Impersonating a Yuppie

The pleasures of a two-year-old are simple, and simply attained. This morning, after a brief stop at the Independence Park farmer's market, I took The Tot on the train. We had no destination; merely got on the train and off the train at various stations (Harlem, Logan Square, Division) until we got tired of riding the train.

At Logan Square, I took him out of the station and up to the Gap Outlet, where he crawled under the racks and shrieked through the dressing room to hear the echo while I tried on clothes. We got a piecemeal lunch of cheese, bread, an apple, and lemonade at a bodega on Milwaukee, then got back on the train. Unfortunately, we got on the southbound train at that point, so we rode the crowded train down to Division before switching trains. At every station, The Tot waved good-bye to the departing train; most people were fairly amused by this and waved back to The Tot. Although the CTA bans eating on the train, we ate our lunch on the train, taking bites out of our hunk of cheese and apple. There was lots of cuddling and basic conversation. These moments are what I miss in returning to work.

When we returned home, we got in the car, picked up The Dad, and ran errands. The Boy had gone off this morning to Legoland with Allison, and with The Girl in Naperville, it was like we were a little family of 3 for today. So we did things that are easy enough with one child, like going to the AT&T store to pick out iPhones. Afterwards, we went to Whole Foods for free-range meats and organic milk. And finally, we cruised through Target for diapers and the obligatory Thomas-branded train (The Dad is such a sucker).

Playdates All-Around

This morning, we trekked up to Niles for The Girl's swim lesson at the Leaning Tower YMCA. The weather was finally decent enough for us to enjoy it, so The Boy and The Tot played on the equipment in the attached playground while The Girl had her lesson. I sat on a bench in the playground area observing all of their "Mama, look at me!" moments and making a few phone calls to line up social occasions for the afternoon and next week.

When The Girl's lesson was over, we went over to Target, as has become our custom, to pick up the 3 things on my list, have a snack, and kill time. The Boy and The Girl are at a double playdate at their friends' house now, The Tot is sleeping and I'm enjoying some quiet time. Sometimes, the best part of a mother's day is the part where her kids are happily and quietly occupied.

Mobile Misses

Cell phones only work if you remember to charge them. I planned my morning around an 11:30 a.m. appointment with my friend Sarah M. to return her kids' Kettler tricycle. Despite otherwise careful planning -- up at 8, The Girl's lunch made, weather checked, trike in the car and ready to go -- I failed to charge my cell phone and was unable even to text her to say we were there. She got there at 10:30, we got there at 11:00. I paged her at 11:40, but she'd already headed back to the Gold Coast.

Grandma Texas is coming today so that The Dad and I can leave The Boy, The Girl, and The Tot in her competent care while we travel to Madison, Wisconsin for the weekend. It's an ever so slightly belated celebration of our 10th wedding anniversary. I should clean my house in anticipation of her arrival, but Grandma Texas is my mother and, fortunately as such, she's taught me everything I know about housekeeping. Which is that life is too short to spend it scrubbing the floor more than once/month or so.

The Tot, The Boy and I brought The Girl to camp at Kilbourn Park, then headed south to do a little Treasure Store run. I bought 4 dresses, a Cynthia Rowley jacket, and a sweater for me, all for less than the price of one dress elsewhere (and by elsewhere, I mean Target or TJ Maxx). Given the number of trendy young women at the T.S. today, I'd say that the folks there have gotten wise to us bargain-hunters -- the prices I paid were a bit higher than usual as well.

After our failed Target meet-up, we also ran to the Carter's Outlet to pick up some short-sleeved PJs for The Tot; he's been sweating in his Hanna zippers every night. PJs were on clearance, so that was good news for me. I also checked out the new fall stuff for girls. It's very Mini Bodenesque.

Lazy Summer Day

Today marked the first real day of summer vacation. Thankfully, it was also a warm, sunny day so we could enjoy it.

We started the day by going to Disney II playground for a rising-1st-grader playdate. The Boy protested; he wanted to have a "regular summer day." Um, what? But The Girl really wanted to see her friends and I wanted to see mine, so we went to the park. The Boy spent the first 20 minutes yanking on the door handle of the car and crying, but eventually rallied to play with his friends and former-recent classmates.

We went home for lunch and lots of playing in the backyard. Our neighbor came by about 1/2 an hour before her nap and asked The Boy and The Girl to ride bikes in the front sidewalk while her babysitter watched. So they did that and I put The Tot down for a nap. When he woke up, we went to Baskin-Robbins (The Girl calls it "Justin Roberts") for ice creams. The Tot was quite possessive of his lopsided mint-chip cone, and refused to let me lick it evenly -- and the whole scoop toppled. Fortunately for me, he didn't seem to notice and was happy to crunch his remaining sugar cone. As seems to always be the case in this particular BR-DD, there were 2 police officers talking to a senior citizen at a nearby table and they seemed to find The Tot's incident amusing.

We ran to Target afterward, and I seem to be learning something after 6 years of parenting because it was a short trip for the 3 things on our list and little browsing as the kids were all pretty wired from the ice cream. When we got home, The Dad took everyone outside to play with the neighbors, ride bikes and play in the backyard. A very nice summer day.

Small Change and Small World

The Dad came down with the 24-hour stomach bug today, so I found myself on day 2 of a 3-day weekend with 3 rambunctious children. Plan A was to take Metra downtown to the water taxi, and take that over to Chinatown for lunch/walking, but The Girl, who has a pathological fear of train stations and crowds, nixed that plan. Onto Plan B.... Nickel City.

Nickel City, in Northbrook, just off the Waukegan Road exit from the Tristate, has heretofore been an outing to which The Dad takes the kids. A national franchise, Nickel City is an arcade that bridges 80s video-game parlors and Chuck E. Cheese. Thankfully for me, it's brighter than the 80s video arcade and quieter and less frenzied than Chuck E. Cheese. A $2 entry per kid (The Tot was free; this worked out to the owners' advantage as all he really wanted to do was feed nickels into the slots -- he'd take off before the game started) and $10 worth of nickels bought us about 2 hours of video fun -- the most I could stand before my head was pounding. Between the four of us, we racked up 150 tickets, which we used to "buy" useless plastic crap -- the kids were not to be deterred into my idea of trading tickets for a bag of M&Ms to be split 3 ways.

We briefly stopped into Hobbytown USA in the same strip mall, where The Boy played with gorgeous Quadrilla sets, The Girl looked at arts & crafts kits, The Tot manned the train table, and I eyed gardening and science kits. We bought 4 pieces of wooden track and went home, stopping briefly at the Starbucks in Northfield for iced tea-lemonades for the hot and thirsty crew.

Once home, boredom quickly set in so we went to Target to spend the kids' saved-up allowance. The Boy, who gets a modest $3/week, has been saving for a Bakugan case. The Tooth Fairy visited last week for the first time, and left him enough money to advance his cause. While wandering the toy aisles in search of Bakugan, a small doll for The Girl, and a Matchbox car for The Tot, we ran into Jenny Barron-Fishman. It took Jenny and I awhile to place each other, but when we did, I realized how small Chicago really is. Jenny was the proprietor of Sweet Pea's Yoga Studio. Without her, I wouldn't have found my playgroup in spring 2003, during a mom-and-me yoga class. It brought the point home to me again: the longer I stay in Chicago, the smaller and tighter my world gets.

Clean & Green

Although our participation in the official Clean & Green events in both Old Irving Park and Greater Independence Park was a bit of a bust, our family did manage to do a little gardening/improvement of our own today. We were hampered by the weather (on and off rain) as well as The Boy's Saturday morning soccer game, arriving at the GIPNA table too late to register or pick up trash bags. Our neighbors had come to similar fates, so we all cleaned the breezeways next to garages instead. I pulled out all the weeds, rocks, garbage and whatnot from the breezeway next to our garage, then installed our rain barrel on the alley side of the fence, leaving a good receptacle for rain runoff from the garage and giving us easy access to the spigot for gardening use when the weather dries up.

We went over to the OIPA potluck picnic about 12:30. My friend CD had asked me to have my bags available for green-minded folk, but when we arrived, the scant population was packing up to leave. So we went to lunch at Target. Despite the snags, it was a nice day.

Jammin with Julie, Coffee, Errands

We started the day off by seeing the drive-through teller at Midwest Bank to make both deposits personal and deposits for CFC. The Boy was not happy about sitting in the car for 20 minutes while I took care of my business, but he changed his tune when the teller enclosed three sets of lollies for the kids. Our main bank is out-of-state, but I've been so pleased with how incredibly nice the folks at Midwest Bank are, I bring them my local banking business.

The Tot and I started the new session of Jammin with Julie today. Oddly enough, The Girl chose to skip preschool, go to the full day of MDO, and come along to music class with us. With only The Boy to drop off at school, we made it to music class well in advance of its 9 a.m. start time, which is a departure from our usual method, which is to arrive 5 minutes late and try not to disrupt the flow of the class.

While The Girl is tall and looked Amazonian next to all the 1-2-year-olds, even The Tot looked big against the newest crop of babies in the class. It's weird to think of him at the older end of the age range. When I asked him if he wanted to jam with Julie, he nodded vigorously, which is amazing for a child whose standard response to any question is, "no." He listened with rapt attention, tried to touch the animal-puppets, helpfully put away the shakers, chased bubbles, and didn't want to go at the end of class. To me (and I think to Miss Julie), this means that music class is a success!

You, too, can Jam with Julie in the neighborhood (at Irving Park Lutheran Church) on Wednesdays and Fridays, now through April 22, 2009. Call Julie Helenius directly at 773-267-7607 or e-mail her at jtjujubee@aol.com. The 16-week session is $192, which represents a bit of a price break over the Old Town School's Wiggleworms classes ($240 for a 16-week session), which are similar to Julie's classes.

After music class, we schlepped over to CFC so The Girl could play with her friends, attend another music class (this time with Ms. Andrea, whose instrument of choice is a viola), and practice writing letters. Meanwhile, I spent the first hour of MDO visiting with my friends, drinking coffee, eating muffins and trying to divert The Tot from nursing.*

We ran to Target to buy a new iron and ran into a mom from The Boy's school as well as Becky and Baby G. The Tot had great fun helping me push the buttons on the elevator, pick out storage bins for The Dad, and eat Sour Airheads. Then we went home, had lunch, and he took a nap.





* It has been 20+ months and I'm still nursing this kid! I am a fan of breastfeeding and even extended breastfeeding, but this is ridiculous. Chicago is pretty pro-breastfeeding, even more than it was when The Boy was a baby, but nursing a 6-month-old in public is understandable and even cute. Nursing a gigantic toddler? Notsomuch (for me).

Summer Wanes

We got up and out this morning to meet Cheryl and her kids at the North Park Village Nature Center. When we arrived in the center at 10 a.m., the guide asked us if we were there for the preschool program. We weren't--I did not know there was such a thing--but we decided to join anyway. I wish I had known about it earlier! Sean, the guide, was really good at both engaging and controlling about 15 kids aged 3-6. We read a book about water (The Water Dance) and then went outside to experiment with water and a trough of sand. The Girl was especially entranced by Sean and the outside activity, but The Boy got into it, too.

After about 1/2 an hour, I went back to find Cheryl and her kids in the discovery room. Her son joined in the river fun. Then we all went on a nature walk on the main loop. The Tot fell asleep in the sling during the walk. Around noon, we were all hungry, so we headed back to the parking lot.

I took the kids to Target for lunch and a few odds and ends. Afterwards, we stopped at a small grocery store on Peterson and Lincoln that I imagined was going to be like the Family Fruit Market. It was similar, but much smaller. At first, I thought it would be carry a lot of kosher products, given the number of Orthodox Jews I observed exiting the store, but it turns out that the specialty is Greek. We got some yummy, hand-formed Challah bread, bananas, rice milk, grape tomatoes, cauliflower, and fresh mozzarella cheese.

I took Jersey Avenue south to get home, mistakenly thinking it would turn into Kimball Avenue. Instead, it turned into Kedzie Avenue. The Boy said, "Hey, that's where S. lives!" so we turned down her street and ended up having an impromptu playdate with S., F., G., and their mother. On the way home, we stopped for another unplanned side trip: the gas station and car wash. The Girl has been begging me to go through the car wash every time she sees one or thinks about it, so I took The Great White Moose in for a bath after filling up her tank with gas. The Tot seems to have recovered from his fear of the car wash; he was wide-eyed and curious about it the trailer took us through the automatic car wash, but he did not once cry.

One on One

Today was a lovely day. I started out the day by taking The Boy to his STEP UP literacy assessment at Disney 2. I chatted with some other moms, including Ms. Sandra from CFC, as we waited for our almost-Kindergarteners to be assessed. Afterwards, I extended our one-on-one time by taking The Boy to our neighborhood Starbucks for a lemonade and seasonal cookie (him) and latte and seasonal cookie (me). There was a kid with his tutor at the next table over, and The Boy was more interested in what was happening over there than in talking much to me, but it was a nice day and we were sitting outside, so it was cool to just spend easy time together. Then, Mario Greco, our old Realtor happened by. I hadn't seen him since 2002. He and his wife left Lincoln Park to build a place in Old Irving Park. It was nice to see him and catch up a bit. I feel like the fact that Mario is moving to my neighborhood is a sign that it's no longer up and coming, it is there.

We bummed around at home for a bit. The Tot got a nap. We all had lunch. And then I took The Tot, The Boy, and The Girl to run a bunch of errands, including a trip to Costco for ice cream, to Office Max for school supplies, and to Gymboree to exchange The Girl's first-day-of-school dress.

After errands, I dropped The Boy and The Tot back off at home. And The Girl and I went on a Mommy-The Girl playdate. It wasn't much -- just dinner and a bit of shopping at Target. But it was fun to go out with The Girl alone. She is very chatty, and also enjoys helping me (thank you Eloise Wilkin's We Help Mommy). Plus, when left as the director of an outing, she's much more likely to listen to what her body is telling her; at 7:30, she told me that she was ready to go home and go to bed. So we did.

What's worse?

I can never decide what is worse when your kids are sparring: keeping them at home or taking them out of the house for a change of scenery. Given the choice, even with a woozy head, I'd leave the house, and that is what I did today. We went to Target for lunch and miscellany.

TRU

No, not the restaurant. It's not a participant in Kids' Restaurant Week, but even if it were, I probably would not take my kids to Tru, though the Trib has good things to say about Gale Gand (and as a pastry-addict, I'd like to try her stuff sometime). Instead, dear readers, I am talking about a giant, brightly colored, plastic-filled, noise-generating, headache-inducing outpost: Toys "R" Us. Otherwise known as TRU among the parent-set.

I took The Boy, The Girl, and The Baby to Toys "R" Us this afternoon. It is unlike me to shop for toys (a playroom [including a 5x5 EXPEDIT unit] bursting at the seams, plus toy bins in every bedroom, and the basement have killed that urge), but we had some gift cards to spend. The Boy picked out a new Razor Scooter (he left his old one on the front sidewalk and it had been stolen), The Girl chose a Little Tykes digital camera, and The Baby got a baby stroller (we now have 3; hopefully this means fewer squabbles over them) and a new GeoTrax train with controller (bringing our total of those up to 3 also; I hope this also translates into fewer squabbles). The best part? We still have $26.41 left over for another rainy day toy expedition. I was tempted to spend it on a huge GeoTrax Central Station toy, which was on clearance for $49.99. But although it'd be cool, it would also require more storage space than we currently have, so I passed.

At that point, we were all hungry and pretty grumpy because of it (despite the toys), so we stopped at Target for dinner on the way home. The Baby and I split an order of chicken tenders and a Yoplait yogurt (the kind I don't normally buy because its low fat content is counteracted by high-fructose corn syrup, which bumps the calorie total to an obscene number for low-fat yogurt), The Girl settled on a beef hot dog (organic mac & cheese was unavailable), and The Boy had his usual Pizza Hut personal pan pizza. We did shop a bit afterwards for pantry staples and a new kitchen rug.