autumn in the city

...we had the perfect autumn weather in chicago this past weekend—deep blue skies, fluffy white clouds, enough wind to make the falling leaves dance spiraling downward to their demise, cool crisp air to remind us we were definitely in the depths of autumn, and bountiful sunshine to warm us from head to toe.

... on saturday, the cultural center was having a huge halloween event for kids including a couple Chic-a-go-go parties. we met up with my friend Lori and her family who were in town from grand rapids, mi. lucky for me, lori is a super photographer, or i’d have no good photos of cadence in her black kitty costume. that’s lori in the photo above with her super cute son SuperDev. the next few photos are by lori.

the cutest kitty cat of them all, originally uploaded by lorilea.

i realize that cadence was a kitty cat last year, but i was way too lazy to find her another costume this year, and since she has not yet learned to ask for things that require purchasing power, i figured we’d give the meow suit one more chance. it was a little small for her, but nothing some holes and a shoelace couldn't handle.

kitty in a sea of crazy costumes, originally uploaded by lorilea.

one of the quirks of chic-a-go-go (besides their host miss mia) is the way it attracts adults as well as little kids. on a normal taping of the show, it’s not unusual to have a room full of hipster twenty-somethings and indie rock parents mingling with all the kiddies. at this particular show, cadence was mesmerized by a full-sized bug-eyed alien and a mexican wrestler dude dressed a la Nachos Libre. i think all the different costumes made cadence wonder what the hell was going on, and she spent much of the time lost in the midst of surreality just staring at people.

two tired toddlers..., originally uploaded by lorilea.

our visit w/ lori and scott and dev was short, as both our kids were needing a nap after the chic-a-go-go excitement. next time, though, we’ll have to get lattes @ metropolis, right, Lori?

...we put cadence in the stroller in case she wanted to snooze, and we went over to millennium park. i figured as long as we were downtown and the weather was as glorious as it was, i wasn’t in any hurry to get back home to the northside. due to the beautiful weather, the park was full of happy smiling people lollygagging leisurely. it’s amazing the effect a little good weather has on the moods of people who’d just spent the past couple weeks freezing their butts off.

...i have to admit that i’m a little bored with millennium park by now. notice that i am not posting any photos of the bean. it’s always fun, though, to people watch, and there were plenty of chances to do that saturday.

...cadence, who should have been napping by now, was energized by the vast green lawn behind the pritzker pavillion and ran her dad ragged. for almost an hour. nonstop...in this photo, she may appear to be running to give someone a hug, but be ye not deceived! she's actually trying to steal a stranger's frisbee.

...we had to leave around 2pm so that ted could get ready for a show that night with tim lowly. they were playing a show again w/ emo boys sleeping at last, this time at moody bible institute (the christians like the nice clean positive lyrics of SAL, i guess), which i found humorous. esp when ted told me that they had posters for the show that said "SLEEPING AT LAST w/ Tim Lowly". i'm still chuckling about that one.

...so cadence and i spent the evening together, just the two of us, as we often do when ted's out rehearsing or recording or playing shows or doing chi-gong. unfortunately, the only nap she'd had was the 50 minutes or so in the car ride home, and she started telling me she wanted to go to sleep really early. i was on the phone w/ josh when he reminded me about the time change the next day, which meant that i had a nearly asleep toddler on my hands at what essentially would be 6 pm, once i accounted for the hour gained the next day. since i didn't particularly enjoy the thought of cadence waking us up at 4am for her waffles and elmo, i spent the rest of the evening devising ways to keep her awake. in addition to a bath, which is always good for an hour of awake time, we built a menagerie of toys with both her sets of nesting blocks, we created a half-pipe for her matchbox cars, we played catch, we emptied out all her toys and then put them away again, we sang some songs, we did some dishes, and finally i put her down for bed at 10pm, or 9pm with the time change, which meant she'd sleep until at least 7 the next morning. whew!

...anyhoo, the extra hour of sleep sunday morning was greatly appreciated in our household, as we had to be at church by 9am for a parenting class we've signed up for. sunday was another beautiful day, and we went for a long walk in the woods at the grove in glenview in the afternoon. we went over to my mom's afterwards, and she was nice enough to offer to watch cadence so ted and i could go out for dinner by ourselves. as much as i love taking cadence everywhere with me, the one place i get really stressed out with her is at restaurants, so i was totally happy to take my mom up on her offer. we went to the yard house in glenview, which has like a gazillion beers on tap and had a nice quiet dinner. the perfect ending to a lovely weekend!