A sheltered life

Unjustly accused of losing The Dad's keys, I spent the morning combing the house, car, and garage for them. Rather than showering and taking The Baby (and The Girl) to one of the last jammin' with Julie classes of the session, I alternately helped him search and consoled a cranky Baby. (I found the keys where The Dad had left them: stuck in the garage door.)

After dropping The Girl off at MDO, The Baby and I spent the day entertaining The Dad's cousin James. He charmed the heck out of The Baby, but he's really in Chicago to find a job in accounting/finance. We left The Great White Moose in the lot and walked along uncluttered sidewalks lined with leafy trees through the neighborhood to Starbucks for vanilla lattes and baked goods (The Baby took over my apricot scone with raspberry jam print; I'd post a review [we're already frosted sugar cookie addicts], but I hardly got any.)

James told me about some of his experiences as a Chicago newbie. I have to admit that some of them shocked me. On some level, I am aware that such things/people exist, but the Chicago I know, work, live, and play in is still scrubbed pretty clean of the underwordliness that The Dad's cousin saw. And I suppose Mayor Daley likes it that way. Corruption is one thing. The revival of the Levee is another.

Later, The Baby, The Girl, The Boy and I headed to Uptown for playgroup. Today's cute kid story is brought to you by Aqua, the Danish pop group from the 1990s most known for its song, "Barbie Girl." The Girl asked to put in the CD "with the blue bubbles," so I popped in Aquarium. The Girl, of course, loved "Barbie Girl" and asked me if "the Barbies" were singing it; she then asserted that this was true. I didn't bother to disabuse her or The Boy of that notion. The Boy said that he was going to (pretend to) be the boy singer because he liked his voice. He then asked what the boy singer's name was. I told him "Ken."

By some miracle, we made good time driving to Uptown and back. We spent 2 hours playing with our friends at playgroup. Our friends from the suburbs even drove in for it, so The Boy and I got to marvel at the spaces in two of his friends' mouths, as they had both lost teeth. I don't think any of The Boy's teeth are loose, but I should find out what the Tooth Fairy's going rate is these days.