Free for a Week Update

A few years ago, I created this schedule of things to do that were free or low-cost for each day of the week. Some things have changed, and I know my schedule certainly has, but if I ever get a week off, it might be good to take my children on outings that do not involve IKEA, Target, or playdates.

Monday - 10 a.m. Morning Glory Mondays @ Garfield Park Conservatory (scroll down)
Tuesday - Farmers Market @ Lincoln Square
Wednesday - 10 a.m. Storytime @ Women and Children First Bookstore
Thursday - Free Day @  Peggy Notebeart Museum
Friday - 11 a.m. Storytime with Nili @ The Book Cellar

Kung-Fu Fighting, Kung-Fu Crying

The Dad and I went out to see the new Harry Potter movie at the Davis Theater a couple of weeks ago. It was my first time in a Chicago movie theater in months, so I was unaware of the theater's Camp Hollywood program. So my outing today with The Boy and The Tot was to see Kung-Fu Panda at the Davis. The Boy had never seen it and he really enjoyed it. But most of the kids in the theater were younger--and restless. The Tot was one of these. We left the theater about 3 times during the film -- to get more Runts from the gumball dispenser, get some water from the fountain, or just to run up and down the ramp a couple of times.

In the afternoon, after naps and The Girl's return from camp, we took a trip to the library. It was nearly a successful visit. I say nearly because, of course, the security guard started to yell at me because The Tot pulled a few picture books down from the shelf while I was around the corner cleaning up the mess he'd made in the children's section. I try to instill good library manners in my children, but it's difficult to do so with 3 kids and so many constraints placed on me/us while we are the library: no strollers, we seem to be the only people who are ever shushed, must wait in line, not spin the oh-so-tempting rotating shelves, can't pull the picture books off the shelves. Seriously? Would they rather I just not use the public library?!? The security guard at Independence must think it's still 1962, when children were seen, but not heard -- even in the children's section of the darn library. Thank goodness the librarians there are all sweet as pie. The upside of the visit was a new stack of books to read at bedtime and a museum pass for a trip to MSI later this week.

A Day Off

I've just come home to a quiet house. The Dad has taken The Boy, The Girl, and The Tot to the AMC Theater on Western to see Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Like many white-collar companies, The Dad's company is observing the Independence Day holiday today, and has given everyone the day off. Since he has the day off, I thought I'd take the day off as well.

So I took the bus to Lincoln Square to meet my friend Jen, have lunch at Oparte Thai House, buy a couple birthday gifts at Timeless Toys (it is kind of fun to look at toys without the kids), and stop in at a treasure store on the way home. I overheard way too much Michael Jackson blasting from everyone's stereos on round trip. Now I'm off to read my book, The Billionaire's Vinegar, and take a nap.

Pizza Art Moms

Last night, I went out with the ladies from my playgroup for a rare treat: Moms' Night Out! We went to Pizza Art Cafe in Rockwell Crossing. Most of our original and morphed group made it for the evening. We ate pizzas, drank wine, and laughed at our waiter, who wanted us to have a spokesperson for our table to order for everyone. Um, isn't that your job? Yelpers said the same thing. I love my playgroup, and hope to see everyone more often over the summer.

Let's Bowl!

Last night, The Dad and I got a sitter and out went out! It was kind of a date-night and kind of a night-with-friends. In any event, we went bowling at Lincoln Square Lanes, an old-school bowling alley if there ever was one. Most reviews refer to the establishment as a dive, and that is probably pretty accurate. However, I find its no-apologies, blue-collar aesthetic rather charming.

We met my group of college friends there. I drank a lot of Pabst Blue Ribbon, ate several bags of pretzels, and beat The Dad in our round of bowling (neither of us cleared 100, however, despite my strike and spare). I scored our game manually; it seems odd to me that reviewers would complain about also having to do so. This must be where my age shows -- self-scoring lanes are relatively new to my memories of the game. Manually scoring bowling, life without cell phones, rabbit ears, and retaining my ability to hear -- all things anyone under the age of 25 will find strange.

It was a great night.

Lincoln Square

The Tot has thrush. One of the best cures I've found is gentian violet, which is available at Merz Apothecary. So The Tot and I headed over there this morning after we dropped The Boy and The Girl at school.

Merz Apothecary is gorgeous, old and smells great. But it's a nightmare to visit with a toddler. It's been so long since I've been there, I managed to forget this fact. Many of the bottles are displayed right at his level, so he wanted to touch them, take their caps off, etc. I got what I needed, fiddled around for too long picking out a lip balm, and got out of there.


I also forgot how much I enjoy Lincoln Square. We went across the street to Cafe Selmarie to buy a gift certificate, officially marking the last gift/person off our holiday list. As soon as we walked in, The Tot's eyes widened at the sight of the pastry case. He kept staring at the cupcakes saying, "cookie! cookie!" What is a mama to do in the face of such cuteness? Yeah, so I got him a cupcake (and me a cup of coffee) and we sat in the window for about 10 minutes, enjoying our snack and watching the world go by. We got down from his stool to stare at a little boy about his age in a stroller. I chatted briefly with his nanny -- I was impressed that she got a 20-month-old to wear mittens and a hat. She said that she refuses to leave the house if he takes them off. I don't think that will work with The Tot, who rarely leaves the house specifically because he wants to. They left to go to Starbucks, where the boy could be let out of the stroller to roam, and we left as well.

I ended up stopping next door (Enjoy) to look for some mittens for The Tot (score - stretch toddler mittens at $4/pop) in the (futile) hope of getting him to wear them without crying. I also bought a wind-up frog that made The Tot laugh ($3), and some hot-pink mitten clips ($4) to put in The Girl's Christmas stocking.

As much as I would have loved to shop the rest of Lincoln Square, I had a more pressing need for sunflower butter, so we loaded back into the car and drove down Lincoln Avenue to Trader Joe's before we needed to pick up The Girl from preschool.

Add a few more to the pile

The pile of "To Read" books on my nightstand grew by two books this evening -- Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu and Gregory Frost's Shadow Bridge -- after I attended an author event featuring both (and Jennifer Stevenson) at The Book Cellar. All the authors did readings and then they opened it up to an audience Q&A. I couldn't help myself: I asked a million questions (well, three -- out of the four asked by audience members in sum). It was like being in college again! My cobwebby brain was so happy.

On the way back to The Great White Moose, I stopped at Cafe Neo for a yummy goat cheese-fresh spinach crepe and an iced tea. Although there was a stack of high chairs in the back, a changing table in the bathroom, and a "babyccino" on the menu, that place is so not kid-friendly.

Blast from the Past

This evening, I took The Baby, The Boy, and The Girl with me to Lincoln Square to get dinner and a birthday present for The Dad (he turns 35 tomorrow!). On our playdate last week, The Boy and I had spotted a cool Star Wars pop-up book that we thought would be perfect for The Dad and went back today to get it. Of course, both The Boy and The Girl asked me to buy various books for them, so I suggested that next time we make a family outing "to the bookstore," we'd go to that bookstore. The clerk ringing us up agreed, and gave me a list of store events. As I scanned the list, I found a name I recognized: Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu. A long, long time ago, Nnedi and I were friends. I'll have to add her novels to my list of books to read. I currently have a huge stack on my nightstand and am in a book-buying moratorium.

We dropped a fair bit of money in Lincoln Square this evening. I stopped at City Mouse and bought The Baby a cute Tea Collection outfit, and found a baseball t-shirt for The Boy. We had dinner at Costello's, and in addition to the bookstore run, I spent a small fortune on an ice cream cake at Stone Cold Creamery. The Boy and The Girl each got a kid's ice cream, although The Boy decided he did not like the mint ice cream with white chocolate chips on top that he had to have, and threw it out. Which annoyed me, because The Baby would have happily ate it.

Birthday Butterflies

Today is The Girl's birthday. She's three. How did that happen? I had always pictured myself as a Mom of Boys, but she has been such a joy in my life. I can't imagine not having some girlie in our lives.

In honor of her birthday, we "hosted" playgroup at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. I had thought that because their Butterfly Ball is tomorrow and the museum will be closed, it would be fairly quiet in there. But I was wrong. The school groups were notably absent and it was not crowded, but they were working on the installation of their new special exhibit, so it was loud in the Hands-On-Habitat. Which kept scaring The Baby.

I did get to catch up with my friend Sarah and her little ones -- we talked about schools and real estate, of course. Her husband and his business partner are building a mixed-use green building adjacent to Giddings Plaza in Lincoln Square.

After the museum, we ran a quick couple of errands in Lincoln Park: exchanging a broken table leg at Pottery Barn Kids and buying butter and eggs at Treasure Island to make a pink birthday cake for The Girl:

Mommy Playdates

Grandma Naperville came to visit and babysit today. She got some quality time with The Baby, and I got to do a series of playdates with my own children.

First up, I went on a Mommy-The Girl playdate. We didn't have enough time to go to the Butterfly Museum, but we did engage in the 3-year-old version of the "spa day" and went for mani-pedis together at Lee Nails in Six Corners. The Girl often asks me to paint her fingernails, so I thought she'd be into getting her nails done professionally. She liked to pick out the nail polish color, and she likes the end result, but the process was rather lackluster an adventure for her. She sat in the chair by herself -- did not want to sit on my lap, held her hands out to be buffed, and patiently allowed the gal to paint her nails (and then to paint cute white-and-silver-glittery daisies on each nail), but she was not terribly interested in or excited by the prospect. She did conceded to sit on my lap for part of my pedicure.

Afterwards, we picked up The Boy and all went to lunch at McDonald's. Then I had a playdate with The Boy. Like his sister, his ideal destination (Nickel City) was too far away to reasonably get to in the span of time we had, so we had to come up with a Plan B. With the weather (cold, windy), and my health (head cold), it was hard to come up with something. So I defaulted to the cool mom standby -- a trip to the toy store, capped off with a trip to the book store. I think he had a good time; he kept picking out toys for The Baby and The Girl, although we just got a small train for him and some party favors for The Girl's upcoming birthday party.

When I got home, The Baby greeted me by not crying -- a departure from the usual. Instead, he toddled around the house, sat at his little table, and brought Grandma books to read.