quite often, and only the gift of a bite of orange will appease him. And, there he was the other night shoveling asparagus, peas, corn, and broccoli into his mouth. If anything, I'm thankful that we're off to a very good start!