Congrats, Mom!

At the end of a token interview of several unimportant questions this afternoon, Mom was told that she had been chosen - over two veteran Trib co-workers and friends - to move into the open copy editing position in the features department in May.

This means she will be working a day shift! (And it feels good to be validated, too!)

Honey, we shrunk the kids!

See? They're smaller than a penny!

We walked through a "shrinking machine" today in a Field Museum exhibit, Underground Adventure, that we hadn't seen in previous visits. As you can see from the photos, it's interesting. Its focus is on soil, but the kids liked the critters in the soil.


Once again, we can thank the library for the museum pass.

An eggs-tra busy day

The day before Mom and the kids head to Kentucky for a spring break trip, we decided to be busy - not including the packing.

We tackled the Soldier Field Spring Egg-Stravaganza for the first - maybe only - time and also went to the Hancock Observatory for its last day of skating.

We had done the skating before. But the Soldier Field experience was new to us, and we're thinking of it as a "been there, done that" kinda thing. There seemed to be thousands of people, and the kids were sent onto the field in waves by age group. So there was a long wait, and once you were on the field the candy - no eggs, actually, just candy scattered around - was gone in 30 seconds. It was nuts. Oh, and it was chilly.

But it was an experience. It was Soldier Field, after all.

Nana, preschool, playdates, and activities

Yes, a month has passed since we last posted here. And, yes, that last one came after another silent month. So we have some catching up to do.

First, we should mention that Nana - Dad's last living grandparent - died recently, two days shy of her 91st birthday. Her health had been declining quickly. But she went in peace, in hospice care. Dad flew to Massachusetts for the services last week while Grandy came here to help hold down the fort.

Meanwhile, the kids have been enjoying playdates with classmates - Lincoln back-and-forth with one boy, Levynn here with one girl and there with another - and we've visited Adler Planetarium and Chicago Children's Museum.

Now, to the best news: We have a preschool program for Lincoln to attend in September!

As our public preschool options appear to be nil where we now live, we have been crossing our fingers for a private option that is (almost) affordable. Fortunately, one of the closest schools, NAEYC-accredited Fourth Presbyterian Church Day School (on the Mag Mile!), kindly has made that possible. We've visited the school and feel very comfortable with it, particularly with its warm and engaging teachers. So we've enrolled him there. Phew!

Raise your hand

... if you've been married for 65 years.

That's you, Mammy and Pap - and only you, we're pretty sure.


The rest of you can try to wrap your minds around that number. We're still trying. Congratulations!

Here are some photos of the kids - ours, cousin Clark, and even others (big and small) - from last weekend's time in Kentucky.

Sunday busy Sunday

Among the things one or more of us has been doing today, we all went sledding back on our favorite "hill" in Lincoln Park this morning and then Dad and Levynn went to the Art Institute for its Family Workshop program (the big-kid version of Mini Masters) to learn about and work with textiles.



That boy riding with Lincoln in the first scene is part of a family who arrived at the park at the same time we did but just to play, and we shared sleds with them.

(We didn't build that, it already was there!)

Lincoln's first birthday party

At least that's how we'll remember it - even though it wasn't his birthday party, Levynn was there as well, and the birthday child is a friend of theirs (Zara, daughter of a co-worker and friend of Mom's). So it was a nice experience.

Lincoln had been looking forward to it for weeks because it also was to be his first time at the much-hyped Pump It Up, where Levynn already had been.

They ran around, bounced around, and ate pizza and cake. It probably doesn't get any better than that at these ages!

mom's chin

so this time a week ago, mom was kind of in la-la land after "the chin thing." here's some before and after:


this was before Christmas. See the giant blob? it's been there for years, but seems to have gotten more prominent recently.
here's another look at it:


now, here's last week, with the 10 stitches. and mom's very irritated chin.


and then the view from afar:


now here's tonight - looking much better. No blob! mom thinks she looks like she's lost weight.


here, the scar tonight. a little disfigured looking, but much better without the stitches.


happy and minus "the chin thing!"

mom's snowy walk to work

the day after the blizzard was done, mom documented the snow between home and work


leaving the front door at the Tower, looking across Michigan Avenue


same crosswalk in the morning


looking back toward our house at the pile of snow mom climbed over. they had used the snow blower on the sidewalk, but hadn't pushed it into the street to clear the crosswalk.


same thing here - at State Street and Chestnut. see the car? you can tell how deep it is.


thankfully, they cleared around this bus stop.

The Blizzard of '11

We're OK! We're fine! All's well!

Mom even walked home from work in the middle of it Tuesday evening (she's working dayshifts this month), and you can catch a glimpse of that walk in the WGN video below. Yeah, she was on TV!

 
And Dad and the kids went outside to play in it twice today, first while it was still snowing in the morning and then after it had stopped in the afternoon.






It's hard to say how much snow we have on the ground, but we're told it's the third largest total in Chicago history. School was cancelled today and Thursday, museums and libraries the same, we never got a newspaper today, more than 200 cars were still buried on Lake Shore Drive at 4 p.m. today, yada yada yada.

But we don't drive, public transportation is operating, and our building has had no power disruptions. We're happy!