The Continuing Adventures of Daddy and James, Vol. 3

With Erica in Washington, DC on a work do, James and I drove down to Danville to check out Grandpa and Grandma's new pontoon boat(!)  James was not entirely enamored with the boat.  I'm sure he will be soon, but the combination of the irksome life jacket that kept his poor little head from looking down and the uncertain footing kept him on the crabby side.

We managed to get over to the Boat Club for a nice evening where everyone mooned over James.  We rode to dinner in style across the lake in the aforementioned boat.  I gotta say that my mom and dad have some sweet setup going on down there.  The latest addition to their fleet is a golf car they use to drive up and down the hill to the lake.  Mom kept calling it "Grandma's Car", clearly hoping that would strike a chord with James (I'm not sure what that makes the white Hyundai Elantra filling up the right half of the garage).  James seemed to take to riding in the cart, which I'm completely sure is totally safe.

Post-life vest boondoggle 

"Grandma's" "Car"

Mom and Dad were very kind to take James for the day while I went to the Public Library to wrestle some more with chapter 3 of my dissertation.  It's one of those chapters that's mostly an in-depth treatment of a single book (Iris Marion Young's Justice and the Politics of Difference, if you're curious), so the footnotes appear as an endless series of "Ibid"s.  These days, James just wants to be outside all the time (making me all the more wish we lived someplace where we could be outside year round).  He'll often just start whining "siiide" after his morning bottle of milk until we take him out so he can pick up and put down different sticks for as long as we'll allow him.  He loved the back deck of my parents house because it's "outside", and I liked the fact that he's basically hemmed in up there and can't really go anywhere.

He also got in a good amount of sprinkler time.  It's always amusing to watch him try to drink sprinkler water right out of the air.  

The Continuing Adventures of Daddy and James, Vol. 2

With temps in the 90s, Wednesday was a good day to get wet.  James and I went downtown with Erica after checking out yet another child care center for next year.  After dropping Erica off at work, we headed straight to the incomparable Maggie Daley Park at the north east edge of Grant Park.  James is probably a teeny bit too young to really get it all; in another year he'll be the perfect age for the park.  But he loved watching the big kids run around and, of course, the sprinklers.

We needed to get back to Erica's workplace, about a mile from the park, so we had to kind of push past a few of the things I'd have rather spent more time with.  It's not like any of its going anywhere, and James has the still has the long-term memory of a guppy, so I'm sure we'll be back here in a future installment!  Anyway, to this installment:

We made a bee-line to the Bean, aka Cloud Gate, which has to be in the running for least-likely-to-be, but-which-has-somehow-become-a tourist destination in the United States. It is pretty cool, even if itis kind of just a big bent mirror (and King Lear is just English words strung together, I suppose).

I then made James' day by taking him by the Crown Fountain, aka, the huge water-spitting towers (you can kind of make out the giant face spitting water on kids in the background left of the first photo).  Quite tall, the fountain's falling water was a bit intense for the little guy.  He never went all the way under, but he did creep steadily closer as he grew accustomed to the spray.  After about 5 minutes, I had to ask two little kids to take him by the hand and lead him back to me (I didn't want to get soaked...).  He was furious with me, but shivering cold, and I ended up having to change his whole outfit in a nearby patch of grass.

Closer...

By the time, we got back to Erica's office, James had dried off somewhat, and James got to meet some of Erica's co-workers.

You can actually see St. Ignatius from this window

Afterwards, it was off to lunch with our real estate agent (yikes!), where we openly pined for an hour about owning a home, despite the fact that doing so would essentially raise our housing costs about a $1,000/mo.  "Everyone else does it" seems to be the going rationale, but that's a lot of cheese to bite off at once.  And no, this isn't a Millennial, "I can't commit to anything" kind of deal, it's more of a "even the complete dumps are north of $300,000" one.  

We left Erica at work an headed home, where James continued his water ways in the completely awesome water table that Grandpa and Grandma Gholson bought for him, as well as the $12 plastic "pool" I bought for him.  

In heaven

The Continuing Adventures of Daddy and James, Vol. 1

G'day.  This summer, The Big Pigs blog is happy to be hosting a new summer series, The Continuing Adventures of Daddy and James.  It's a departure from our normal fare, but it's the same people, so whatever.

Today marked the first real day of summer vacation.  Veronica, our wonderful nanny of a year, said good-bye to her "Gordito" on Friday, and come this morning, I shifted into full-on Daddy Mode.  Our first father-son outing found us visiting the Shedd Aquarium.

Not much of a shedd

Today was a Free Day for Illinois residents at the Shedd, so James and I elbowed our way through the thronging Lumpenproletariat to get look at a bunch of different types of fish.  When you're one, there's really only so much of this sort of thing you can take, even if you're a pretty good little buddy.  James did spend a good 10 minutes banging on the glass tanks and shrieking something approximating "fssssshhh".  He liked the turtles and stingrays, too.

Loser of the staring contest (right)

Really, though, the day belonged to the out of doors.  It was a sunny 81 and the lake was calm.  And unlike indoors, out there you can run around free and easy, and not go slamming into people's shins, or sprinting away from your parent into crowds of strangers and causing all manner of stroller pile-ups.

James an I enjoyed a healthy stroll around the north lawn of the nearby Field Museum and then out toward the Adler Planetarium, to get the "tourist shot" that everybody takes when they're in Chicago.  However, since we're not tourists, but genuine residents, that made these definitely more authentic.

Unimpressed by Olmec head. VERY impressed by found stick.