Today we had one of our sitters, Daniella, watch the twins while Adam and I took the older boys to Winter Wonderfest.

I was amazed how much I learned today.

First I learned that Jack is a complete dare devil. He has no fear and kept trading off between queasy parents to accompany him on dizzying, stomach churning rides.

Adam and Jack on the “Cliff Hanger”

Jack is in the yellow top with red pants, I’m to the left in the purple shirt….

Jack and I in the “Gravitron”. I squeezed his hand the whole time and screamed while he laughed at me.

I also learned today just how deep Ben’s aversion to transition is. We had to strongly suggest and encourage any new attraction and when we finally did get him on board, he wanted to do it over and over again. When we tried to move him to another attraction he would flop on the floor. Poor little guy. He is so articulate but has never been able to articulate why transition is so difficult for him. I must try harder to be mindful of this.

It’s hard to imagine that someone with so much love of life, someone who is so full of laughter, can have this major difficulty that he has to deal with every moment. Life is full of change.

This is not to say he did not have a great day.

He enjoyed the train ride…

He enjoyed many of the bouncy house rides…

I also learned by watching Jack and Ben together, without parents, that even though Jack can tease Ben relentlessly at times, he is a very good big brother to him. He held his hand or hugged him every time they were in line together. And because it was his beloved Jack, Ben was very well behaved.

And he loved his favorite McDonald’s lunch followed by ice cream…

In fact, we ALL enjoyed ice cream.

Finally I think the most important thing I learned today was watching Adam parent. He was completely on his game today. Patience, understanding, positive. That sort of stuff is contagious. It made me want to stop sighing so much, stop yelling so much, stop jumping to so many conclusions. After all, our kids model themselves after our own behavior and the best way to make them good people is NOT to yell at them to be better, but to be a good person yourself.

Sunday night we headed out to the Morton Arboretum to see their new display, Illumination. It’s an interactive lighted tree exhibit.

They have nine interactive light experiences placed along an illuminated, circular path. Some of the more fun ones included singing to black walnut trees and watching them change color, projecting your face onto 30-foot-tall evergreens, and being a ‘tree hugger’ – when you hug the tree, it lights up.

It was really well put together. I could see how much effort and thought went into every piece.

I thought the kids would also find it amazing. Dancing, changing lights delighting them at every turn. Hot chocolate stations and open fires. All these seemed like really exciting ideas for the kids to experience. You never know what will hit them.

Jack was cold, he thought something smelled like poop (I told him we were in nature, city boy!), and he didn’t like the warming stations because he didn’t like the smoke.

Warming station.

Ben sat in the stroller or on Adam’s shoulders for the entire walk, when he wasn’t crying about his foot hurting.

The twins made it about half way before they were crying to get out of the stroller. They are so young I’m not even sure they noticed the lights.

In fact, I think the only thing they all enjoyed was visiting the winter train exhibit afterwards, the Enchanted Railroad.

They were pretty excited for drive through McDonald’s as well…

I’m starting to feel a little inadequate when I see what all my friends are doing around the globe.

Last week I saw my friend Fionnuala Hanahoe’s awesome new interactive iPad book, Scribbaloo Pigs.

This week I’m decorating my girlfriend’s Anna Hart’s new tote bag.

Anna and I at Petra and Ryan Comerford’s wedding in Phuket, Thailand. Circa 2001

I seriously need to find some lower achieving friends to make myself feel better. I was thinking getting all the laundry done and food on the table today was a major feat of fantasticness.

But Anna’s energy levels always out did mine, even back in the day. And I knew Anna for a long time. I probably consider her my closest and longest friend from my days in Hong Kong. She ended up marrying one of those strapping South African men I mentioned living with from my Scribbaloo Pigs post and now lives in Singapore with him and their three kids.

Anna and I at one of the most incredible parties, Teena Goulet’s 40th murder mystery. Anna’s character was “pregnant” which went over well in Lan Kwai Fong later that evening, especially dancing with our friend David whose character was a priest.

When I left Hong Kong she was working as the office manager for my ex-boyfriend. I think she still works for him, remotely. He started a research company called GaveKal. At the time it was 4 people but now it’s grown into 4 countries and 45 employees.

Anna has also done a number of incredible things, including publishing a book called The Organizer and being the founder of the Singapore chapter of the charity Room to Read.

And as if that isn’t enough, she just started selling her own line of tote and handbags!

Here is my tote. I filled it with pictures of my family and some quotes because 1. My family is what my life is about 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 2. I’m not very creative. But having the bag and thinking about the best way to fill it made me want to strive to have other interests so I could look more interesting to the rest of the world when I carried it around!

If you look on her website you start to realize there are all kinds of ways people can use this. Sports fans, dog lovers, creative types can all personalize it the way they want. She had her daughter do some art work for her. So far, none of my kids have that sort of dexterity. Perhaps what this bag is really trying to tell me is that I should strive to teach my kids fine motor skills instead. Fine motor skills will make me more interesting!

Either way, I love the idea. The bag is very well constructed, snaps everywhere and the photo pockets very smartly have a fold over flap to protect the contents. They also have the signature Anna Hart bright color scheme which was a joy to see, even though it now it sadly lives half a world away from me.

Not good with measurements but she sells them in two sizes. Mine is the bigger one and it is about this big…

The more years Jack attends his elementary school, the more impressed I become.

Jack attends a fine arts magnet here in Chicago. When I was doing my Magnet Applications for Jack last year, my system was to find magnets with A ratings within a 5 mile radius of our house, then continue to spiral out until I reached the maximum number of 20. If I got too far out, I would start again at the 5 mile radius and add magnets with a B ratings.

I found his school that way. It is a small school that many parents have not heard about unless they are in the arts themselves. Still, even without all the hype, there were still 1000 people applying for 14 spots. Out of twenty, it was also the only school we won the lottery for.

Last year I was blown away with the Kindergarden Graduation. But that was nothing compared to this year’s holiday show!

Mimes…

Many, many incredible piano solos. And so much more! Clever and funny plays like this one where the kids were dressed as snowmen…

There were dances. Ballet dances, modern dances, and african dances…

And bands! This school has their own kid bands! Here they are performing smooth criminal…

 But of course, my favorite was the first grade dreidel song…

Jack is in the top row, all the way to the right.

I never would have picked fine arts over something like math and science, but since it we luckily got the slot at this school, I’m starting to see what benefits performance arts can have on a kids confidence and creativity levels.

And I use the term highlights loosely. These events were either the zenith or the nadir of the week. I’m still not sure.

1. When Stan first arrived to our house Ben decided to strip down naked then jump in Stan’s lap and ask him to smell his hand. Which smelled like poop. The naked theme did not end there…

2. During the 18 month check up for the twins we were asked to strip them down in order to measure them. While Adam and I were both holding a naked baby in the hallway, Ben, who was suppose to be sitting in the examining room waiting for us decided to strip down naked, run into the hall, jump up and down giggling and ask to be measured as well.

3. Aaron developed an annoying habit of having a bowel movement right after dinner. Unfortunately after dinner is bath time.

4. When Ben announced one morning that he didn’t want a Mom, but preferred to have 2 Dads instead.

5. The realization that not one but both twins know Papa’s name and call for him all the time, and have for WEEKS, but they still don’t know my name.

My 41st birthday started out pretty rough. I woke up at 2am because Ben was pushing me off the bed. He almost never wakes in the middle of the night and I have no idea how he got there. All I knew was that there was not enough room for the three of us. I went downstairs and slept on the couch.

Then the twins woke at 5:30am. Not that different than most days but I was so hoping for something a little later for my birthday.

As my birthday landed on a Friday, it pretty much seemed like just another normal day. Which depressed me a bit.

Twins up to their normal tricks, even on my birthday.

I kept checking my facebook page for birthday wishes. A total of 65 people out there in the wide world wished me a happy birthday. Unfortunately everybody I physically spent the day with completely ignored it. Okay, two out of three of them have a vocabulary of about  30 words, but I was still kind of hoping that they would somehow magically stop fighting, crying and pooping for just one day.

When Adam came home I announced I was not, in fact, turning 41 today. I was going to wait and turn 41 tomorrow, and have a birthday weekend.

Mmmm. Strawberry cheesecake, maybe it wasn’t all bad…

And so this weekend I made up for it with a great couple of days filled with stuff I don’t normally do – shop, date night at Prosecco, foot massage, and wonderfully, an afternoon with Stan.

The kids insist on photo bombing Adam and I’s date night photo

Stan and I were buddies from our days in Hong Kong. He now lives in London and happened to be here on a short layover between cities.

I’m not sure he appreciated the visit as much as me. Look how the older boys treated our guest…

After all that abuse we left Adam on his own with all these rug rats and we met up with Matt Moder for a lovely liner? dunch? at Revolucion Steakhouse.

Stan was also grappling with his own birthday thoughts. His was a big one this year. And I know on big birthdays you have a tendency to wonder if you’ve ticked off all the boxes you should have by that age. Stan wished he had ticked off more.

“Wait, didn’t you basically create your own global currency that trades publicly?” I asked.

“Um… TICK!” Matt seconded. “Where is the box for that?”

Lovely, lovely weekend and now I’m ready to be 41 for the next 363 days.