1929: When free-range kids were really free range

In 1929, when my Grandpa Bob was 10 years old, his parents sent him to California to spend the summer with his grandparents and his aunt and uncle. And by send him to California, I mean they put gave him a roll of cash and put him on a train.

My mother rediscovered one of the letters he sent to his parents upon his arrival in Los Angeles. He used a typewriter and covered two full pages describing the four days and three nights he spent heading west. There was a lot of eating consomme and sliced tomatoes in the dining car, sleeping in a berth and getting dirty on the observation deck, but there was a little drama too. My grandfather played cards with a girl ("you needed worry she wasn't good looking"), repeatedly forced another kid out of his seat by yanking on his feet, and interacted with a drunkard ("I forgot to tell you that when I was coming back from the diner that the drunk man that I told you about in my cards grabbed my arms and said where have you been"), and befriended an old lady ("remember that last time we went we saw a boy talking to another lady and you said that I would never talk to any-body like that buy you got fooled because I did.")

As my mother noted as she sent along scans of Bob's letters, "His parents were not exactly helicopter parents."

It's amazing to think about how much freedom and responsibility used to be granted to children and how much less freedom each successive generation of parents grants their own children. I consider myself a free-range parent, but I don't think Zoe would be ready to travel for three days on her own in a year or so. And even if she was ready, I'd surely be arrested and charged with child endangerment for trusting her with the trip.

The culture around children and freedom as changed so much that I worry less about the safety of leaving my kids unsupervised for short periods or letting them roam the neighborhood than I do about what other people might think. I just read a blog post about a woman unwilling to let her 12 year old son go to the ice cream parlor with his friends. There's another 4th grader on our block who isn't allowed to walk the 2 1/2 blocks to school without an adult. There are so many parents out there allowing so little freedom that I worry that our culture is raising a generation of future basement dwellers unable and unwilling to leave the house unattended.

Zoe asked me this weekend if she'd "get a whole bunch more freedom in 6th grade." I responded that I like to increase her independence slowly but surely and all the time. I explained that I'm always giving her a little bit more rope, and that as long as she behaves responsibly and shows good judgement, I'll keep letting out more and more rope. Next up: taking her 6 year old sister to the ice cream parlor.

Our piano comes home

I grew up with a piano in the house. I took lessons on our pianos, and while I was no musical prodigy, I'm glad I learned to read music. I want the same (and preferably more) for my children.

Ada started taking piano lessons at her Montessori school about two years ago. I told myself that if she stuck with it, we'd eventually replace her cheap keyboard (the kind that plugs into a computer and runs off GarageBand) and get a piano. But there was no place for a piano in our old house.

So as we were designing our new place, I took the average measurements for an upright piano and made sure our first floor layout would have a place for one. That forethought paid off last week when two piano movers hoisted a new-to-us 1940's art deco style Charles Frederick Stein piano through the front door. It fit perfectly in the spot I'd selected on blueprints last summer.


I'd been collecting information on the best ways to acquire a quality used piano for a few months. The Montessori school got theirs from Keys 4/4 Kids, a charity that sets a lot of used pianos. Plenty of other people had bought theirs off Craig's List or MomMail, a classifieds-like listserv that is fiercely local and not anonymous (and therefore infinitely less sketchy). Because I'd chosen a prominent place for our piano, looks mattered. And when I saw a photo of the piano we eventually bought, it was love at first sight. But it wasn't free and I knew we'd also be paying to move it and tune it.

We visited it and talked with the owner, a piano teacher who played the instrument through high school. I consulted with my daughter's piano teacher and scoured the internet for information on the maker. I also paid a piano tuner $95 to come inspect it for me. With everyone in agreement that the piano looked like a very good buy, we plunked down the cash and bought it. $900 seems like a lot of money, but it's also what we're paying to rent Zoe's euphonium for the year. And we don't even get to own that!

Anyway, watching and listening to Ada practice piano on a real piano has been a real pleasure. She's pleased as can be and has been very reliably washing her hands before she sits down at its ivory keys.

The time I test-drove a mouthguard

Every Thursday night for the past 3 or 4 years (time flies), I've laced up my roller skates for a Derby Lite workout. I wear a helmet, wrist guards, elbow pads, knee pads and a mouth guard because it's the rules and also I don't want to break anything.

Mouth guards are tricky. I have a pretty pronounced gag reflex, and most mouth guards are too bulky. As soon as I bite down, I start gagging and have to spit them out. I've had good luck with ProTech's Dent mouthguard, as they are slim and provide a very custom fit. They're also expensive, so I've been using the same one for a few years. I clean it every couple of weeks, but ew.

Anyway, I was thrilled to try a new flavored sports mouth guard called the MoGo M1 Flavored Mouthguard. I picked Fruit Punch and fit it to my mouth following the directions in the package (soften in hot water, bite down and suck, harden in cold water) and wore it to practice last night.

Four pros:
The flavor was great. The flavored part of the mouth guard is located next to one's saliva glands, and my mouth kind of tasted like I had just sipped watered down Kool-Aid. I felt like my mouth was wetter that usual and I thus I didn't feel quite as thirsty (although I still drank a bottle and half of water).

It's a tough, well-built mouth guard that made me feel very protected from collisions and falls.

It comes with a helmet strap that let me spit it out without dropping it on the nasty practice floor.

It's a bargain at only $11.99. My regular mouth guard cost well over $20.

One big con:
While I didn't gag constantly, the mouth guard was too bulky for comfort. I couldn't close my lips or talk--something that's crucial when you're working a team drill or scrimmaging.

Unfortunately, not being able to communicate with the mouth guard in place means that it won't work when I need it most. It's a deal killer, which makes be sad because I really, really liked having a flavored mouth guard to suck on.

New house tour--the first floor!

Now that we've been in our house for a few weeks and I've got art on the walls and window treatments on order, I thought I'd share a few photos. Obviously, a wide angle lens, a fancy camera and a bright, sunny day would make these much better pictures, but you'll get the idea.


This is the living room, with a view to the 5 windows overlooking the street. All of the furniture came from our old house, with the exception of the new coffee table, which I purchased on clearance from West Elm. The table is too busy for our old area rug, so it's now in the guest room and I'm anxiously waiting for this rug to go on sale. The modular shelves had been arranged differently at our old place--now they are in two spots, under the windows and agains the wall. In a week, the windows will have plantation-style shutters covering the bottom half and we'll stop living on display to the neighborhood.

This is the view of our living room into the dining room from the foyer. I've always wanted built-in bookcases, and the idea of having them extend over the pass-through into another room is something I stole from Houzz. Don't the floors look nice? I just about went nuts trying to pick just the right stain and ended up going with Special Walnut.

The dining room has our existing table and buffet. I added 4 Nate Berkus window panels from Target and the chandelier, which is hard to make out in this picture, is this lovely number--again from West Elm.



Another view of the dining room, this one from the hallway. Walk down that hallway and look right and you'll see our breakfast nook.



The table is from IKEA, the benches lift piano-bench style for lots of storage, and the chairs I purchased from Overstock.

The light fixtures are from Pottery Barn (with the two orangey ones on clearance). We purchased our appliances from Abt: an LG French door refrigerator (with ice maker! and water dispenser!) and gas range and a Bosch dishwasher which is so quiet I can't even tell when it is running!

On the inside of the peninsula is our microwave, a KitchenAid with a trim kit that gives it a built-in look. The big drawer under the microwave is our new catch-all bin for student directories, park district brochures, Scotch tape and other important bits of clutter. Also, see that vertical cabinet to the left of the stove? We have two of them, one for cookie sheets and muffin pans and one for cutting boards.

Here's another view of the kitchen. To the left of the fridge is a large pantry cabinet. The three drawers to the left of the pantry are huge. One holds all our storage containers and another lunchbox paraphernalia.


I'm so happy in our new house that I feel incredibly blessed every single day. Although we did have our first home-owner's emergency. The drain outside the basement exit is clogged and with all the snow melting water came under the door today and soaked the carpeting in the back of the basement. Josh rented a wet vac and sucked out a lot of liquid and our builder is sending a plumber tomorrow to clear out the drain.

Not pictured in this first floor tour is the mudroom, the small foyer and the powder room. There's also an area near between the breakfast nook and the mudroom that doesn't quite have a purpose. For now it's home to a large bookshelf and the girls' musical instruments.

Our first house party, 10 days after moving in

Last year we didn't throw our annual New Year's Day Open House because we were in Australia. This year I refused to commit to the party because all I could focus on moving. But once we were in and unpacking, I decided there was no better way to celebrate the new year and our new home than by reviving an old tradition.

Read the whole story on the Chicago Parent Blog.

Moving is exhilarating. And exhausting.

I just read a line in the Chicago Tribune about all of the things people would rather do than go through the mortgage approval process again. Public speaking. Gaining 10 pounds. Spending 24 hours with someone we really dislike. Even getting a root canal.

It was painful, but there was so much work to be done to move into our new (forever) home, that it was just one of many headaches I'm glad to be done with. I'm glad to be done fixing up our old house. I'm glad we don't have to stage it twice daily for looky-loos who would then leave comments like "cute house, but we don't like the street because there's no parking in front." I'm glad to be done negotiating home prices, inspection items and credits.

I'm glad to be done packing and purging, and I'm thrilled I don't need to wrap anything in paper or bubble wrap for a really long time. I'm glad that the money I'm spending from here on out will be on stuff I can see and enjoy versus services like movers and lawyers. I'm so sick of the chores associated with moving that I've been unable to sit down and relax in my new house because I'm so anxious to get unpacked and make it look like the home I've spent the last 6 months dreaming of.

The good news is that I'm really pleased with our new house. I should be, as I picked every detail, but you never know if the door pull or light fixture or crown moulding you picked out will look as good in real life as you imagined it from a picture online or in a catalogue.

Speaking of online inspiration, I definitely couldn't have made the design decisions I did without Houzz. Creating boards of key rooms helped me identify the styles I liked best and articulate those choices to my builder. Some of my favorite features I can directly relate to inspiration I found on Houzz, like the built-in bookcase around the casement leading from the living room to the dining room, my white kitchen with black countertops and our built-in breakfast nook benches (which still need this table from IKEA).

Next on the agenda is setting up the basement family room, adding window treatments and hanging pictures and guitars on the wall. It's fun to look at all of our art and decide fresh what to put together and where versus having to find a home for a piece among everything else. I'll share more pictures soon!

Rediscovering the 1893 World's Fair at the Field Museum

Devil in the White City? I devoured Erik Lawson's true tale of a serial killer amidst the backdrop of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair shortly after it came out, in 2002. At that point I'd lived in Chicago for almost 8 years, half of which I'd spent at the University of Chicago.
Have you read

Lawson's book put the midway in Midway Plaisance, a wide strip of park and roadways that separated the main campus from a few of its northernmost buildings--including those where I took fine art classes and another where I made $8 an hour filing papers for a graduate department.

The 1893 Chicago World's Fair was a spectacle quite unlike anything we can imagine seeing today. Bigger than SXSW, the Chicago Auto Show and CES rolled into one, the World's Fair attracted an astonishing 27 million admissions, including 700,000 on a single day. Two hundred buildings were erected for the fair and an enormous Ferris wheel could be seen from miles around. It was a good 100 feet taller than the one at Navy Pier today! But more important than its sheer size was the diversity of the exhibits. There were taxidermied animals from around the world, just-discovered fossils, new inventions, advances in industry--and most shocking to those of us today--entire villages reconstructed and populated with native peoples from around the globe.

What I didn't know until recently is that the Field Museum was founded to commemorate the Fair and that museum's original collections consisted of items originally displayed there. Many of those curiosities are now out of the vaults and on exhibit. I took Zoe with me to check it out and test drive the museum's new app.

Being able to see items that once enthralled the masses at the Fair is a real treat. Zoe and I particularly liked the stuffed sea lion and model giant squid (look up; it's hanging from the ceiling), the Peruvian mummy (you can look inside it via interactive CT scan) and the photos of the "primitive" villages brought to the fair for Westerners to gawk at. Impressively, an Inuit group tired of being on display in their fur coats in the Chicago heat and walked off exhibit only to set up their own, more profitable independent showcase right outside the Fair grounds.

Screenshot of the app

We also test-drove the brand new Field Museum app, which you can download and connect to using the free wifi within the museum. Zoe, fan of all electronics, commandeered my phone and used the app as kind of scavenger hunt list.

"Look Mom, here's the Accounting Ledger! What's an Accounting Ledger?"

As wonderful as the World's Fair special exhibit is, it ended far too soon. So we exited through the gift shop and decided to look explore the rest of the museum. Periodically we'd see an exhibit with a QR code and we'd use the built-in scanner within the app. No dice. Even though the QR codes were green and looked for all intents like they'd work with the app, we kept getting error messages. Finally I scanned the QR codes with a generic scanner. That worked better, launching a cluttered but information-packed mobile website with additional content and videos. Still, it was surprising that the two functions couldn't be better linked.

Oils and preserved specimens, in their original vials

Opening the Vaults: Wonders of the 1893 World's Fair is on display now at the Field Museum and will remain open through September 7, 2014. It is a ticketed exhibit, with a cost over and above regular admission. I recommend going right when the museum opens, at 9am, and parking nearby in the Soldier Field parking lot. Public transit is also an option as buses serve the museum campus. Use Google Maps for exact transit instructions.

I was selected for this opportunity by Clever Girls Collective, however all content and opinions expressed here are my own.

Epic Thanksgivukkah weekend

They say the blessings together so beautifully

Let's see, I took off Wednesday and headed to the Field Museum to see the 1893 World's Fair exhibit with Zoe (review forthcoming!). We followed that up with lunch at Manny's, where my half roast beef sandwich was so enormous I brought half of it home for Josh to enjoy.

I went back to Jesse Stone and picked a new top for the master bath vanity. We lit candles for the first night of Chanukah and exchanged gifts. Josh surprised me with a pair of Miz Mooz boots that I'd been coveting (and savvily pinned to Pinterest).

It's it pretty?

I made cranberry-ginger relish, challah-apple stuffing and French-style sauteed green beans with shallots and butter for Thanksgiving, which we celebrated at Jani and Steve's house again. It was a full house, with 8 adults and 11 children. It would have been 9 adults, but a dear family friend of Steve's passed away unexpectedly and he flew home to be with his parents and attend the service. Still, Jani did a very impressive job of hosting a bunch of people and smoking the humanely raised bird, a responsibility typically shouldered by Steve. Josh won Mr. Popularity by dint of his three homemade pies: chocolate chess, sugar cream and Dutch apple custard.

I did a little Black Friday shopping (mostly online, but also a brief foray into Target, where the girls spent some of their savings on Our Generation doll accessories for Ada's Chanukah doll from my mom). Josh and I saw Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Josh took the girls to see Frozen. We attended Friday night Chanukah/Shabbat services and I packed a lot of boxes, finishing Zoe's room, Ada's room, the garage, the playroom and much of the kitchen. We drove into the city to pick up even more boxes from a friend who'd just moved and stopped at the Brown Sack for lunch because hey, we were within 4 miles of it, and that's close enough to make their chocolate-peanut butter milkshake worth my while. I also had my first ever kimchi and cheddar grilled cheese sandwich.

Anyway, it was good I could pack so much into the Wednesday-Saturday morning period, because by yesterday afternoon I was seriously flagging and putting a hit on the Kleenex supply. Yes, I have a cold --  the worst cold I've endured since my kids were snot-nosed preschool germ factories. I spent today reading, drinking tea, downing DayQuils and packing (because no matter how much I pack, there's still so much more to do).

Mary Poppins: Practically perfect for the whole family

Check out my take on the Marriott Theatre's production of Mary Poppins over at Chicago Parent.

Happy 9th birthday, Zoe

Your school picture

As I sit down to write your annual birthday letter, you're in the basement, hollering and crying. I was hoping for a nice, calm evening. I'd interview you, as I do most years. We'd read together and then I'd tuck you into bed and get started on the clues for your annual birthday treasure hunt. But that warm and cozy vision might not happen tonight. Because you, my almost 9 year old daughter, are losing your shit.

You see, musical instrument lessons are offered to fourth graders, and you've been struggling with the trumpet. Your elementary school music teacher suggested the euphonium might be easier for you. Of course, the euphonium rents for fully double what the trumpet costs, and given that you've yet to meet your weekly practice time goals, I said I'd only upgrade you if you put some skin in the game. I asked for one week of 40-minute per day practice, 20 minutes on each instrument. And you freaked out.

You're an amazing kid, Zoe. You're an excellent student--an avid reader who also loves math. You continue to excel at gymnastics, adore Hebrew school and have a wide circle of friends. Yesterday, at your birthday party at Xtreme Trampolines, you took the time to introduce all of your invitees to each other and made sure no one felt left out. You're even nice to your sister some most of the time. You've just got an entitlement issue, and battling that is something I'm struggling to figure out.

*******

Ten or fifteen minutes have gone by, and you've calmed yourself down and crawled into bed. You asked me to come up and read to you, and I explained that after how you've behaved toward me, that wasn't going to happen. Then you asked, nicely, if we could do the interview and I agreed.

What is the best thing about being 9? I don't know.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Author that illustrates her own books.

Do you want to be one thing or many things? Double, or maybe triple--author, librarian, teacher. 

What is your favorite toy? Legos and my imagination. And books.

What is your favorite book? The Harry Potter series and Percy Jackson series.

What is your favorite TV show? Phineas & Ferb.

What is your favorite song? I don't have one.

What is your favorite movie? I'll have to think about that. Beetlejuice.

What is your favorite restaurant? Salerno's, Pompeii and any kind of barbecue restaurants.

What is your favorite cereal? Don't have one.

What do you love about Mommy? She buys me stuff. And is nice.

What does Mommy like to do? Roller skate.

What do you love about Daddy? Really nice.

What does Daddy like to do? Go on the computer.

What do you love about your sister? Nothing.

If you could change your name, what would you choose? Elizabeth.

Where would you like to go on vacation this year? Mexico.

What will your house be like when you grow up? Cozy little house.

How many children will you have? What will you name them?  I will have two to three children. If two, they will be named Georgia and Ivy. If I have three, I will name them Lizzie, Jake and Samantha.

Last year's interview
Interview with 6-year-old Zoe
Interview with 4-year-old Zoe

The bliss of a weekend alone

Maybe I'm an introvert after all. I really enjoyed last weekend, when Josh took Zoe and Ada to visit his parents in Pennsylvania. New post up at Chicago Parent.

Me and my DNA

Most people at this point have heard of 23 and Me, the personal genetics company that--for $99--maps your DNA and reports back where your ancestors came from and what genetic diseases you may be a carrier for.

I've long been tempted to have my "genes done," so when our rabbi invited our synagogue to a genetics seminar (taught by a geneticist from among the congregation) and dangled a free membership to 23 and Me, I jumped at the opportunity (and not just because the session overlapped with Zoe's Hebrew school class and got up out of the house for yet another showing). Why free? Apparently the founder of 23 and Me spoke at the Conference of Reform Rabbis and offered all of them 100 free memberships to bring back to their communities.

Why rabbis? Jews belong to a particularly small gene pool and are thus much more likely to be carriers for genetic diseases like breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, colon cancer and heart-breaking childhood conditions like Tay-Sachs disease and cystic fibrosis. Although interestingly enough, Jews do so much pre-pregnancy genetic counseling and prenatal testing that our Tay-Sachs incidence numbers are now lower than that of the general population. In fact, our gene pool is so small that pretty much all Jewish women are descendants of four female individuals. 

"Are those four women Sarah, Rebecca, Leah...?" a woman in the audience asked. "No," answered the rabbi, who went on to explain that while most Jewish men can trace their patrilineal lines back to Africa, those Jewish ancestors likely "left Africa and found nice non-Jewish wives in Europe."

As a product of intermarriage myself (Jewish mother and 5th generation Nebraskan dad), I can't wait to get the results of my 23 and Me test. I'm hoping that my diverse DNA won't show a lot of scary disease  markers, but I'd rather be aware and prepared than not.

Outstanding weekend

Long table, amazing view

Way back in March, my friend Anna suggested a group of us head to Louisville for an Outstanding in the Field dinner. Eight of us (four couples) purchased tickets and procured babysitters. My mom and Rick graciously agreed to fly out to Chicago and fill in for us for 3 days and 2 nights.

Planner extraordinaire in ivory

We stayed at the luxuriously quirky 21c Museum Hotel, which we'd enjoyed so much during our spring break trip to Kentucky in 2012, and had an absolutely amazing time, eating and drinking with our best friends, shopping (the boys for bourbon and the girls for vintage clothes) ... and running!  I am decidedly not a runner, but all three of my girlfriends like to run and frequently do so together. I finally got up the nerve to join them, and while I had to drop out early, I still clocked in 3 miles, which is longer than I've ever run before (not counting high school). My fitbit was very happy, and I built up an appetite for the fantastic food and wine we enjoyed on a hill overlooking a spectacular view of the Ohio River.

Incidentally, the farm is owned by the same family that owns the 21c hotels and Proof (we had drinks there the first night and Sunday brunch on our final day), among other restaurants and bars. They raise bison, rare breeds of super-fatty pigs (including one that isn't cloven), flowers, orchard fruits and lots of hay for their animals. Their farm—like the museum hotel—has oversized sculptures and quirky art installations around every bend.

Big bunny

Josh and I returned to Chicago rested and happy—and delighted to find our children hadn't completely driven their grandparents mad. In fact, it looked like Zoe and Ada had enjoyed a wonderful weekend as well.

Mom's in town and the drywall's going in

I took today off work to spend time with my kids, who had a half day, and my mom, who flew in from Virginia to watch the girls over the weekend while Josh and I head down to Louisville with friends for a weekend of amazing food and drink. I spent the morning looking at granite, marble and cesarstone remnants, finally finding a suitable piece greenish limestone-looking piece for our master bath counter. Then I headed to the showroom to pick carpeting for the basement and talk paint with the designer, Lauren.

I also arranged to stop by the new house in the afternoon so I should take a look at the progress and show it off to my mom and her husband. When we got there, an enormous truck with a crane was swinging drywall across the sidewalk and up into the front door. But the guys on site graciously let us traipse around the house, which has framing, insulation, mechanical, electrical and plumbing installed.

The siding has gone on the back and one side of the house, and I'm so pleased and relieved that I like my choice in both the siding and the aluminum trim.

Up next: finalizing paint choices and the stain for the wood floors.

But first: Louisville without kids!

I'm living a lie

Living in a "staged" home is beginning to wear on us, but our house has never been cleaner. Check out my Chicago Parent post.

Another house update

We toured our new house last Friday and since the walls have all been framed, we could finally feel what the space is like for the first time. Our living room is huge, the dining room seems like it is going to be perfectly proportioned for our furniture, and the family room off of the open kitchen is a little smaller than I'd envisioned.

All of the bedrooms are fantastic and the place is absolutely flooded with natural light from all the windows.

I've picked our siding (James Hardie fiber cement lap siding in Timber Bark), the trim (an aluminum cladding in Silver Mist) and our roofing material (GAF Timberline HD in   Weathered Wood), and every element of the kitchen has been selected save the hardware, which I continue to overthink.

Roof is on

View of living room from dining room

Me, in our bedroom

The girls, posing by two back bedrooms

The backyard looks bigger without a forest of weeds

Last weekend was a good weekend

I left work Friday a reeling a little from an unexpected reorg, but immediately met my friend Anna and headed up to Belmont Harbor for some trapeze action. We'd purchased a LivingSocial voucher 3 months ago for a picnic/Trapeze School NY Chicago experience and it was So. Much. Fun. Not only did we get to fly on the trapeze (and execute a "catch" while hanging from our knees--you can see the video here), we learned some fun partner acrobatic moves that I can't wait to ambush our friends with at the next get-together.

Then on Sunday, after spending the morning with Ada in her 1st grade Hebrew School family class, we had lunch at Smoque BBQ and spent the afternoon at the Renegade Craft Fair, which has grown absolutely enormous. The kids found all the child-friendly activities (photo booths, print-making and petting dozens of doggies) while I fingered scarves and handbags and ultimately bought some fancy soap. Actually, the kids made out better than me--Ada got a fox mask and Zoe scored a Megan Lee t-shirt to match Josh's.

House update

The roof is gone. The second floor is gone. The stucco's been ripped off and the interior walls, floors and doors have been demoed. Very little of the original bungalow will be left standing, but under the stucco and hidden behind the living room wall we did find 2 stained glass windows. They aren't to code anymore, so we can't use them in place of regular windows, but we are considering incorporating them in the house--perhaps as an attic window.

Front of the house

Living room, facing the street

Art glass on the right

Basement

After visiting the site, Josh and I drove up to Abt and ordered all of our appliances. We're getting an LG refrigerator and range, a Bosch dishwasher, a Broan range hood and a KitchenAid microwave, which will be installed in the peninsula. We also bought an LG washer and dryer, which I'm kind of giddy about. While certainly not top-of-the-line, all our household appliances are major upgrades from the mid-level Kenmore appliances we purchased from Sears in 2003.

A report on the first day of school

Ada, at elementary school for the first time, is in a multi-age combination first and second grade class called "the Big MAC." (It's Big and a Multi-Age Classroom.) While one of the two teachers is new to the class (but not the school), it seems like a wonderful and very unique combination class that has the first and second graders doing a lot together. Ada's report from her first day of school was dominated by her explanation of the classroom's behavior chart (green smiles through red frowns), but she also said she got her pick her seat (next to her Montessori buddy Ami), her teacher was "mostly nice but a little bit mean," her class "earned two big Wows," and she almost cried on the playground because she didn't know where to put her lunch box during recess. "But I kept my tears in my eyes."

My self-proclaimed tomboy, Zoe entered fourth grade. She has a well-respected, seasoned teacher and many friends in her classroom. She reported that the first day's work was "too easy" and she can't wait for the gifted program to get back underway. She's also not thrilled about sharing a locker, but her locker buddy is in gymnastics and Hebrew school with her too, so many this will kick-start a friendship. After school, Zoe had a short break before heading to gymnastics practice. She moved up a level this year and has a smaller team of only 12 girls, which means a lot more personal attention from the coaches. So she's very happy about that.

I love seeing my girls excited about school and learning, but I don't think my enthusiasm is any match for Josh's, as he was very ready for the kids to return to school. He'll be volunteering in both girls' classrooms and keeping the house spotless for showings. What, did I forget to mention our home will be going on the market in early September?!

A perfect end to summer vacation

What do you do on the last day of summer vacation when one kid wants to build sandcastle on the beach, one kid wants to hit the pool in a neighboring town (the one you don't have passes to), you'd love to take a bike ride along the lakefront and your mother, visiting from Virginia, says she "doesn't care...as long as we don't go to an amusement park like Kings Dominion"?

If you're me, you head over to the Garfield Park Conservatory. Inside, the kids played hide and seek in the fern room while the grandparents wandered around identifying some of their own houseplants. But outside was actually the highlight. We usually head to the Conservatory in the middle of winter to get a bit of a green fix, so I'd forgotten how spectacular the grounds can be. Workmen were setting up for a free Shakespeare in the Parks performance to be held later that afternoon and the goats were off duty, but the city demonstration garden was brimming with fresh herbs and vegetables (even a few surprises, like an orange tree). The kids spent over a hour playing with the sticks, logs and palm fronds in the play garden, and by the time their elaborate games of pretend were winding down, some volunteers had set up a butterfly and ant learning activity. Zoe pretended to be an ant and used her nose to follow a trail to food. (A bee hive--did you know ants and yellow jackets raid bee hives for honey?).  Meanwhile, Ada drew a beautifully detailed picture of the tabletop ant farm and butterfly cage.

And my mom and Rick? They took photos, chatted and played a bit too.

After a few hours, we had exhausted the snacks I'd brought along and we were pretty hungry. So we walked over to Inspiration Kitchens, which is just half a block away. I'd read about the nonprofit restaurant before, but this was my first time dining there. I highly recommend it for a family friendly bite to eat. The portions are on the smaller side, but everything was made with fresh, in-season fruit and vegetables from their urban gardens and all the tips help pay for meals out for families who couldn't otherwise afford it. I had a very tasty watermelon, feta and mint salad, which was served over mixed greens with a lime vinaigrette.

By the time we'd finished our lunch/brunch (the girls had pancakes and I had coffee), it was hot, so we headed over to Rehm Pool. Due to the heat and everyone being back from their various summer vacation travels, it was so crowded we had to wait until folks left before we could get it. But we nabbed a deck chair, the water was gloriously cool, and we saw a bunch of friends--one set of whom took Zoe home for a steak dinner!

Finishing our perfect end to a lovely summer: the grandparents babysat while Josh and I heading to the Publican for dinner (al fresco!) with friends.