A Day with Ann

I talked this trip up to Caleb for weeks trying to get him excited to see Minneapolis, and that which he most dearly wanted to do was ride the "train", aka light rail. Ann so graciously obliged Caleb's fancy with a tour guided light rail ride from downtown Minneapolis, to well, South Minneapolis and back.

We popped into the fairly new downtown public library for an official story time and a couple of unofficial stories from both Ann and a random male stranger that Caleb befriended.

The road trip, the museum, the pasta bar and the climax of his adventure: the train, behind him, Caleb literally lost all of his energy in a pile of pillows in the middle of the library.



Although the pictures end, the day did not. After getting Caleb home and asleep, Ann and I played a rousing game of scrabble with a six point spread. We made dinner and ate in with another good college friend Jenny. Caleb woke up for dinner and few of Ann's special body slams, but was back in bed by eight, after which, we finished the night with a three way scrabble match touting a measly spread of one. I won one, and I lost one, but undoubtedly that was the best scrabble I've played in years!

Thank You SO MUCH for Hosting Ann! We apologize for the enormous monstrosity of STUFF we lugged into your condo and the toys all over the floor and the diapers in the garbage, but we thank you for showing us a fantastic time. We Love You!

Amen to All That Jazz

After, no nap on the trip up to Minneapolis and a full day at the Children's Museum, we still tried to push bedtime back to soak up some pasta and live jazz at the Loring Pasta Bar. Little did we know that the push back would include a 45 minute wait for a table and another 45 minute wait for food. By the time we actually got our food, it was an hour PAST Caleb's bedtime and a good three hours past his normal dinner time. Our saving grace? My little boy's adoration of anything and everything music. Caleb played the piano in their back hallway, he traded waves with the saxophonist, he gawked at his first sight of a bass violin, he played drums on his salad plate, he danced around the table and made friends with fellow diners. Although perhaps not for the waitstaff, he was clearly the entertainment "du soir" for Ann, Darcie and myself.

MCM - Modern Art?

MCM - Silouhettes

It's amazing how complete strangers find friendship in common interest :)

MCM - Fuzzy Faces

This was our lunch break at MCM. We were sitting in a little room with about 15 lunch tables, a microwave and vending machines. Caleb had just gotten his face painted and was glowing from a full belly. The natural light through the window was gorgeous and the color was nothing less than vivacious.

I suppose you can say that Caleb taught me a lesson here today. Of course, it took a good ten days to fully sink in, but he taught me that life, in general, is a little fuzzy. If you inspect the photos above, you'll find that all of the goofy faces are crisp and clear, but I couldn't catch a clear smile for the life of me. And look at those smiles?! They are bubbling up from his insides, genuine, warm and utterly happy. Oh how I wanted to catch those smiles!

Now let's parallel to my life lesson. Right before lunch, we "gooped up", or lavishly applied Purell, for fear of germs, but I'm afraid, because germs are quite prevalent at a children's museum, that our Purell job might have been a bit fuzzy. Precisely, three days later, common incubation time for GI bugs, Caleb was throwing up and filling diapers on a multiple-time-per-day basis. Just to make sure the lesson was fully set in, I found myself having similar issues three days after Caleb's bout started.

Not one of my pictures up there is perfect and it's quite obvious that one of my Purell jobs didn't do the trick, but overall the collage of pictures, in my opinion is quite striking, and the weekend was irreplaceable. I certainly would do it all over again, but I'm thinking I'm going to start using the multiple shot per second feature and add an official hand washing to the Purell job. Perhaps that will help clear up the photos and a few more GI bugs.

Minnesota Children's Museum (MCM)

What an adventure!! The stars aligned such that the babysitter, Caleb and I could take a road trip to Minnesota to visit our "girl" friends. We dropped the babysitter at her recently departed (departed Madison, not the earth) best friend's house in St Paul. As we drove out of the driveway, I'm quite sure she was still entwined in a "squealing" embrace, giddy with anticipation of late night chats over an all-weekend sleepover. A truly sleeping Caleb (not "sleepover" sleeping) and I then ventured on to downtown Minneapolis to stay with Ann, one of my good friends from college. I'm not sure what exactly it is about "girl" friends, but they'll inspire you to drive hours and hours, with expectations and anticipation of doing absolutely nothing in their presence. Just being together is deliciously gluttonous, whether you're in high school, or you know, your thirties.

Caleb and I met one my old Ernst & Young coworkers and her daughter at the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul. You'll see no pictures of Angie or Claire on this post, or any future posts, because although Claire and Caleb were together in the same room, they were rarely close enough to be in the same focal point of the camera lens. Rather, the 50 other children in the room kept getting in the way. In fact, I literally lost Caleb at least five times, so we were quite busy trying to maintain a conversation, after not having seen each other in five years, all the while trying to prevent child loss, well Caleb loss actually, Claire is one and maintains a MUCH smaller radius of interest.

Angie and Claire left just before lunch and Caleb and I were free to roam. As it turns out, a LOT of children leave just before lunch so we had plenty of room to explore. Most of the MCM pictures I'll post are from the toddler room, because it was contained, sparsely populated and safe for a toddler R.U.N. Oh how I wish we would have found it earlier! Caleb got to "be" a turtle and pet a snake, two of his favorite activities of the day, in the Earth World exhibit.

Caleb loves, Loves, LOVES other people's toys. Thus despite the fact that his run was slowing to a swagger, his swagger was weaving like a drunk driver, and his eyes were working full throttle to maintain "slit" status, he persisted in requesting "new rooms" until I put a final end to the adventure, packed him up and chauffered his sleeping body home for a three plus hour nap. For the second time this trip, he slept through all of the bridges and buildings of St Paul and Minneapolis!

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Lady Liberty a la Lake

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Pail and Shovel Party promised that, if elected to student government, they would move the Statue of Liberty to Lake Mendota, and they made good on their promise.
Lady Liberty sinks into Lake Mendota. (Photograph by Ravi Kochhar). In February 1979 an astonishing sight appeared on Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. The top of the Statue of Liberty seemed to emerge from the icy water. Astonished local residents flocked to the lake to witness the bizarre spectacle. It was not a mirage. It was, instead, one of the most famous college pranks of all time.

See link for more FASCINATING detail:
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Lady_Liberty_on_Lake_Mendota/