A death in the family

Joel, on left

Last Tuesday night I was at a meeting at a friend's house in Oak Park. My phone buzzed and it was a text from Josh, warning me that we should be prepared for a funeral. His father was in the hospital and things weren't looking good.

Wednesday morning I stepped out of the shower and Josh was on the phone with his mom. There hadn't been any improvement and our weekend getaway with friends--a repeat of the previous year's Outstanding in the Field trip--was in jeopardy.

By the time I'd finished my first cup of coffee, my father-in-law, just 71 years old and suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's, was dead.

Time, it seemed, stopped. Between 8am and 2pm I'd called American Airlines, updated my mom, gone into work to sort out coverage, packed suitcases and found a cat sitter.

And then we were on the road, driving east. Even though the drive took 16 hours (split into two days by an overnight in Youngstown, OH), we arrived in plenty of time to talk with the rabbi and prepare for Thursday's funeral and Shiva. I even found a moment to buy appropriate dresses for the girls to wear.

My mom and stepdad, who'd planned to fly to Chicago on Friday to babysit Zoe and Ada, gamely canceled their tickets and took the girls home with them Thursday night (Thank you, Mom!). That left us free to sit Shiva and generally be available to Josh's mom. I kept busy triaging the refrigerator and sorting through Joel's clothes, all of which are going to charity. I also learned that, while Edible Arrangements are both lovely and delicious, they are monster refrigerator space hogs and eating them before the fruit goes slimy is like a race against time.

Suffice it to say, I existed on deli tray cold cuts, egg salad, sliced melon and chocolate covered strawberries for 5 days.

Because my mother took the girls home with her, Josh and I were able to drive back to Oak Park without a single "are we there yet?" We even treated ourselves to a decent hotel in Cleveland and a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tuesday morning I was back at work, and while I'd missed a number of days, I couldn't shake the feeling that time had stood still. I guess I'm still feeling that way because our childless house is so quiet and clean.

You can read my father-in-law's obituary here. He was a leader in the field of pediatric infectious disease, a huge baseball fan and a really funny guy. He had the gift of connecting instantly with others and making them feel like he genuinely liked them. I recall meeting him when I was first dating Josh and thinking, yeah, I think I know what Josh will look like as an older guy and I like it.

Belated birthday interview with a 7 year old

Continuing my semi-regular tradition writing about and interviewing my children  on their birthdays, here's an overdue interview with Ada, who turned 7 in mid-July. We celebrated with a birthday party for friends at a local pottery studio and again with extended family in Colorado.

But before I let her speak for herself, a quick note to my second-born.

Ada, you've lost all your baby fat. You're lean, brown from the sun and you still possess those big brown eyes and long, long lashes. You learned to read with fluency this year and you loved school and your first grade teacher. You also love every camp and every activity we've ever signed you up for. You thrive on novelty outside of the home and routine within. You happily eat the same foods over and over again (your favorite meal is black beans, cheddar cheese, a tortilla and an apple); you play with your LEGOs for hours on end and you need to be tucked in just so at night. And yes, you still sleep with Funny Bunny.

On to the interview!
What's your favorite color? Teal.

Your favorite animal? Pig.

TV show? LEGO Friends and Littlest Pet Shop

What's your favorite toy? LEGO!

What's your favorite book? The Best Birthday Party Ever, Just Grace, Ivy and Bean and Judy B. Jones

Do you have a favorite song? No.

What's your favorite thing to wear? Shirt and shorts or DRESSES!

What's your favorite sport? Soccer.

What's your favorite restaurant? Salernos.

Your favorite cereal? Corn flakes.

Your favorite food? What kind of food? Food or desserts? I'd pick any dessert. And pasta.

What do you like to do at school? Recess.

Who are your best friends? Jessica and Amelia.

Where would you like to go on vacation this year? Colorado, again. I loved it so much.

What do you want to be when you grow up? An illustrator or artist. Well, they're the same thing.

Where do you want to live when you grow up? Here.

Do you plan to have children? [Holds up two fingers.]

Boys or girls? Girls.

Will you have pets? [Holds up one finger] Cat.

If you could change your name, what would you pick? Violet.

What do you love about Mommy? That she smells good and she's very cuddly.

What do you love about Daddy? That he cleans things up for me.

What do you love about your sister? This is very hard…I know! That she does what I want.

What would you like to do when you’re 7 years old? I want that Zoe takes me to get ice cream ALONE!

Do you have a birthday wish? I can't tell it to you because that's going to break my wish.

And now, for a trip back through time...

Happy 6th birthday, Ada 

Interview with (almost) 6 year old

Happy 5th birthday, Ada

Happy 4th birthday, Ada
Interview with an (almost) 4 year old
Happy 3rd birthday, Ada
Happy 2nd birthday, Ada
Happy 1st birthday, Ada

Steamboat Springs family reunion

Steamboat Springs is not a convenient vacation destination for Chicagoans. We drove to Midway, flew Southwest to Denver, rented a car, and drove 3+ hours through hills and thunderstorms to get there.

However, we were greeted by a rainbow as we turned into town. And while Steamboat might not be easy to get to, our family reunion in a rented 5 bedroom ski chalet/townhouse made the trip worthwhile.

So what is there to do in an upscale Colorado ski town in the summer? We took the gondola to the top of the mountain and walked through hills of wildflowers. We hiked to waterfalls, rafted down the Colorado River, rode tubes down the Yamba River and soaked in natural hot springs. We also enjoyed a little local color at a professional rodeo, where big buckled cowboys rode honest to goodness bucking broncos and my 5 year old Australian nephew chased a bewildered sheep for a chance to win a new pair of Wranglers.

We also jogged, cooked, ate out, celebrated Ada's birthday, swam in the community's private pool and negotiated the wild and wooly moods of four children between the ages of 5 and 9.

Colorado is just as stunningly beautiful as people say. There are miles and miles of forest and flower-filled meadows between each small town and everyone there seems to be out enjoying it and generally living a healthy lifestyle: biking, hiking, swimming, running and walking their dogs. It, however, isn't a terribly diverse place. We ate lunch at a highly recommended local sandwich shop that listed the "Jewish" as one of its sub sandwiches. It was a pastrami and cheese, something no observant Jew would ever eat.

And while it rained at least once every day we were there, the atmosphere is remarkably dry. My skin, nose and throat were continually parched. My hair, however, enjoyed a break from the humidity. Below are a handful of pics from the trip. You can see more here.

View from our dining room window

Most of the gang at Fish Creek Falls

Zoe and Eliza photograph me and Eleanor

Ada the Fish

Me and Ada, before the rapids

Mom and Rick at Strawberry Park

One step closer to being prepared

B*72: Supplies for 2 people for 72 hours

Let it be known that Josh and I are lousy preppers ("prepper" being a popular nickname for those who actively stockpile for disasters). Once, about a year after Ada was born, we took it upon ourselves to prepare an emergency rations box. I rediscovered the container while readying our house to be sold last summer, only to discover that the water bottles had burst, soaking through the graham cracker boxes. Everything inside the box was covered in black mold, right down to the expired jar of peanut butter.

We're not even well prepared for power outages. Whenever a severe storm is forecast, Josh runs around gathering candles and pilfered restaurant matchboxes like he's getting ready for a seance. And given that an actual fire burned down three neighbors' homes a block north of us just a couple of months ago, I don't think its wise that we court disaster with our disaster preparations.

So when Boltwell (get it, bolt well?) introduced me to their line of fairly-mainstream prepper packages (I say mainstream because they don't talk Doomday prophecy and their packaging is hip and modern), I was happy to take a look. I got to try out a number of their most popular products, including a first aid kit more substantial than any I currently have (and regularly raid for Band-Aids), a handy multitool, a super lightweight pocket lantern (batteries included!), and a fantastic weather/AM/FM radio that can work with AAA batteries, a hand crank or solar power. Best of all, the hand-crank radio has a USB port so you can use it to charge your mobile phone--the hardest thing to do during an extended power outage. They also sent me a dense, 400 calorie raspberry energy bar that could likely be weaponized and a disposable, portable toilet bag, I guess for the kind of emergencies I don't think preppers are terribly worried about.

Feeling 100% more prepared than before (if still not 100% prepared), I took it upon myself to also purchase fire extinguishers for the house. After the incident with the exploding water bottles, I'm not sure I'm ready to restock those. Maybe I'll just get some purification tablets and plan to drink out of our rain barrel.

I am a warrior

Three days before I turned 38 years old, I ran the Warrior Dash, a muddy, Viking-themed 5K race with a bunch of hair-raising obstacles (think fire, razor wire, rope climbs and mud pits). I had been convinced to go with some some girlfriends from Derby Lite back when tickets first went on sale in the winter, but I'd forgotten all about it until May. Realizing there was an actual 5K to be run in addition to muddy hills and massive slides, I kicked up my jogging schedule from very rare to occasional.

Fortunately I'm in pretty decent shape. I skate once a week for 2 hours, take a weekly ZUMBA class and log 10,000+ steps most days on my fitbit. That was enough to manage the Warrior Dash, but barely. I definitely had the strength and agility to master the obstacles, but running between all of them, in the sun and on uneven surface, was a challenge. I might have had to walk if there hadn't been bottlenecks at 2 or 3 of the obstacles.

Did I mention it was also exhilarating fun? It's been a long time since I've pushed myself to my physical limits. Combine that with with temperate weather, ample sunshine and wonderful people to keep me company, and I didn't even mind publicly sticking a hose down my pants to wash mud out of my underwear.

Ups and downs in Pennsylvania

Josh and I took Zoe and Ada to his parents' house for a 4 night visit. We pulled the kids out of school two days early and looked forward to hitting either Dutch Wonderland or Hersheypark for a day of fun before the summer break crowds descended.

Before things got ugly

We made it to Dutch Wonderland, but it turned out spending $120 on amusement park tickets did not buy us happy children. We left after nearly 3 hours of line-free rides, but both of the kids were a sickly combination of overstimulated, underfed and queasy from being spun around. Not a good combination. Our Amish meal at the tasty but touristy Good 'N Plenty was miserably tense and we spent the rest of the afternoon in Lancaster checking out the outlet stores in the pouring rain and telling our kids how disappointed we were in them.

Ironically, they were fantastic for the rest of the trip, which consisted of sightseeing at the more "grown-up" destinations I wanted to visit and checking in on their ailing grandfather, who moved to the memory ward of an assisted living home the day after we arrived. I think I learned a valuable parenting lesson: Do what you want to do instead of catering to your children's wishes.

Here's what we saw (and enjoyed) aside from visits to Grandpa, which would have been depressing if it wasn't for the patience, love and tenderness Zoe and Ada showed for him…

Colonial Plantation Pennsylvania

We visited Colonial Plantation Pennsylvania, which wasn't very far from my in-laws' house in West Chester. There we met all of the animals being raised humanely and sustainably on the farm and saw what an 18th century farmhouse was like. The girls figured out how to play with a wooden hoop and stick and we got a Revolutionary War era rifle demonstration from a guy dressed like a member of the Union army. Loading and reloading took a long time and a great deal of effort back then.

Eleutherian Mills, Du Pont home

We also spent a full day at Hagley, an enormous 235 acre property near Wilmington where E. I. du Pont founded a gunpowder factory and built his estate back in 1802. A tour guide walked us through the ancestral home and gardens and we got to see some of the other historical highlights (the machine shop, water wheels and workers' hill) before ended at the visitor's center museum, which had two fantastic exhibits. One was a temporary exhibit on the history of nylon (a DuPont invention) and the other is the permanent, hands-on exhibit of DuPont engineering. I had no idea that they'd created so many familiar synthetics--Kevlar, StainMaster, Dacron, Corian, Neoprene and Lycra. I also didn't know that some of their earliest innovations, like car and house paints, were based on their gun powder heritage.

National Museum of American Jewish History

On our last day, we headed into Philadelphia to check out the National Museum of American Jewish History, which was built in 2010, and had a fascinating collection that traces the paths and fortunes of the Jews in America from colonial times (1654) to the present day. The exhibits are a mix of artifacts, imagery, sound and video, and each floor has a hands-on area that appeals to kids. Mine dressed up as settlers in a Conestoga wagon, sat down at a Shabbat table like tenement residents in the first half of the 20th century, and watched TV in a 1950s rec room. They also discovered photos and pictures of OSRUI, where Zoe is headed in a few days, in a room dedicated to the role of sleep away camp to the American Jewish experience. And, appropriately enough, we stopped at a Famous 4th, a Jewish delicatessen, before heading to the airport.*

*We flew in and out of Trenton-Mercer, which may very well be the tiniest airport I've ever been to. One airline. Two gates. It's a bit less convenient for my mother-in-law, who picked us up and dropped us off, but it offered terrifically cheap fares and the novel opportunity to exit the plane directly onto the tarmac. Then it was up one flight of stairs from the baggage claim barn and there was Shirley's car. 

The world weeps

Today I learned that my friend Emily's daughter Meera succumbed to brain cancer. She was just shy of her 6th birthday.

I didn't cry when I read the news on my computer at work. I didn't cry when I told my family at dinner. I held it together as I shared my struggles with whether or not I should take my children to a child's funeral with the other women in my parenting class.

I can't cry. A mother's worst nightmare has come true and I'm afraid to let myself feel even a fraction of what she's feeling. I can't put myself in her shoes. I can't.

When I left my class, it was raining. Pouring. And as I headed south, down the length of Oak Park on my bicycle, the wind picked up. Lighting shattered the sky.

Wind whipped rain into my eyes. Streamed down my face.

My heart pounded as I sped up, racing against the traffic lights. I lost, stuck at a red as the rain intensified. Beating down on me.

I'm afraid to let my mind—my emotions—feel Meera's loss. But feeling something felt right. Necessary. So I'm thankful for tonight's hard, heavy sorrowful storm. For the thunder, rumbling with anger. And for the rain, pricking my skin and stinging my eyes.

Wanting to do something but feeling powerless to help, a group of Emily's friends decided to walk in Meera's honor and raise funds for pediatric brain cancer. If you're local, consider joining us or making a donation to help fund research.

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.