Our cute kids

A field trip... to see Ella Jenkins

Levynn's class went on its third(!) field trip today, and this was a special one. Has anyone heard of Ella Jenkins? She's an 84-year-old children's folk singer who received a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004 for her wonderful career, and she's still performing.

The Pre-K and kindergarten classes (with Dad along as a chaperone) walked to the Old Town School of Folk Music and filled almost the entire auditorium for Miss Jenkins' hour-long show. She gets the audience involved in every song, which is a nice way to keep young kids interested. She also calls audience members - both children and adults - to the stage to give her a hand.

Levynn didn't go up, but Dad sure did. He volunteered once when Miss Jenkins called for seven men, since there weren't many of those in the seats. But near the end of the show she called on him specifically. She said that she didn't know how to make a clucking noise with her tongue and wanted to hear the audience try it. Apparently, Dad's cluck rose above the din of all clucks because people turned to look at him and Miss Jenkins pointed right at him. So he shared the microphone with her and clucked to the beats in the answers to the questions in the "Did You Feed My Cow?" song.

Can you picture that?

Levynn, the real performer in the family, generously called Dad a "star" and gave him a big hug when he returned to his seat.

She can draw!

Phew!

We hadn't said so, but we had been wondering privately for a while. We've insisted on letting her draw and color and paint however she likes, without any direction from us, and all she ever produced were scribbles and splotches.

But a few days ago she sketched three faces on her magnetic Doodle Pro, out of the blue. Then, emboldened, she asked for a large piece of paper and quickly drew these potato head likenesses of her and some classmates.

Eureka!

Brothers and sisters

Levynn and Lincoln love each other dearly. They hug and kiss many times a day, they laugh at each other's silliness, and they even share quiet times together now and then.


Then there are moments like the ones Mom and Dad witnessed this week and previously had only seen in books or maybe experienced as kids long ago.

"Don't follow me around, Lincoln!"

"Stop following me, Lincoln!"

"Why does he keep following me?!"

Because he thinks she's neat, right?

A tasty meal

Don't take this the wrong way. Well-prepared dinners are not unusual in this household. But this one - stuffed acorn squash - seemed to merit a mention for two reasons:

It was pretty.


And the kids eagerly dug into it.



Kudos to Mom for cooking it.

Bath time, buddy

A tasty election

Voting was the talk even in Pre-K class on Tuesday, when all of Chicagoland was abuzz with Obama-mania.

See the sticker on Levynn's shirt?


The kids in Levynn's class voted for different colored fruits, and Levynn chose "red apple."


But she'd tell you that she would have voted for Barack Obama if she had the chance.

Another show

Mom and Levyyn traveled to the Museum of Science and Industry, the new home of the Chicago Children's Theatre, to see the critically-acclaimed If All the World were Paper on Sunday. It was fantastic.

They caught the bus outside Tribune Tower, where this shot was taken.

A mark of her maturity?

It has been said that maturity is the ability to postpone pleasure. But what does it mean when a 4-year-old shows that?

Levynn wanted to eat a yogurt after her main course tonight and requested peach, which has become such a favorite that she openly asks us to not give that flavor to Lincoln. But when I told her (before actually looking in the fridge) that I thought we had only one peach yogurt left, she said, "Then I'll save it for another time."

Meet the Raggedies

That's Raggedy Ann on the left and her brother, Raggedy Andy, on the right. Aren't they adorable?

Yes, after two dress rehearsals (for Levynn, who went to school in costume on Thursday), it finally was showtime today. The kids made their first Halloween appearance for a special storytime at the library in the morning and then led Dad on a trick-or-treat trek around the block in the evening.

And the weather, well, it just couldn't have been better, with the sun shining throughout the day and the temperature still above 60 degrees at dusk.

To be honest, Dad wasn't sure what to expect in the neighborhood tonight. But our first Halloween in the city wasn't much different than any of our Halloweens in the "burbs" (as Chicago makes Louisville feel to us). There actually were more kids on the street here, young kids and not teens, which was comforting. Yet no one came to our door after 6:30, and it was dead quiet, so to speak, after 8. So Dad was pleasantly surprised, as it turned out.

Lincoln didn't collect any treats, but Levynn came home with her best stash yet in her four years. Even better, most people recognized her as Raggedy Ann, and she happily explained it to those who didn't.