RAIN, RAIN

Torrential downpours with gusty winds all day today, and it's supposed to continue on and off for the rest of the weekend. I'm not sure Mother Nature got the memo that it's the middle of June...in New York City. Where are our sunny, humid daytimes where we can spend the majority of the day outside giving Jack plenty of playtime and a healthy dose of vitamin D? Jack got so stir-crazy today (okay, we weren't any better) that we finally put him in his snowsuit, his rain jacket, and an old pair of shoes that are about to be given away and took him to the playground. Yes, in the pouring rain. No surprise that we were the only ones there. Jack had the whole place and all the puddles to himself. However, the thing that held his interest the most was that he learned how to hold down the button on the drinking fountain all by himself, so with one hand he does that, while he uses his other hand to cover the water spout just enough to make it spray everywhere, as if there wasn't enough water around us already. He even kept spraying his face, which he thought was hilarious. The good thing is that his new trick will be great on a sunny, humid day...if we ever get one.

TIME FOR US - THE TWO OF US

So we're going to be a family of four before we know it. Exact date: October 1, 2009. My California doctors had me set a date when I was there last week since we'll go the scheduled c-section route again. I'm cool with it; I wish I could have chosen 10/7 to match Jack's birthday of 11/7, but they didn't want me to be going that long since my official due date is 10/3. Anyways, family of three becomes family of four, but before that we were a family of two. And we're doing our best to recapture some of that before the "four" becomes a permanent part of the equation. This Friday night, we're headed out to what will most likely be our last Broadway show for a long, long time. A girl in my book club had to sell her tickets to "God of Carnage," which just won a Tony for best play. I jumped at the chance to get the tickets and luckily Adrian's mom was free. Then for our babymoon this time around, we're going to leave Jack at my parent's place while we head to the Santa Barbara area for a night and check out Montecito and Ojai (we just read in our Travel + Leisure magazine about Ojai having an outdoor bookstore that stays open late with an honor system paybox - how cool is that? I have to check it out.) Since we're only going away for one night, I wanted to go big, so I looked into hotels in the area, and then we realized we could possibly use our American Express points depending on what hotels they offered. When I checked, they had the hotel that was tops on my list, so away we go, for one night, to the Four Seasons Biltmore Santa Barbara (which is actually in Montecito, and hopefully not damaged from all the recent fires). I'm not sure how it will compare to our babymoon of Europe before Jack was born, but I have a good feeling it's going to be even better...because we're going to appreciate it that much more.