License Plates, Cleaning and Other Randoms

Late last week the kids and I took advantage of one of the last warm(ish) days and headed outside. Jacob is all about dressing up his car.  He had some little foam letters from a school project, so he added them to his license plate.  Notice it now spells, "Jacob"?

He says he needs a cross for his rear view mirror, an air freshener, and-- of course-- a top for his vehicle, so he can drive it all winter.  Where does he come up with this stuff?!

I'm in that sweet spot right now where I don't have much going on in the class that I teach, so I've taken advantage of the time to do some extra cleaning.  Most people talk about spring cleaning, but I'm more of a fall-cleaning person.  If you're going to be stuck in the house with the windows closed, it seems like a nice idea to freshen up a bit, no?

In the last few weeks, I've deep cleaned all the bedrooms and closets, and moved all the furniture to vacuum and dust behind everything.  Needless to say, I have been sneezing my head off for the last few weeks. Perhaps I should do this more often...


On Saturday, we took the kids to Monkey Joe's in Peoria.  We had visions of them running off their energy, and us supervising them as minimally as possible.  (Yes, I just typed that. Don't judge.)

Monkey Joe's, in case you aren't familiar with the franchise, has huge, indoor inflatable bounce houses and slides.  It's awesome.

Seriously, who wouldn't like playing in this?!

One guess.

You guessed Carter?  That would be correct!

Oh man, we tried.  Frank and Jacob were both in the "Under 3" area with Carter, trying to get him to warm up to the idea.

Daddy swung him around, which he actually liked, but couldn't last forever.

Meanwhile, Jacob and I hit up the slides.

But eventually, Carter just would NOT go back in to the bounce houses, and Jacob decided he wanted to play with Carter, so.....

Everyone played in the little baby area.  How nice that they wanted to play together, yet how annoying that no one was doing any physical activity. [Use your energy children!  Jump here, not on my couch!]

Not really what we came here for.

So we hit the road after just over an hour.  So much for minimal supervision and a little break...


This evening, Frank took the train to Chicago for a seminar.  Usually, when he rides the train we like to see him off at the train station.  (We're his "posse!")  Our train station in Uptown Normal is recently constructed, quite nice, and has a Subway.  We eat at Subway and wait for the train which is inevitably delayed due to the construction of the new high-speed rail system.

Tonight, we started with our usual Subway/waiting-for-the-train evening, but Frank's train kept getting delayed... and delayed... and delayed....

His original departure time was 5:56.  One thing to note about the beautiful, new train station is that all four stories of glass and tile and marble produce quite an echo.

Picture a naughty little 2 year old yelling, "Help me!  Help me!  My not be quiet!! My not like this!!" in a large, glass-walled area.  For the sake of the other passengers, we called it quits by the 6:28 departure time.  Honestly, I'm glad we did, because the train ended up being delayed by nearly an hour, and there's no way we would have made it that long.

As an additional note, hustling two small children through a parking garage after dark isn't on my to-do list any time soon, either.


Then there's Carter.

This kid is SO NAUGHTY.   As my mom says, "He's a really good two-year old."  It's interesting how Grandmas can find the best in you.  I don't remember this behavior with Jacob, but maybe because Jacob was my only at that time.

Carter screams; he's stubborn; he's so articulate.  He knows exactly what he wants to do.  He wants to do everything Jacob does, but he also wants to do it at the same time!  I think I say, "Take turns," and "He'll be done playing with that soon," about 8 million times a day.

His saving grace is that he's so dang cuddly.

(Naughty? Who, me?)