Head 'em Up and Move 'em Out!

As with Baxtergarten before it, Show Me Another City has been a blog designed to chronicle a particular period of our family life, that period in which we "take on Chicago". Well, Matt and I have realized that we've done it. We've taken it on. We're here, we made the move happen and life is full and rich. We've purchased a home in this beautiful city and have made it our own. Nearly a year since its inception, it has occurred to us both that Show Me Another City's time has come.

At the same time, we have more to say. So although we are sorry that you may need to bookmark two pages rather than one, we are going our separate ways - in the blogosphere, that is. Matt, who was an early contributer but hasn't written often on this blog of late, has much to say about other topics. Therefore, you can now find him at http://bullroar.blogspot.com. I, for one, look forward to reading what he has to say.

I have very much enjoyed writing for both Baxtergarten and Show Me Another City these past two years. I discovered that I am more aware and thoughtful about life now that I am keeping this journal. I see things in a different and more interesting light. I'm sure our regular readers have noticed that in the past month or two, my contributions to this blog have already shifted from Chicago-centered to more general life and parenting thoughts. I will continue down that road at http://TheWonderwheel.blogspot.com and look forward to seeing you there. Thanks for reading this blog and for all of your great comments!

Oh, Brother!

It was time to get Baxter off to school. I called the boys in to get ready to go outside and started to get myself ready. Baxter arrived at the coat rack and, standing stock still, began to recount the highlights from the books he'd been reading this morning, a Cam Jansen mystery and Harriet the Spy. Lyle arrived and dutifully donned his own coat, hat, boots, mittens, neck gaitor, and hat. Then he proceeded to hand Baxter what he needed, providing background music for his big brother's monologue: "How 'bout dis neck gaiter, Baba? How 'bout dis hat, Baba? How 'bout dese gloves?" Before I knew it, we were all ready. All I could think was how nice it would be if we all had such a courteous and diligent personal assistant.

(By the way, these photos were taken by Baxter. We've added more to his set on flickr - who keeps giving this kid the camera, anyway?)

Monday, Monday

Well, the iMovie gods have not been my friends this week. Try as I might, I have not successfully uploaded some new video clips to my computer in order to create this week's YouTube video for my Dad. I'll keep trying! Speaking of my creative genius (we were, weren't we?), Baxter got really excited when we told him about the Oscars last night: "Wow, Mommy, you make movies and put them on the internet! Maybe you'll win one!" I waited and waited, but just never heard my name called. Strange, that. Maybe they haven't seen Lyle singing "Skip to Ma You" yet.

And while we're on the subject of my Dad, he has written a beautiful new post on his blog, a tribute to his marriage with my Mom. It's lovely and worth checking out. We should all be so happy 44 years later.

Things that Made Me Laugh this Week

1. Upon hearing that he and I were going to go on an airplane trip together - just the two of us! - to Massachusetts to see my grandparents for a weekend in April, Baxter burst into tears. "I don't want to go without Lyle! Nothing's fun without Lyle! And how will he know when to wake up without ME?" he wailed. Not what I expected so much. But sweet. Very sweet.

2. Lyle has added the word "hate" to his vocabulary. We don't know where it came from, and his brother didn't say it until he was 5 years old, but he has experimented with it all week. "HATE this!" he yelled, literally throwing green beans onto my plate at dinner. "I HATE books!" he declared, shoving them off the couch when he wanted to sit down. When I suggested that maybe we ought to give his books to a child who actually likes the things, he changed his tune. Now every time he asks me to read to him, he says, "Read this book, Mommy! I LIKE this book!" I think he's still a little worried.

3. The "wheel". We don't know where this came from, but every time I present us with a problem ("Hmm, how will we get across this busy street?" or "I don't know what to do about this") Lyle says, "Well, you take this wheel..." and he makes his little hands into a wheel to show me. It's so incredibly random that I just love it and I have to write it here so that I remember it someday.

4. At dinner, Baxter was stuffing the palm of his hand into his mouth in a fairly gross way. "What are you doing?" Matt asked. "I have an itch. This is one of the fastest ways to scratch it!" he replied and we suddenly saw that he was scratching it with his teeth.

5. Tonight when Matt was helping Lyle get undressed for his bath, he discovered that the child was wearing two pairs of socks. When asked why, Lyle replied, "I woke up lonely!"

Painting Almost Done!

I am beyond excited. I stopped by the new house yesterday to check on a paint color and found that most of it was finished! They are just doing the trim and will complete the job today. I was relieved to find that our colors look great in there and that the painters have done an excellent job. I'm sure we'll post some photos once we're moved in, but here are a few I took yesterday to bring home to show Matt.

Friends=Happiness

We are four women in our mid-thirties. We live in Chicago, Minneapolis, and a small farming town in Iowa. We have four husbands and seven children under the age of seven. We are an oncology nurse, an environmental attorney, a kindergarten teacher, and a speech therapist. Most of us work full-time and all of us are dedicated to our children full-time. 2007 turns out to be the year in which we have known each other exactly half our lives. College was a long time ago, come to find out.

We have in common husbands who - with nary a word of complaint - took care of the kids for a long weekend so that we could be together. My husband went so far as to take the boys to his parents' house so that my friends and I could stay together in one house.

It would be impossible to describe the perfection of this much-needed weekend with friends. I could give you a string of words such as: coffee, chocolate, Hugh Grant movie, shoe shopping, delicious meals out, and more coffee. Okay: and more chocolate. But that would only scratch the surface. There is no way to measure the joy of being on one's own timetable, rather than a child's, for a few consecutive days. Nor to capture the feeling of waking up in your own bed three days in a row only because you are no longer tired, smelling the coffee that has already been made downstairs by an early rising friend.

But what truly cannot be quantified is the emotional satisfaction of being with friends you can talk to about whatever is in your heart: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Old friends, particularly roommates, seem to be the best when it comes to making me laugh until my face hurts and simultaneously creating a safe place to cry. People talk about women being in the prime of our lives in our 30's and I don't doubt this - we are fabulous, after all! - but what struck me over the weekend was what an incredibly challenging and life-altering decade this is for us. How lucky I am that I made such amazing friends back when I was too young to understand how much I'd need them later on. I was exhausted this afternoon when everyone had gone home, but not because I didn't get enough sleep; it was a complete emotional exhaustion. This is a good thing, believe me. I find that being with old friends not only helps me reconnect with them, but also with myself.

I feel ready now to get on with work and the kids and moving to the new house with renewed energy and a strong sense of inner peace. And I am already counting the days until we do this again.

NewTube

It's Monday, and you know what that means! This week's edition includes a visit to the new house, reading to Teddy, and a little hootenanny. Enjoy, everyone!

Mc-NERD-LT

McDLT
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The McDLT (McDonald's Lettuce and Tomato) was a hamburger product based on a novel form of packaging.[1] The meat portion was prepared separately from the other toppings, such as lettuce and tomato, and then both were packaged into a specially designed two-sided container. The consumer was then expected to finalize preparation of the sandwich by combining the hot and cool sides just prior to eating. The company discontinued the sandwich in 1990 due to the move away from the environmentally unsound styrofoam packaging which was integral to the McDLT "experience". The sandwich has come back, albeit in a slightly different incarnation, as the Big N' Tasty.

Marketing

The McDLT is perhaps best remembered for its marketing, which focused on variations of the theme "Keep the hot side hot, and the cool side cool." A fairly well-remembered 1985 commercial released to market the new sandwich featured a young Jason Alexander, and has obtained a minor following on the web as a shining example of 1980s era television advertising.

My day was like a McDLT

Breaking the 180-degree Rule
Originally uploaded by nailmaker.

Yesterday, I rather enjoyed an acute case of meterological whiplash.

I woke early in a lovely room in the Beverly Hilton (I was there on a project for the Hilton Corporation) with a view of the Hollywood sign from my room. Not this view, mind you, but it was still cool to see the famous sign, even if it was not less than a mile away. The air was warm, humid and smog-free. I woke early, held the door for golfer Vijay Singh on my way out, and headed to the airport.

Six hours later, I stood on Belmont Avenue, about a mile from our house. It was 14 degrees, and I was standing in a deep puddle of slush, waiting for a bus. The air was, shall we say, crisp, but everyone's spirits seemed to be lifted by the bright sunshine and the bright white snow.

I got home and enjoyed a few minutes of playtime before I went to pick up Baxter. He was, as usual, well bundled against the cold, and he wanted desperately to try the snowshoes he got for Christmas. Once he got them on, there was no stopping him, and we floated over the knee-deep drifts like arctic hares. Okay, maybe not that last part.

Anyway, I realized that I like the hot side AND the cold side, especially in the same sandwich day.

Note to Self

In the future, bring all sippy cups in from the car.