Happy Arbor Day

Spring clearly presents too many photo opportunities because I've been overwhelmed with the pictures I need to edit, upload, and blog.  My bad!  Let's start fresh though, shall we?  And work our way backward.

Today was Arbor Day.  Also known as THERE'S A REAL PRINCESS GETTING MARRIED TODAY day!  Molly was so excited about the wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton, but I started the Tivo-ed wedding too late tonight and ended up with a bit of a raucous crowd.  I remembered how magical Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding was to me as a little girl, and just wanted to give the kids the same memory for their lifetime.  Who knows what they'll retain, but sountrack to the wedding at our house sounded something like this

"Why are all those people there?"
"Why can't they all go to the church?"
"Why can't WE go to the church?"
"Someday can we go to the church?"
"And meet them?"
"Molly stop screaming everything!"
"And why do those boys have to sing?"
"What if they don't want to?"
"What if they quit? Can they go back if they change their minds?"
"Why aren't there any girls singing?
"Jack, get your feet out of my face!"
"Why do they sound so funny?
"Why aren't they smiling?"
"Why does that lady have a bird on her head?"  (in reference to a certain hat)
"That can't be the Queen.  She doesn't look very royal."
"Why is she wearing yellow?  Yellow isn't very Queen-ish"
"When will the Princess be the Queen?
"Why can't she be the Queen?"
"That's not very nice. What if she really wants to be Queen?"
"Ben stop kicking me!"
"Why do they call her the Princess of Whales?  Do the whales love her?"
"But why do they call it Wales if it's England?"
"Ben's hitting meeeeeee!!!!!!"
"Molly's hitting meeeeeee!!!"
"Jack, stop picking your nose!"

And on and on it went.  A fine way to watch a royal wedding I say, especially on Arbor Day.  Hey, maybe that explains question number 4,712 - "Mama, why are there trees inside the church?"

But back to Arbor day.  Spring has finally sprung here in Naperville and the trees are bursting with flowers!  Not quite like back in Pembroke, as this place has only had four or five years to grow it's trees (it was farmland and then a construction site before that).  But still, it's magical to go to sleep with no blooms, and wake up to this...



We celebrated by busting out our new Crayola color bubbles from the Easter Bunny.  These unique bubbles are COLORED!  And supposedly wash right out of clothing should they accidentally stain them.

FYI...they LIE!!!  My driveway looks like a human and blue-blooded alien got in a fight to the death.  And Molly's and Ben's fingers are stained all over.  And their shoes.  And clothes.

The offensive bubbles myseriously disappeared shortly after these photos were taken.

We also celebrated the royal nuptuals by welcoming the ice cream man back to the neighborhood.  Remind me to slash his tires next time he rolls through at dinner time.  You can't beat the happiness and excitement that good old ice cream truck music brings out in the kiddos though.

It was certainly a busy day, but a good day too.  Most importantly there was a giant ball of fire in the sky today that we haven't seen in a very long time.  I hope it sticks around!  It is SPRING after all.

Nana Nancy's Gravy

Nana Nancy is Marc's grandmother. 

Marc's ITALIAN grandmother.

And if it's not HER gravy?  Then it's not really gravy at all. 

And for anyone not living in New England, by GRAVY, I mean tomato sauce, of course.

When Marc and I first got married and lived in Boston, a stone's throw from his family in Revere, everyone knew where to find us on Sunday night - at Nana's house, stuffing our faces.  But then we moved away.  And now we've REALLY moved away.  So that Nana's gravy and macaroni (and by MACARONI, I mean ziti, of course) is no longer a staple of our diet.

And boy do we miss it! 

I admit I've had the recipe for a while now, but for an Irish girl who never even knew you could make gravy on your own until I met Marc's family....well, I was a little nervous that I wasn't up to the challenge.  I've even had the ingredients in my pantry - I moved them from MASSACHUSETTS for goodness sakes, that's how long I've had them...but I was still too afraid to try it.  Even though Nana said it was so easy!  Haven't you noticed that's what all the great cooks say?  It's so EASY!   But when you try it you set your house on fire and have to figure out how to get tomatoes off the ceiling.

Anywho. 

There was a particularly nasty day of weather during our Spring Break, so I decided that TODAY WAS THE DAY.  My sous chefs and I scrubbed up, prepped our ingredients and went to work.

Here, we have Sous Chef #1 diligently grating parmesan

She really got into it, asking for more things to grate when the cheese was gone.

"Could I grate some bread?  How about yogurt?"

And Sous Chef #2, who felt some heavy equipment was necessary for his job

Homemade breadcrumbs.

And here he is making his best Michelle Traynham face

(sorry to anyone who doesn't know Michelle, but this was too hilarious a comparison not to share!)

 

Sous Chef #3 took a cue from his big brother when I gave him the job of squishing the meatball ingredients together.  I gave him the bowl, showed him what to do, and he ran away to get 'sum-fing".

When I looked back a minute later, this is what I saw...

Making meatballs is a serious job, apparently.

You could poke your eye out!. 

He was a tentative squisher.

Needed a little help to really get down and dirty with the smooshing. 

(Am I the only one who sees my muffin top trying to escape my pants and attack the food? 

 Or did the flower in my hair do it's job and distract you?)

Enter the cookie scooper Mrs. Claus put in my stocking.  Sous Chef #1 and I used it to scoop and roll the meat into happy little balls of uniformity.

At last, it was time to cook it all!

I can't show you that though, because it required Herculean effort not to just go take a nap after all that work.  Pictures would have put us over the edge.

And then it was done.  The meatballs had been baked (because I am FAR to lazy and messy a cook to pan-fry them), the turkey sausages had been browned.  The gravy ingredients were assembled and simmered for the requisite number of hours.

The table was set, and the taste testers assembled.

 

Spaghetti was the sous chefs' choice for "macaroni".  And two of the chefs didn't care how much work was put into it - tomatoes in any form are not allowed to touch their pasta. Their loss.  Because THIS chef?  Ate an entire plate piled high with so much goodness that even the muffin top cried Uncle!

And Jack, who is a HUGE fan of Nana Nancy's gravy, sat down to a plate as well.  His official taste tester decree went something like this...

 

"Mom, I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but.....this is NOTHING like Nana Nancy's.  It's really, actually - again not to make you feel bad...but it's kinda gross.  Molly!  Do NOT stick your finger in it!  Back AWAY - you will totally hate it.  You might even puke.  DONT' touch it!!  Trust me.  Oh.  So sorry Mom.  But yeah.  Yuck."

So Nana?  Your place as the family gravy queen is clearly not in jeopardy!  And next time we visit, if your freezer somehow goes empty of all that gravy you keep frozen ...you'll know it went to a good home :)

Happy Blogiversary to Us!

Surreal to think that one year ago tonight I was posting my very first blog entry, that I'd typed in the air on the way from Boston to Chicago for our first househunting trip.

It seems a thousand years ago.

I've been re-reading a lot of those first entries, especially the real nitty gritty house hunting ones.  And I'm amazed at how my perspective has changed with a year's time.

Now that this spring has hit and things look like they did last spring, I'm starting to rediscover many of the houses we saw as I'm driving around town.

For example, on the way to church last Sunday, we passed the beautiful house-wtih-no-backyard 

It was still on the market!  Broke my heart, because it was such a pretty house!   I guess we're not the only ones for whom the zero backyard was a deal breaker. :(

And the one-that-got-away? 

 

I drove by the street one day about four months ago and actually turned around and went back to find the house that had haunted my dreams for quite a while.  Astoundingly, it was not nearly as nice as the pictures led me to believe.  It was smaller, with a smaller yard, in a much farther out part of town, and on a really busy street.  It was a weight lifted off my shoulders to see for myself that it was not meant for us. 

I'm still stealing that kitchen though. ;o)

I'd be lying if I said I hadn't peeked through realtor.com a few (dozen) times this past year.  But each time I have, it's given me solace, given me peace, given me added proof that we are precisely, exactly where we are meant to be. 

So happy Blogiversary to us!  I have to thank Blogger for being the first journal I've ever stuck with - I loathe my own handwriting and even though I've been a journaler at heart my whole life, the pen in my hand would ruin every attempt and I'd end up with an empty notebook with two covers and all the pages rewritten, torn out, crumpled up and thrown away.   Not anymore!

Most of all, many thanks to all the loved ones who have been reading along, cheerleading us, supporting us, and making us feel that despite the difference, we aren't so far apart.  I know most of you don't comment, but if you're feeling adventurous today, give "Chicagoland or Bust" a first birthday shout out - I'd love to know who's out there!  :)

Spring Break Day Three: The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

Our neighbors the Dos took Jack with their son Brandon to see the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and he came back raving about it so much that Molly and Ben insisted we go on our break, regardless of how many times I explained that it was more "Jack's style" than theirs.

Being on vacation "time" it took us a little longer to get moving in the morning, but I was a bit proud that I made my first solo drive into the city without incident!  We got there at 11am and as we were in line for the parking garage they CLOSED it!  We were the very last car in, and luckily got a spot, though it was a pretty terrible spot that required us to walk around the mazelike garage for 20 minutes until we found our way in.

Once inside, we got to stand in the ticketing line for another half hour. I could see we were in for a crowd, so I figured we'd hit the cafeteria for lunch first.  Being 11:40, I thought the rush wouldn't have hit yet.  I was wrong.  The lines were so long that we could only get 'grab and go' food, which consisted of blue Jello, a cute pudding dessert called a 'dirtt cup' with gummy worms on top, some Cheetos and two flavors of gatorade.  Then we got to sit in the 'overflow' room in the bowels of the building to eat.  At least we got seats!  My neighbor was there the next day and couldn't even get IN to the cafeteria!

So as not to repeat the "we had a whole lot of fun in the seventh level of hell" vibe I had going on in my last post about head injuries and swimming pools....I will just show you the FUN parts of our visit.

First, and FUNNEST was the 20 minute chemistry show they had when we first got there.  It was all about fire and explosions - and didn't disappoint!  They set all kinds of different elements and gases on fire to show what colors they turned and then blew up balloons filled with highly combustible gases like hydrogen (remember the Hindenberg?)

This one was Lithium, you know, like the lithium in camera batteries?

I don't quite remember what this one was, but it was definitely cool to watch!

This was a table with 8-10 tubes blowing air and 4-5 balls to float on top of said air.  With 200+ anxous children waiting in line for a turn, you can see how the math here doesn't quite add up.  But we happened to catch it before the big lines formed and Molly was in her glory playing for those five minutes.

Then there was the super-cool static electricity ball.

 

The little ones were mesmerized by this one.

 It took me six tries to get this shot, of the electricity right at the moment it jumped into Ben's hand.  Definitely worth the effort!

This looked cool.  It was basically a periodic table thingy that didn't work.  But it took them a while to figure that out.  I was just happy there was no line.  :)

This is part of a corridor that was an homage to circus history.   This teeny tiny circus full of carvings was really neat.  The painstaking details were amazing.

And then there was this unique interactive display.  To our eyes, it looked as if we were in a dark hall, facing a white screen.  On the white screen was a movie of colored rocks falling down in a stream.  But the crazy part was that you could use your body to CHANGE the stream.  You could essentially, divert the rocks, catch the rocks and do some other funky things with the rocks.  Jack worked at it for a few minutes and really got the hang of it.

I was fiddling with my camera settings and was able to 'see' all sorts of colors that weren't really there.  To the naked eye, it was just a white screen.  But my camera was seeing rainbows!

I loved watching how Jack's excitement over it all drew the little ones in.  They had no idea what they were doing, but they knew he knew what he was doing, so they followed suit.  This is rare for my little band of individualists, who want to do everything their OWN way.

And then it was time for the SUBMARINE!

It is so enormouse my camera couldn't even fit the whole thing in one shot!

This is the only real German U-boat of it's kind left in existance today.  The Allies captured it in 1944, but kept it secret until the war was over.  They extracted technology from it and then allowed the Museum to keep it after a massive effort to move it to Chicago from it's dock in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  The move was completed in 1954.

This is Molly, posing in front of the submarine.

This is Jack, posing in front of the submarine.

This is the beginning of the scuffle that ensued when all three children posed together in front of the submarine.

Shortly after this moment, we learned that the tickets for all remaining submarine tours were sold out for the entire day.  This is after the only other thing the kids wanted to do was also sold out for the entire day.

To voice his disapproval, Ben launched his own allied offensive, which sounded a whole lot like his opera in the locker room two days before.  Only this time I was able to maneuver/manhandle him into his stroller and runwalk the whole way back through the exhibit and out to the safety of our minivan.  This ordeal took an hour and a half, as we got lost, stopped for lunch (at 3pm, the cafeteria was finally empty!), got lost again, and finally, BLESSEDLY buckled in and headed home...I mean, into a two hour traffic jam.  And then home.

To sum up the parts in between the pictures....basically the entire afternoon, from 11am-4pm consisted of this...

**Child:   "Mom!  MOM!!!  Look!  Look over there at THAT!!  Let's go see THAT!!"

Me:   "Okay honey"

Child:   "I can't see it.  I can't SEE IT!!  Why are all these people in the way!!!?"

Me:   "There are so many people here today that we're just going to have to be patient and wait our turn"

5-15 minutes pass and just as it is about to be our turn...

Repeat from **

It was the song that never ends.  It just goes on and on my friends.  Somebody started singing it not knowing what it was and now they can't stop singing it forever just because this is the song that never.....(you get the picture right?)

I was going to ask for my money back, but when I asked the girl at the information kiosk when a less crowded day would be, she said, with a cheerful grin of someone who has no clue what a whining children can do to one's sanity.... "Hmmmmm.  SEPTEMBER is a really slow month.  Especially after 3 in the afternoon.  You could try then!"

Yeah.....no thanks!  So cross that one off the old "bucket list" and call it a day.  Because I swear on all that is holy, I will never EVER go back to that awful, overccrowded, disaster of a mess.  Not even for FREE!!!

(and yes, I know that I will eventually have to eat those words.  But right now?  I'm feeling far too haughty and indignant to care)

To end on a positive note, I have to say that if you can get yourself into the cafeteria, the food is really quite impressive.  Desserts that any bakery would envy, and entrees as impressive as you could ever ask for. 

Might I suggest September for your visit?

Hello, My Name Is...

What?

My name is..

What? 

My name is

(wicka wicka) 

Slacky McSlacksalot.

I agree, it doesn't have the same ring as 'Slim Shady', but it does have a big fat grain of TRUTH.  As in, somebody has not been keeping up with the old blogeroonie these days.

Truth be told, we've been doing so many bloggable things, that I'm a little overwhelmed at the task of blogging it all.  But there's nothing like a good challenge to dive into, no?  So let's dive, shall we?

SPRING BREAK, DAY ONE...

Two weeks ago, the kids and I enjoyed their Spring Break by trying to cram as many activities as we could dream up into one week.  The reality was that the weather was freezing, and most of their classmates were headed for warmer climates (our timing was a bit off this year!).  So we decided to create a mini-bucket list of all the things we'd been dreaming of doing but couldn't because two certain someones are otherwised indesposed Monday through Friday.

Number one on the kids' list was, as you can guess from the picture of Molly above, SWIMMING!  We went to an indoor pool in the next town over.  It's called Pelican Harbor and has an enormous outdoor water park for summer, but a small, fun for the kids pool during winter.  There was a lap pool and another zero entry pool with a small slide for the toddlers and three bigger slides for the older kids.

Ben of course, did the obligatory "let's give mom a heart attack" routine and ran into the water as fast as he could until he was over his head and drowning.  Until recently, this was always Jack's job.  But baby brother played the role admirably and came up coughing and gagging as I grabbed him out, reminding him  that NO, he didn't know how to swim...all the while listening to him scream "Yes I do know how to swim!!  Put me DOWN, Mama!"   I think it's the testosterone.  Molly never did this.

Speaking of Molly, who actually does know how to swim like a fish, and did so just a few weeks ago in Turks and Caicos...she proceeded to 'forget' how to swim and claw my skin off my body the entire time.

When I'd reached the point of exhaustion, trying to chase Ben and keep him from drowning, with Molly on my back clawing at my neck....Jack came up with the most INGENOUS solution.  He suggested I check with the front desk and see if they have life jackets. 

Well, DUH!

Thank goodness for 8 year olds with the good sense their mother is lacking.

The second hour of our visit was MUCH more pleasant.   But our spiffy underwater camera had a case of dead batteries, so all we have are our memories, and these...

Well of  course I'm wearing glasses!  Who can remember contact lenses when you're having this much fun!?

We went in the afternoon when they had "open swim" and the sun was streaming through the windows like spotlights.  When we got too chilly, we'd sit in one of the bright puddles of sunshine and get warmed up.

The kiddie slide was a hit!

The closed captioning for this moment reads

"Don't touch me, Mama!  Don't you touch me!!  No!  Don't touch!  I can do this BY MYSELF!!"

(glurg.  gag.  cough.  sputter. snot.  hiccup.)

And to top off the afternoon, the kids decided to ramp it up a notch.   They must have noticed that the "drown the toddler" routine didn't shake me up anymore, so they brought their game to a whole new level.

The one drawback to Pelican Harbor is that the only way in to the pool is through the locker rooms.  And boys over age 5 are not allowed in the women's locker room.  And there aren't any "family" changing areas.  So this meant that Jack, who has never so much been in a men's restroom alone in his life, had to go into the men's locker room ALONE, strip naked and change and later, when we were finished, had to go into the men's locker room by himself to shower and change. 

As a mother in 2011, it is my solemn duty to be terrified at a prospect like this!  I imagined all sorts of scary people in there doing goodness knows what!  I told Jack to rush through on the way in and met him on the other side of the door while counting the ticks of the clock.  And when it was time to leave, I sent him in there under instructions not to speak to ANYONE and if anyone tried to talk to him or touch him or seemed creepy at ALL, to come right back out or start screaming bloody murder.

But I never, not in a million years, thought to say "Be careful, the floor is slippery!"

Well, DUH! (dope slapping self!)

The story that ensued is this.  As he was putting his shoes on after his shower, he leaned backward to brace himself on the counter.  But he misjudged the distance - the counter was three feet behind him.  And so he fell, HARD.  Smashed the back of his head on the floor so hard that he bounced.  And when he bounced, now under the sinks, he managed to smash his face into the pipes.  And his nose started gushing blood.

When the lifeguard comes up to you and says "Are you Jack's mom?" you just know it isn't good.

He was in the infirmary leaning over a trash can crying his eyes out while a really gorgeous 17 year old blonde lifeguard tended to his nose.  Poor baby! 

I then had the task of getting Molly and Ben, who were struggling to get out of my grasp and back into the pool, dressed and ready to depart.  And I knew that Ben was planning on leaving over his cold, dead body. 

What happened then was the stuff that parenting books DON'T tell you.  Twenty minutes of screaming, biting, kicking, writhing and hyperventilating.  I imagine it was like trying to wrestle a wet tasmanian devil out of his swim trunks and into a sweatsuit.  While in a room lined floor to celing in tile.  Oh, the acoustics!

We did eventually manage to get back to the car, and on the way to the pediatrician's office, grabbed some drive through Steak and Shake (after they towed the car that broke down IN THE DRIVE THRU!).  When we arrived at the doctor's office, Ben had managed to pee all over himself and his car seat, down to the SOCKS he was wearing.

It's only by the grace of God that I had, that morning, chosen to pack pajamas for him "just in case he got tired". 

So.  Day one of vacation.  Everyone lived.  Fun was had.  Aventure, even!  And you BETCHA, when it was all over, there were adult beverages served.