Fine Arts Day

This morning I chaperoned Brendan's class on a field trip downtown. We went to the Art Institute of Chicago. I spent the afternoon shepherding five fifth grade boys through as much of the museum as we could get to in an hour and a half, which wasn't very much. The best part of the trip actually came before the Art Institute. Brendan's school had been participating in a program called "Do Your P'Art," which encouraged environmentalism through art. The kids made box collages out of recycled materials. These boxes were displayed downtown. Here is Brendan showing off his box.

The kids' art was displayed at a building across the street from the Merchandise Mart. The building guard suggested we go over to the Mart and check out the display of canned food art. Someone had sponsored a sculpture contest to promote hunger awareness. The artists made sculptures entirely out of canned food and other non-persible food items. Here is the Cubs logo made entirely from cans. If you look to the left of the logo, the background is a train made out of cans. There were several clever sculptures in this exhibit, including a giant slice of pizza and a giant sombrero made of El Paso Refried Bean cans.

To round out my day of fine arts, the final band concert was this evening. This is the "All-Band Concert," where all four of our district bands perform. This was Theo's final band concert, as he is moving on to high school next year and couldn't fit band into his schedule. Theo had a solo in their last song. It made me to cry to think of how proud Tim would have been of his son at that moment.

Water, Water Everywhere

It rained Wednesday night. It rained a lot. I remember being awakened by thunder more than once. I didn't realize just how much rain we had gotten until Thursday morning, when Brendan came into my room to inform me that there was water in the basement. Sad to say, water in our basement is not uncommon. It seeps up through the floor and trickles in through cracks in the basement walls. At this point, everything in our basement is up on legs or stored in plastic bins. Except, of course, when the boys leave things on the floor, like pillows, blankets and toys. I spent most of Thursday morning and afternoon using the shop vac to suck up all the water in the basement. I spent most of this morning washing the floor with bleach then turned on every fan I have and opened the windows to finish drying out the basement. Not how I planned to spent the last couple days, but at least my basement is nice and clean now.

Happy Birthday, Brendan!

Today is Brendan's 11th birthday. Yes, just four days after having birthday cake for Theo we are having birthday cake for Brendan. When you add in leftover birthday treats from school and leftover cake from birthday parties, we consume a lot of birthday cake in the month of May. While I had wanted two spring babies, I hadn't planned on having my children quite so close together. I remember feeling more than a bit dismayed when my OB calculated Brendan's due date as May 6. At first, I worried about the possibility of having to celebrate Theo's birthday while recovering from delivering a baby. Then, as we approached Theo's birthday, I worried about how I would handle things if they shared a birthday. I was very relieved when Theo's birthday passed with no baby. After that, my internal debate ranged between wanting to have as many days as possible between Theo's birthday and the baby's birthday and wanting to have the baby because being pregnant was so uncomfortable. Brendan finally resolved this dilemma by arriving on the afternoon of May 12.

Celebrating Everything

Tonight the boys and I went out to dinner with Theo's godmother, Ardis. We went to Trattoria D.O.C. in Evanston. The boys like this restaurant because they do wood-fired pizza. I like it because they do other things as well. We had a lot to celebrate. Due to an over crowed calendar, we decided to combine a number of occasions into a single celebration. So tonight we celebrated: Theo's confirmation (April 30), Theo's birthday (May 8), Ardis' birthday (also May 8), Mother's Day (May 9) and Brendan's birthday (May 12). Whew!

My Mother's Day

My children were born on May 8 and May 12. That means that Mother's Day is sometimes lost in all the birthday hoopla. My boys would say that their birthdays are occasionally lost to Mother's Day. (Have you ever tried to celebrate a child's birthday on Mother's Day? I have. It's not easy.) I also live in Skokie, which has a large conservative and orthodox Jewish population. That means we play AYSO soccer on Sundays, not Saturdays. So I have actually spent every Mother's Day since Theo was in first grade on the soccer field. (That's eight years, including this one.) I don't mind when the weather is good, but this is Chicago and the weather is very iffy on Mother's Day. I'm usually freezing and often wet on the soccer sidelines in May. You may remember that Theo broke his foot a week ago. He inadvertently gave me a great Mother's Day present - less time on the soccer field.

Happy Birthday, Theo!

Fourteen years ago at a little after nine in the morning, Tim and I welcomed our first child, Theodore Patrick Ward. He was 19 inches long and weighed eight pounds twelve ounces. He is now five foot seven and weighs around 125 pounds, depending on how much pizza he's had lately. We had a terrible time deciding on a name. As a Jennifer, the most popular name the year I was born, I did not want to give my child a common name. So any name in the current top 25 was automatically out. We finally settled on Theodore, but planned to call him Theo. His middle name is his Dad's middle name, which means they share the same initials, handy for passing down monogrammed china. Of course, we don't have monogrammed china.

First Friday

I just couldn't resist the title as I seem to taking an alliterative angle with my posts this week. After all, it is the first Friday in May. I also attended my first political luncheon today. As a result of the political work that I did for the Illinois primary this year, I received an invitation to be a part of a friend's table at Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky's Ninth Annual Ultimate Women's Power Lunch. Don't be too impressed. The food wasn't that good and the crowd was huge. The only elected politician I even got close to was the 49th Ward Alderman for the City of Chicago. I only met him because he happened to be standing next to my friend the former candidate. Or, rather, my friend the former candidate was standing next to the 49th Ward Alderman of the City of Chicago. My biggest thrill was meeting Hecky of Hecky's Barbecue, my favorite barbecue place in Evanston. Actually, I had a very nice afternoon. I got a chance to catch up with a lot of friends from the campaign. I also got to hear speeches from all of the major Democratic candidates running for office this year in the state of Illinois. Well, except for the Governor. He was in Springfield dealing with a budget crisis.