MichaelandChrissy.com

Aiden used to love “Thomas The Tank Engine”.  We watched the show all the time and had tons of the plastic tracks to build railroads with.  However, Gavin soon became mobile and started trashing the sets.  So the tracks went into storage until Gavin was old enough to play with them too.  Now is the time to get Gavin acclimated to Thomas.

The annual “Day Out With Thomas” at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois, was held this weekend.  Just in time too, since we recently pulled the Thomas tracks out of storage for Gavin to play with.  We also went last year, but Gavin was just along for the ride.  He’s old enough to really enjoy it this time though.

The whole family took a ride on Thomas, or at least a train with a Thomas engine at the front.  We got photos taken with Sir Topham Hatt (he’s real!).  The boys played in a bouncy house.  Aiden and Gavin saw plenty of trains, and we all rode in a vintage trolley, which was in much better shape than the not-quite-restored rail cars pulled by Thomas.

On the way home, we ate lunch at the Wild West Steakhouse just down the street.  The Railroad Museum is seriously out in the middle of nowhere, so it’s surprising that there is a Wild West Town in the same area.  The food wasn’t bad, and the boys got to meet the Sheriff, so maybe we’ll stop by there again next year.

I’m not proud of it, but I often hide from my kids while eating snacks so that I don’t have to share with them.  Hence the term “clandesnacking”, an amalgamation of “clandestine” and “snacking”.  Yes, I made that up.  Why would I go through all the trouble of avoiding the boys while I eat candy?  Because I don’t want to share.

I love chocolate-covered granola bars.  Gavin loves them too.  The difference is that I can eat them without drooling chocolate all over the furniture.  As soon as Gavin sees me with food, he runs right up and says, “Bie!” (rhymes with “pie”, since he can’t pronounce the T in “bite” yet)  And I have to give him a bite.  He’ll usually walk away, chewing happily, and then run right back with chocolate all over his face.

Aiden’s not quite as bad when it comes to making a mess while he eats, but he has no sense of tact.  He’s young yet…  If he asks for a bite of whatever I’m eating, he’ll bite off more than he can eat.  I always end up holding a tiny stump of candy bar or whatever.  That’s not really fair, but it’s not like I can take it back.  Ew…

So the easy answer is to eat (snack) in secret (clandestine) where no one else can see me.   I’ll hide in the bathroom with a donut or dodge kids room-to-room with a pudding cup.  It’s not like they’re bereft of food, we take care of our kids.  They even get snacks of their own at certain times of the day.  But sometimes I want to enjoy a snack without being hounded or swindled.  Is that so bad?

Although our family has an annual membership to the Brookfield Zoo, this is the first time that I’ve been back since the Spring.  The last time I was there, the “Great Bear Wilderness Trail” was still under construction and the dolphin stadium was being renovated.  Both are now completed, so we wanted to get back to the zoo at least once before the end of the summer.

The new bear habitat was smaller than I expected it to be, but there’s plenty of room for the three polar bears and one grizzly bear that live there.  One of the polar bears jumped in the water to play and eat, and the boys loved watching him swim.  The wolves were also relocated to a new den up on a hill so you can see them better, and the bison got new housing in the habitat as well.

Unfortunately, we missed out on the dolphin show.  We showed up about a half hour early, but that wasn’t good enough to get tickets for the first show.  Next time, we’ll get tickets as soon as we enter the zoo.  However, we did go to the underwater viewing area beneath the stadium while the show was on.  We watched the dolphins do their tricks from under the water for a little while, and were able to leave a lot easier than if we had actually watched the show above.

Aiden and Gavin love the zoo, so we re-upped our membership for another two years.  We stop in four or five times a year.  We like to get there as soon as it opens.  That way, we can check out the animals until about lunch time and then find ourselves a nice place to eat.  Then the boys usually sleep on the way home.  It’s a nice trip, and we think that the experiences are good for our boys.

Katie called to say that her friend Julie got a block of tickets to see Choo Choo Soul at the Radisson Star Theater in Merrillville because she’s interning at Radio Disney in Chicago.  She had about forty tickets to give away and asked if we could help her distribute them.  The boys liked Choo Choo Soul on the Disney Channel, so we decided to go.  We had previously gone to see the Imagination Movers, another Playhouse Disney property, and we enjoyed it very much.

The concert, if you could call it that, was about a week away.  Chrissy called around to see if others would like tickets too.  Since we had free tickets, several of Chrissy’s friends brought their young children to see the show with us.  In all, we used about thirty-two tickets and filled up three rows at the theater.  We picked up the Choo Choo Soul CD at Borders so that we would know all of the songs ahead of time.

The show wasn’t terrible, but I kind of expected more from Disney.  The television show centers around Genevieve, the shapely conductor on a cartoon train, and DC, who is the engineer.  The show has a train that kind of grooves its way along the track to different locales while Genevieve sings about numbers or letters or colors and DC drives the train.  The stage show was completely different.

The biggest difference was that there was no Choo Choo.  We got to see Genevieve in her conductor outfit.  DC was there as well, and he had a turntable on a podium, the front covered by a Choo Choo Soul banner.  I was wondering what he was going to do, since he had no train to drive on the stage.  He was doing something like performance art that you would see in a public park, with some breakdancing, beat boxing, and doing the robot, complete with voice vocoder.  But no Choo Choo.  As it was, I had seen similar shows on Hollywood Boulevard.  You toss quarters at people doing this type of thing in Grant Park.

Considering that the show is about the Choo Choo, I would have expected to see the train there.  But there were only two people on the stage against a black backdrop.  The Imagination Movers concert had a large projection screen against the back wall where are the Warehouse Mouse made a virtual appearance.  I would have expected to see the same thing with the Choo Choo at the very least.  The train could have made an appearance that way, if not in a real physical way.

The boys loved it.  Aiden was dancing in the aisles along with all the other kids that came along with our group.  The performers actually encouraged this from the stage.  Katie and Felice had come with us, so there was no shortage of people to hold onto Gavin and Aiden when they got tired.  The boys seemed to have a good time and were excited to see Genevieve and DC.  Overall, we were happy that we got to take our kids to the show, but we would have been upset if we had paid for it.  We saw that the tickets were being sold for $20-$30 each online, so we were happy that we saw it for free.

Gavin has been suffering from ear infections on and off for the last six months.  We took him to the doctor each time and she would just give him more antibiotics.  You can’t keep that up forever, so eventually it was suggested that he get an ear tube operation.

A myringotomy is a routine operation,  not a big deal.  We scheduled Gavin for the operation at the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital on a Friday at 6:30 AM.  We had to get up extra early in the morning to take him, just to sit in the waiting room until they were ready to proceed.  The procedure itself took about fifteen minutes.

Afterward, they brought us back to a private recovery room where Gavin was just waking up.  He was a little crabby at first, but it probably didn’t help that he woke up in a steel crib.  The nurse opened up the jail crib, put him directly into my arms, and he stopped fussing.  Gavin recovered immediately and was happy as a clam for the rest of the day.

We were surprised at how quickly he bounced back.  He just needed some ear drops for a few days to keep the tubes clean.  Happily, he hasn’t had an ear infection since the operation.  The only downside is that we have to watch his ears during bath time because it’s bad if dirty water gets in.  But hey, matching plastic medical bands!

Aiden is getting bigger all the time.  When your child is a little baby, you don’t think that they’re going to be three years old some day and require a bigger car seat or a different stroller.  But before you know it, you’ve gone through three of them and then something like the Joovy Caboose Ultralite comes along.  Chrissy just bought one, so I hope that it serves us for a while.

We started off with a Graco Quattro Tour single stroller for Aiden, but then upgraded to a Graco Duo Glider double stroller when Gavin came along to accommodate his car seat while Aiden rode up front.  Eventually, both boys were big enough that we moved to a Combi Twin Sport side-by-side double stroller that allowed them to sit next to each other. This one was harder to get through doors, but allowed the boys to interact with each other on long walks.

With Aiden getting bigger now, and wanting to walk alongside more often than not, Chrissy wanted a different seating arrangement.  Enter the Joovy Caboose.  Our new Joovy stroller is different because the front seat is a regular stroller seat and the back seat is more of a small platform for Aiden to stand on.  There is a padded seat for him to sit on, which pulls out to reveal storage space underneath.

Aiden likes it because he can stand back there.  He calls it “riding like a garbage man”.  Not sure how thrilled I am about him emulating a garbage man, but he likes it better than sitting in the seat of the other strollers.  Because Aiden isn’t trapped behind a serving tray, he’s free to hop out whenever he wants (both a blessing and a curse).  I dig the canopy that covers both occupants.

Overall, I’m not sure how much I like this new stroller.  It’s missing the “driver’s command center” where I usually put my drink, keys, phone and such.  It’s lighter and less bulky than the old double stroller, but as difficult to turn despite being less sturdy.  On the bright side, it’s easier to push through doors than the side-by-side stroller.  We’ll have to put it through its paces before we take it to Disney World though.

I almost completely skipped “Free Comic Book Day”.  I knew that it was coming up and I had planned on taking Aiden to the local comic book store to get some comics.  I was even reminded of the date (who keeps track of the date on a Saturday?) when I picked up my sunglasses from the optometrist today.  But I lost track somehow during the day.

So it came to be 5:30 PM when I noticed that someone on Twitter mentioned their #FCBD haul.  For non-Twitterers, that’s a hashtag notation for “Free Comic Book Day”.  Gah, I forgot!  It wasn’t too late though!  However, Chrissy was leaving at 6, so I would have to bring both Aiden and Gavin with me.  Ehhh, OK…

So I packed the boys into the trailer on my bike and rode them over to Coruscant Comics.  It seems like we only come here on FCBD.  As luck would have it, we ran into Gavin’s Godfather, Nick, and his girlfriend while we were there.  Wasn’t expecting that, but it was a pleasant surprise.  We talked for a bit, and Aiden picked out some comics.

I helped Aiden pick out a Batman comic, since he loves Batman lately.  I grabbed a Transformers Animated comic that I think was leftover from last year and a GI Joe comic, since those are the only lines that I follow.  Gavin got to visit with Nick for a bit, but he didn’t get any comics.  And the ride home didn’t kill me.  So overall, it was a nice trip.

It was such a nice day on Tuesday, so we took the boys to the Skydeck at the Sears Tower (or the Willis Tower, depending on who you ask).  We had already spent the morning at the Shedd Aquarium, and the Tower isn’t far away.  This would put us near a McDonald’s for lunch, and the boys would be good and tired for a nap on the way home.

Chrissy and I had been to the Skydeck before, but that was years ago.  A new feature that wasn’t there when we last visited is “The Ledge“.  This consists of four retractable glass boxes that project from the side of the 103rd floor.  This effectively turns the observation floor into a thrill ride.  Chrissy and I specifically wanted to see this in real life.

You already get a great view of Chicago from the Skydeck, but in one of these boxes, you see the ground.  And it’s scary.  Aiden and Gavin had no problem with it though.  Chrissy couldn’t look down at all.  I looked down while chasing the boys into the box, and I froze for a second.  Every fiber of your being just screams this is wrong and get out of here.

We got plenty of good pictures though and the boys had a great time.  Aiden still talks about going “up up up into the tower”.  I probably could have done without the ridiculous parking fees in Chicago though; $45 is a lot to pay to store your car in a concrete box for a few hours.  We made some good memories over Spring Break.

Did we color Easter Eggs last year?  I don’t remember doing it, and I’m pretty sure that this was Gavin’s first time.  I think that maybe Aiden colored eggs at Grandma’s house last year…  At any rate, we decided to carry the tradition as a family this year.  We put down plenty of newspaper and mixed up some egg dye.

The boys got something new to try this year: tiny roller brushes.  The kit came with six colors to paint on the hard-boiled eggs.  The roller paint was sticky, but blended well.  The paint dried with a nice sheen to it and ended up looking sort of like a tie-dye pattern.  Gavin thought the paint looked good enough to eat.

We dipped the rest of the eggs in dye, but not before writing our names on some of them in dye-proof crayon.  Gavin tried to write his name on one egg, but ended up with a squiggly line.  We even rolled a stripe around one before dyeing it, and that turned out better than I thought.  All of the eggs looked very nice!

The Kevorkian Scarf has claimed its latest victim!  Long neglected by Aiden, the doctor’s kit has resurfaced and Gavin has discovered it.  He loves to play with the plastic band-aid and stethoscope.  Better still, he’s just big enough to velcro the fake blood pressure cuff around his neck.  Because it’s a scarf…  that kills people.

It’s just a toy, so there’s no danger of him actually being asphyxiated (worst. dad. ever.), but it does have an air bulb that spins a little meter on the cuff.  He digs it, on or off his neck.  Unlike Aiden, Gavin likes the Kevorkian Scarf so much that he’ll bring it to us to put on his neck.  Not sure what light this shines on us as parents, however…