St. Louis, April 2012: "These seats were $8?!!"

Friday morning I got a Groupon email offering a half-price membership to The Magic House. I hate and love the Magic House. I hate it because it's like Lord of the Flies in there and one of us usually ends up catching something. I love it because Jefferson loves it and always has an excellent time. Look at that giant bubble.

 

Although this probably merits an explanation, I think you get the idea. 

One of Jefferson's favorite Magic House activities is to climb this giant enclosed 3-story plant thing, but pretend to be terrified of it and force us to coax him up the whole way. Then he gets to the top and flashes this grin. Turd.

 

Although Wrigley Field is a special place, Busch Stadium, in whatever incarnation, is home.

This day was all about deals. I bought Cardinals tickets off Stubhub for $8! The face value was $40. The three hot dogs we ate cost more than our seats.  

 

Plus, they gave us 3 of these hats at the gate. They cost $30 at the team store.

Get ready. In about 10 years, you'll be telling this kid to stop skateboarding in your driveway. I bet he'll have the same look on his face.

Jefferson and Mom

Jefferson and Me.

Jefferson and Angry Birds.

Yadier Molina was presented with his 4th consecutive Gold Glove and the inaugural Platinum Glove. Then he went 4/4 and saved the day with a game winning home run.

First pitch.









Kyle Lohse won the game thanks to the Yadier homer, but he got roughed up a bit. He's about to get roughed up here.










Oh no!!

Chicago 2012, Part 2: "Dig it, Will" Edition

Back in February we started talking to Jefferson about the trip to Chicago. We asked him what he wanted to do and, without hesitating, he said "Lego Store."












He took $21 to the Lego Store and when we got there he was OVERWHELMED. Completely bewildered. It was like that scene in A Christmas Story (skip to 1:20) where Santa says "How about a nice football?" and Ralphie looks at Santa all dopey and nods. He finally settled on a Star Wars thing.












The first time we went to the Field Museum, Jefferson was too little to really grasp what he was seeing. These things looked like dinosaurs, but I don't think he understood that they were dinosaurs. This photo was his idea. I call it "Gojira!!"












I call this one "Feeding Time."









He kept up the "running away" theme through the whole museum, but was less committed to it with each photo.









Running away or sleepytown?









He sat in this footprint two years ago.












???









Dude broke out his entire pop 'n' lock routine at the Field Museum.









Look, these things freak me out. I think the reason must be that they look like things that still exist. There really isn't anything wandering around that still looks like a T Rex. But I guess there's a part of me that feels like that thing on the right might walk in front of my car when I'm driving through Mark Twain forest on the way to my parents' house. I bet "giant 10-foot tall devil elk" isn't one of the categories pre-printed on the State Farm claim form.









Chicago is home to incredible foods. Hands down, my favorite food item in Chicago is Potbelly Sandwich Works. We had this absolutely amazing French toast with bacon-pecan crumble topping at Xoco. It was one of the best things I ever expect to eat in my life. And yet ... the Italian sandwich and chocolate shake at Potbelly is my favorite meal. Maybe anywhere. I ate it for lunch and dinner Friday.









This was an exceptional trip to Chicago. We saw priceless works of art (but didn't eat pancreas, a la Ferris), saw day baseball at Wrigley, pretended to run from dinosaur bones, and had the best conference panel experience ever. The trip home involved 7 episodes of Batman: Brave and the Bold, the new Muppets movie, and an all day sucker that was thrown away after about 14 minutes.

Chicago 2012, Part 1a: "Holy Cow!" Edition

Well, if it's April, it must be time for the annual Midwest Political Science Association conference. The formal reason for the trip was a roundtable discussion on Tea Party politics, but the side effects are fun fun fun. Hey look, Mom and Jefferson are enjoying the Amtrak. Thanks for the subsidy, American taxpayer!












Carbondale, IL, was just listed as the 95th most dangerous city in America. Get us out of here, Amtrak!!









Will is my co-editor, roundtable co-chair, and buddy. We all took the Amtrak together this time. Will referred to the trip as "two adults, two children."









In an earlier post, I discussed our trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. The commentary was written for Jefferson's pre-K class and contains only kid friendly photos and words. Therefore, I could not include the following two photos. CONTENT WARNING. There. You've been warned. The following piece is called Eviscerated Corpse and is made entirely of filthy discared stuffed animals. And you know what? It's ART.












Around the corner from the stupid corpse thing was a wing of suggestive pieces, most of which Jefferson didn't really get. However, when he saw this Picasso piece made of what looked like Sharpie on corrugated cardboard, he announced: "His winkie's out."












Look, I've been a Cardinals fan my entire life. I was 8 when they won the 1982 World Series and it was the greatest thing ever. I was 11 when they lost the '85 Series and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. The problem is that I grew up in the 80s and watched a lot of Cubs day baseball on WGN. So although I'm a lifelong Cardinals fan, I just don't hate the Cubs the way other Cardinals fans do. Don't get me wrong. I don't like the Cubs. But I had a chance to see day baseball at Wrigley Field and I took it, okay?









Mom and Jefferson.









Me and Jefferson.









Our seats were amazing. We bought them for $11 off StubHub and weren't entirely sure what we were getting. We got seats in the lower deck about 40 rows back from home plate.









The hot dogs at Wrigley are fantastic. Seek out the grill cart and hold the atomic green relish.









First pitch.









This was directly above our seats.









The ivy.









The famous hand-operated scoreboard.









Zach Greinke is about to have a bad day.









Our two boys are playing Angry Birds. PS. An usher stuck that Cubs sticker on Jefferson's jacket in a semi-threatening manner. So we left it on. Go Cardinals!












The Cubs beat the Brewers 8-0. Other than our amazing $11 seats, the main triumph of the day was making back to the conference in time. The game started at 1:20 and our panel started at 4:35. We left at the top of the 7th and had 20 minutes or so to spare.

Chicago 2012, Part 1: Grant (knock knock knock) Wood Edition

Jefferson has been learning about art in his Pre-K class. We had the opportunity to look (but not touch...) many of the paintings that Mrs. Zieba and Jefferson's friends discussed in class. This lion guards the entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago.












We first discovered that Jefferson was learning about art when he talked about Grant (knock knock knock) Wood at dinner one night. Here is "American Gothic."












While in the American wing of the museum, we also got to see "Nighthawks" by Edward Hopper.









Jefferson wanted to make sure to see Van Gogh (go go). We saw "The Bedroom."












We also saw "Self Portrait."












Another night at dinner, Jefferson explained "Pointillism" to us. We made sure to find Seurat's "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte."









One day Jefferson told us that he wanted to make a picture like Piet Mondrian. That is something that I was not expecting my 5-year-old to say. We got to see "Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, Blue, Red and Gray."












Jefferson had also heard of Pablo Picasso. We saw "The Red Armchair."












We especially liked "The Old Guitarist."












Jefferson told us that his favorite painter is Jackson Pollock. We were glad to see "Greyed Rainbow."









Finally, in the kids' wing of the museum, there was a gallery featuring the art of author Steve Jenkins. High five, gorilla!