How Shannon Got Her Groove Back

Well, it's more like How Shannon is Getting Her Groove Back, or more accurately, How Shannon is Kinda Sorta Making Plans to Maybe Start Getting Her Groove Back.  But those descriptions don't play on the title of a mid-90s hit book/film.

I'm talking about my professional groove here.  When I quit my full-time, outside-the-home job in October of 2008, I assumed I'd have a brief regrouping period and then cobble together some sort of hybrid part-time/freelance career.  Oh, I'd be so creatively fulfilled and work-life-balanced! 

Flash-forward to a little over 2.5 years later, and I've just gotten stuck.  Bill and I have now filed tax returns for two full tax years in which my income was $0.  And during that time I have made great strides in terms of getting my personal and family lives in order.  My mental health is stable, I'm on a regular exercise schedule, I mostly stay on top of household duties, and I'm involved in a variety of activities that just generally make me a happy person.  And all that personal fulfillment is all well and good, BUT in our society we attach a great value to making money.  I'd like to say that I'm above thinking that the ability to make money confers a certain status upon a person, but the reality is that I feel less competent because I'm not contributing to my family's income. 

So lately I've been applying to a few different jobs, putting out feelers as the cheesy corporate lingo goes, although the two money-making opportunities that look the most promising were gigs that actually came to me.  I have a freelance project that has just gotten emailed to me during the typing of this blog post, and, and, I got an email from somebody who is interested in advertising on Same Old Shannon. 

The funny thing is, I don't care if I don't get rich off any of these opportunities.  I don't even care if I don't even come close to making a tiny fraction of what my husband makes.  To me, there's just a great deal of pride that comes from some outside person telling you that your work is valuable enough to be financially compensated. 

Plus it doesn't hurt to have a little extra income going in when so much is going out.

Speaking of outgoing funds, I think I need to spend some money on some office supplies for myself.  I know, I know, I'll destroy my whole profit margin!  But if I look at it from the standpoint of my total household income, I think I can afford to buy:

A roll-top desk!

The desk would be for that new office I said I was going to create for myself back in January.  Yeah, I know, I still haven't fulfilled my New Year's Resolution.  But I'm still working on it.  That counts for something, right?  Because I know this sounds dumb and cheesy and generally just a justification for spending more money, but I really think I need a dedicated workspace.

And I really think that, as the lone female in my house, my dedicated workspace should be an homage to all things pink and girly.  I found the perfect poster in my basement to frame for my office:

This is a poster I got in 2005 when my mom and I attended the Jacqueline Kennedy dress exhibit at The Field Museum.  I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with the Kennedys or anything, but I like history and the exhibit was really cool.  Plus I have really fond memories of going to it with my mom on what was, as I recall, her first visit to Chicago.  Also I think posters from museum exhibits are a little bit classier than my old decor, which was cat posters.  

So, I think I have switched my potential office location from a corner of the basement to a corner of the guest room.  It's warmer up in the guest room, with more light, and besides I wouldn't have to clean out a whole bunch of clutter like I would in the basement.  

I just decided I'm going to paint it a peaceful shade of lavender!

Here's something else about me: I love office supplies.  I'm convinced that if I had all the right pens and notebooks, I could not only be at my peak creatively, but also perfectly organized.  

And nobody does office supplies like the Japanese.  Just this past week I placed an order from Tokyo Pen Shop, which is a Japanese office supply website that I once read about in Martha Stewart Living.  Martha likes the site because it sells the Pilot Hi-Tec-C pen, which is not sold in stores in the U.S.  I purchased the Hi-Tec-C pens in the Cutie Colors assortment:

I also got some D-Clips paper clips shaped like cats.  I have no idea what I'm going to be clipping together, but damn if they aren't the cutest things you ever saw. 

Okay, so I spent less time talking about my professional pursuits than I spent talking about my plans to decorate my home office, which makes me feel a little bit like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde.  But you'd rather read about gel pens than freelance editorial work, right? 

Can Everyone Just Please Be Quiet?

A couple of weeks ago, my blog friend Andrea shared an article on Facebook called "Are You Damaging Your Kid’s Self-Esteem?" and subtitled "3 things you should stop doing immediately."  In the article, which appeared on popular parenting site Babble, author Jennifer Lehr outlines three seemingly innocuous parental behaviors that she finds so damaging to children that she actually intervenes when she see parents committing these vile parenting crimes.  The three behaviors: forcing your child to hug a relative (tells kids their personal space doesn't matter), telling kids to put on a sweater/eat one more bite (either of these has the same horrible implication that kids are too dumb to make decisions based on their own internal bodily perceptions), and tickling children (again, the whole personal space/boundary violation).  


I think it's safe to say that Andrea and I both found this author to be way too judgmental and overly analytical about the damaging effects of everyday parental behaviors.  Oh, and if you weren't feeling bad enough about your parenting from Lehr's article alone, she has a website called "Good Job" and Other Things You Shouldn't Say or Do (Unless You Want to Ruin Your Child's Life)." Yep, that's right, saying "good job" will literally ruin your child's life.  Ditto such commonplace parental sayings as "It's okay" and "Be Careful!"  

While each of these sayings has its own post dedicated to explaining the unique way in which it can ruin your child's life, Lehr's main point is that parents often work so hard to spare their children's feelings and boost their self-esteem that we're coddling an entire generation into an inability to handle setbacks.  


The same point is made by psychologist Lori Gottlieb in her recent article in The Atlantic entitled "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy."  Gottlieb begins her article with anecdotal evidence of some of her psychotherapy sessions with twenty-something patients who described themselves as having very loving parents and very happy childhoods, yet who still felt unhappy and dissatisfied with life.  Gottlieb's logical conclusion was not that these young people may have been suffering from depression, anxiety, or some other mental illness that has a physiological cause often completely unrelated to one's upbringing.  Nor did she concede that young adulthood is a stressful, anxious time for everyone, and that these particular twenty-somethings chose talk therapy as their coping mechanism.  No, Gottlieb's conclusion is that these young people were overly-coddled by parents who took extremes to shield their children from any negative feelings, and the result was adults who grew up completely unable to deal with the harsh realities of life.  


Now, I concede that it is possible to raise a child who is so overly-coddled that he or she can't function out in the real world.  However, is it really fair to suggest that every little thing parents do to make their children feel good is going to eventually turn these children into completely incompetent adults making a beeline to the therapy couch?  


As a parent, I'm just tired of the suggestion that everything I do has the potential to screw up my kid.  And when I say tired, I mean literally exhausted.  I have become so overly-analytical of everything I say or do that I'm worn out by lunchtime.  


The over-analyzing is a result of Too Much Information, and not the kind of TMI where people tell you too much about their bodily functions.  We, as parents, now have Too Much Information about all the right ways to raise a child, and unfortunately a lot of this information is conflicting and unrealistic.  I'm calling for the "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" message to be turned down a few decibels.  


So, I spent the morning writing a Technorati post in rebuttal to Lehr's and Gottlieb's articles.  I worked until 12:45 p.m. writing that article, and I basically parked Nathan in front of the TV the whole time.  I also ignored my big pile of laundry and the dishwasher that needed to be emptied.  I skipped the gym.  My point is, I'm frustrated by how difficult it is to juggle my everyday household responsibilities and my activities of a semi-professional nature.  Not that this frustration is anything new, to me or anybody else.  


Anyway, at 12:45 I became panicked that I had a doctor's appointment at 1:15 (psychiatrist, in case you needed any more fodder to judge me as a bad parent), and that in the space of 30 minutes I needed to shower, feed Nathan and myself, get Nathan dressed, and drive to the doctor's office.  Nathan began demanding a particular Calliou DVD to watch while I was in the shower, and I unfortunately gave into his less-than-polite demands because I was in a hurry and willing to do whatever it took to get me in the shower and out the door in time.  During my brief shower I thought about how I had completely compromised my parenting ideals, because I do try really hard to enforce polite, non-demanding behavior, and I also try to send the message that you can't always get exactly what you want.  But, I realized, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances -- like you spent the whole morning trying to craft a thorough, well-reasoned Technorati post because even though they don't pay you for those posts you hoped it would somehow further your writing career, and in writing that post you lost track of time and now you have to get yourself in the shower and get to a medical appointment where it's especially important not to look like a disheveled crazy person -- and we don't parent in a vacuum, which means sometimes we say or do things that so-called "experts" might tell you are going to ruin your child.  


I'm pleased to say that I managed to take a shower, throw together a couple of sandwiches, and simultaneously drive, eat, and put on makeup, so that we were only a mere 5 minutes late for our appointment to spend 45 minutes in the waiting room and 3 minutes with the doctor.  


Now, let me pause here and say that yes, I do see a psychiatrist who prescribes me psychiatric medications, but I don't think I'm a particularly crazy person.  I assume that most of the other people in the waiting room at the psychiatrist's office are equally non-crazy, and are just people who have experienced minor mental illnesses that have underlying physiological causes that need to be corrected with medication.  Additionally, the doctor works with patients needing pain management medication, and I don't automatically assume those patients are crazy, either.  So, okay, I think I have established here that I do not believe that seeing a psychiatrist necessarily makes you a crazy person.  But I'm gonna go ahead and say that I think I have experienced more than my share of crazy people in this doctor's waiting room.  Now, I concede that I may be more likely to judge somebody as crazy when viewed through the lens of a psychiatrist's waiting room.  But whatever the reason, there are some people in that place that I've determined to be total nutters.  And today ... hoo, boy.  


This one old lady with pink shoes came in and immediately had some kind of conflict with the receptionist in regards to how many patients were in line in front of her.  The patient with whom Pink Shoes seemed to be in competition for the next opportunity for doctor face-time was this elderly, pale, trembling lady who needed her husband to be a go-between with the medical personnel.  When the whole dilemma got settled, Pink Shoes begins on a tirade about how kids today aren't read to enough, and she taught in the inner city for X number of years, and these kids couldn't read, but boy could they use the computers.  This was while my kid was riveted to a Shrek racing game on the iPad, so I automatically felt judged.  I wanted to argue with the lady that she didn't know what she was talking about, because actually today's classrooms have incorporated modern technology into instruction, such that learning and computers aren't mutually exclusive.  But I've found there's no point in arguing with people like her, and besides she had moved on to asking this guy with a cane what had happened to him, accident-wise.  


This led Pink Shoes into a story about how she got into a car accident in 1982 in California, but her insurance didn't cover medical care in California, and, "You guys need to read your insurance policies carefully, because they might not cover all 50 states."  Again, nineteen eighty-two.  

Then Pink Shoes made a comment to a woman wearing a Las Vegas t-shirt about how her niece lives in Las Vegas, and she is divorced, but having to work three jobs, and the niece hasn't talked to her since the divorce, even though she wrote letters and tried to call.  

Next, the trembling old lady is called for her appointment, and unfortunately she trips and falls while getting up.  Now, it was thoughtful of the other patients in the waiting room to try to help her get up, but as time went on it seemed obvious that some of the outside parties needed to butt out.  When the lady couldn't get up the doctor suggested that she be taken downstairs to Urgent Care in a wheelchair.  The old lady and her husband insisted she didn't need urgent care, which of course everybody in the waiting room had an opinion on.  One guy even started asking the lady if she knew where she was.  

Eventually it became clear that the old trembling lady wasn't going to go to urgent care, so the doctor called her in for her appointment.  Meanwhile a city police officer showed up to determine that nobody's safety was being threatened, this being a psychiatric office that had just called Urgent Care.  When the receptionist explained the situation, which was obviously not at all dangerous, the cop rightfully assumed he had done his job and left the building.  That's when Pink Shoes followed him out.  "Oh for crying out loud," the receptionist said.  

Pink Shoes came back in and went on a rant about how she's so tired of women's opinions being ignored, and just because you're not a man with "something in between your legs," nobody lets you make your own decisions.  I actually wanted to argue that since the doctor and receptionist had given in to the woman when she insisted that she was well enough to skip urgent care, this was actually a case where a woman's opinion was valued above everybody else's.  But, again, there's no point in arguing with crazy people.   

Plus, at that point Pink Shoes had stated, "You know, I used to live in Michigan."  

Now, I think we all knew that she would continue with a comment that explained the segue between sexism and Michigan, but nobody wanted to hear it, so the man with the cane tried to derail Pink Shoes by saying, "Oh, really?  What part of Michigan?"

"Detroit," she said.  "I worked as a nurse working graveyard shift, 11 p.m. to 7 a.m." 

"Oh, I worked graveyard shift," said the cane guy, who had explained previously that he used to be a police officer.  

"After about four months I was qualified to be an RN," continued Pink Shoes, who somewhere along the line had told us that this story took place in the early 1950s, when licensing for nurses was clearly a lot more relaxed.  "But I wanted to be a doctor," she said.  Now, I'm assuming she figured she'd need to go back to school to be a doctor, and not just that she could ask and become one, though honestly she was so crazy and confused that I wouldn't put the latter idea past her.  But whatever it took for her to become a doctor was a moot point, because apparently somebody had told her that women couldn't be doctors.  Now, I'm absolutely certain that there were some female doctors in the 1950s, although I admit that potential female doctors in the 1950s had very steep odds stacked against them, and I don't doubt that there probably was some jerky male doctor in some Detroit hospital in the early 50s who was of the opinion that women weren't qualified to be doctors.  

Nonetheless, whatever happened to this woman in the early 50s, or however she perceived whatever happened to her in the early 50s, did not give her any evidence for this next comment: "It's just not fair for women these days."  These days?!  That story happened in like 1952.   

Anyway, at that point my name was called to see the doctor, so I headed into his office for my semi-annual 30-second chat of, "I'm happy with the meds I'm on, and I'd like more of them."   

"Oh, so you're trying to be my easiest patient of the day?" the doctor asked.

"Doesn't seem like there's much competition for that title," I replied.   

This Internet? I OWN This Internet.

I'm supposed to be folding two giant loads of laundry that, at the moment, are just dumped in a pile on my living room floor. 

Tomorrow they will still be on my living room floor. 

Last week I got accepted into the Clever Girls Collective, which is a group that matches bloggers with advertisers and PR people.  The other bloggers I know who are part of the collective tend to get free stuff and write sponsored posts.  So I applied.  And I await further instruction. 

I also signed up for House Party, which is a site where you can apply to host a party that is sponsored by big-name advertisers.  The idea is that you and your guests would get to sample some free product from the sponsors, and that this takes place in thousands of households across America.  It's a little like a Tupperware or Pampered Chef party, except the guests don't buy anything.  Anyway, whenever a party is added to the site, thousands of people apply to host, and if your interests and demographics are a good match for the particular sponsor, you get picked to host.

Also, a really fun thing happened this week, and that is that my Google Page Rank went from a 0 to a 3 (out of 10).  I've heard people brag about a 4, so I'm almost awesome.  (Another random fact is that, according to Wikipedia, it's not called a Page Rank because it is ranking your web page, it's called that because it's derived from a formula invented by a guy whose last name was Page.  Isn't that weird?) 

Anyway, I think my life looks pretty good, at least on paper.  I came to that conclusion this past week when I started to polish my resume and write cover letters.  I'm vaguely connected and influential in the blogosphere, at least in the Chicago mom blogosphere. 

So I really think I should get this one gig with Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect website.  I saw a posting for a humorous parenting blogger (hello, me), and it's 28 hours per week, which is perfect.  EXCEPT, the posting says you have to do all your work in the office, which is in New York City.  NEW YORK CITY?!  So, I crafted a slightly-too-informal cover letter -- I mean, it is for a blogging gig, I figured I should be conversational -- explaining why it would really be to their benefit to have me working from home, where I would pay for my own office supplies and utility bills, versus them paying the uber-costly NYC overhead.  And I turned that letter in to an anonymous website, for a three-week-old job posting, and ... I will never hear from them again. 

Then, continuing my theme of applying for jobs in cities where I don't live, I submitted an application to another anonymous website that had a posting for a teacher consultant for a textbook company.  You would be a person who helped teachers learn to use their textbook series.  Having been a teacher, as well as an editor in the textbook industry, I have long been interested in getting into the whole teacher inservice thing.  The company had postings in various cities, but none of them was Chicago.  So I spent like an hour filling out their online application, because you had to create a whole lesson plan as part of the application,  and ... again, not much point in applying for a job in a city where you don't live.  But the deal on that one was that I figured that either they might have a Chicago opening someday, or else the whole thing involves traveling around anyway and I could probably go to the places I'd have to work.  Again, though, I'd feel like I had a better chance of getting through to somebody if I weren't applying on an anonymous website. 

Maybe my problem is that I should start applying for reasonable, undesirable jobs in my hometown, which I might have a prayer of getting.  Like dipping cones at the Dairy Queen. 

Happy 4th of July!

Growing up, the 4th of July was a big deal at my mom and stepdad's house.  It's not as though we were fiercely patriotic or anything.  I mean, we loved America as much as the next guy, but we weren't the types to fly the flag every day or espouse the "love it or leave it" mentality.  But I guess the 4th of July was just fun because it was a low-key holiday that was about simple traditions and summer fun.

We always started the day at the local parade, where the firetrucks sprayed the kids with water and my brothers and I collected candy that the parade participants threw.  After that went to a nearby park for the post-parade festivities.  There were always contests, including the egg toss, where my stepdad and brother Tyler tried to defend their title as champions.  My favorite part of the post-parade festivities, at least in my middle school years, was getting to see the boys I liked, and flirt with them by smashing confetti eggs on their heads.

Sometime in the mid-afternoon we'd drag our exhausted bodies home to get ready for the next part of the tradition: dinner in the park (different park) and fireworks!  And then, as if we hadn't jam-packed enough fun into the day already, we'd cap off the holiday with a late-night trip to Farrell's Good Old-Fashioned Family Ice Cream Parlor.

Were we not just like a Norman Rockwell painting?

Except Farrell's went out of business--because their ice cream wasn't really all that good anyway--and then it became a Chinese dim-sum restaurant and then something else after that.  And the last year I remember going to Farrell's, I somewhat immaturely smashed my brother's head into a wall, and then mumbled out an apology to the entire group, which was capped off with, "I'm only saying sorry because my mom said I had to."

And all the boys I had crushes on washed the confetti out of their hair, and eventually found other women and men to marry.

Which is to say that it's fun to look at photos and tell stories and imagine a perfect Normal Rockwell life, but sometimes the messy details of what really happened are much more interesting.  You don't have to love every minute of it, you just have to hope that there is more good than bad.

Which sums up exactly how I feel about America.  I don't love everything about it, but the freedoms I have here have allowed me to have a life that is filled with more good than bad.  And ultimately, what makes our country great is that you don't have to love everything about it.  That's why I'm proud to be an American. 

As such, I try to carry on the spirit of my childhood 4ths of July and make the holiday festive around my house.  Yesterday I created a red, white, and blue flower arrangement:

And I liked it so much that you have to see two pictures of it:

This is a picture of my window.  As I said, we like to decorate with these gel clings because they entertain Leia, who likes to pull them down with her claws. 

Also, I ❤ Plants, rather than barren sticks with snow on them.

Here's Nathan in his 4th of July t-shirt that my mom sent him.  As you can see from the expression on his face, he is reflecting on the bittersweet nature of freedom, and the fact that freedom truly isn't free:

I made these red, white, and blue strawberries for a potluck:

Go see Ashley's version instead.  Hers are like 8 millions times cuter. 

I got a pedicure yesterday while in-laws babysat:

And I got a patriotic manicure:

 

And finally, a random pinwheel:

Who else remembers that little kids' show Pinwheel on Nickelodeon in the 80s?  "Pinwheel, pinwheel spinning around/Look in my pinwheel and see what I found!"


Happy 4th of July!

SuperIma Sunday Check-In: Featuring Random Photos!

This morning I made breakfast for my family and our guests.  You know, like a breakfast with pancakes and omelets, which required preparation and clean-up and running the dishwasher.  This rare occurrence of extensive breakfast prep so baffled Nathan that he actually asked me if it was dinnertime.  I haven't had such a proud moment of domesticity since we stayed in that hotel room with an iron and Nathan asked me what it was.

My main goal after breakfast was to go out and pick raspberries in the yard.  We have these raspberry bushes, courtesy of the previous owners of our home, and most years I admit that the raspberries wither and die before I get around to picking them.  But with raspberries costing $4/box at the farmer's market, I figured I practically had a gold mine that was going to waste.

So I picked some raspberries:

Remember when I photographed some strawberries in this same container?  I really think it's just a very photogenic container.  

While I was picking the raspberries, Nathan was playing in his brand-new Spiderman sprinkler that his grandparents got him.  It really is a very cool sprinkler, because Spiderman's hands are positioned so that the water looks like the webs he shoots out of his hands.   

I was hoping to capture Nathan's exuberant sprinkler time on camera, but by the time I finished picking the raspberries he was onto another activity.  He said he would be willing to photograph me playing in the sprinklers, so:

 

May you always be as carefree as a run through the sprinklers on a hot summer day.  May you not always agonize about how you think you look fat in photographs.  

I'm putting these photos in to distract you from the fact that I haven't really thought of anything substantial to say for this check-in.  I've been having fun with our guests and focusing on keeping everybody fed, and I haven't really looked past this holiday weekend.  Plus you know how a three-day weekend always makes Sunday feel a lot less serious?  Sunday goes from "time to plan for the week ahead" to "screw you, real life responsibilities, because the weekend will go on forever!"  

So, I really haven't thought that much about this upcoming week.  

I did a good job on last week's goals, though.  I mentioned last week that my goal was to get out the door by 8:30 a.m., because I hate those days where I just putter around all morning and don't get anything accomplished.  Original SuperIma LeighAnn and my sister-in-law-once-removed Kimberly commented that they hate those kinds of days, too, and that made me feel less alone in my frustrations.  (BTW Kimberly is my "sister-in-law-once-removed" because she is my brother's sister-in-law, or my brother's wife's brother's wife.)  

Anyway it was good to be made aware of the benefits of getting out the door early.  I wasn't really officially out by 8:30 every single day, but, as I always say, I achieved the spirit of the goal.  

I also achieved my goal of finishing two books, although this week I was really slumming it with my reading choices.  First I read Pretty Little Liars, which is a YA trash fiction series that I'd hoped would be more substantial than it looks on the surface, and/or a really harmless guilty pleasure.  It was neither.  It was just shallow and embarrassing.  Initially I thought I might just finish out the series anyway, because I guess I am vaguely curious how some loose ends will get tied up.  But then I realized there are like 14 books (and counting) in the series, and that might be a few too many.  I could probably live my life without finding out how things end for that particular group of fictional characters.  Or else I could just watch the TV show version.  

The second book I read was Sarah Dessen's new book What Happened to Goodbye.  It was in the adult section of the library Hot Copies shelf, but this book was not meant for readers over 16.  What distinguished this book from other YA books I have enjoyed was that it was completely realistic: no vampires, werewolves, or futuristic societies.  It's funny how a fantasy YA book seems like a fun, light read for any age, whereas a book about a real teenager and her real whiny problems feels too young for an adult to be reading. 

So, those two books made me want to go back to honest-to-goodness, made-for-adults books.  So now I'm reading Kristen Hannah's Night Road, which is not the least bit light and involves the repercussions of a drunk-driving death.  Maybe after this heavy book I'll be ready for Pretty Little Liars Book #2.

In conclusion, I hope that by including fun pictures and brief literary discussion, I have compensated for the fact that I have in no way written a proper check-in here.  

Have a good holiday, everyone! 

Day in Review: Saturday, July 2

We decided to bring the in-laws along on our usual Saturday morning traditions.  It started with swim lessons:

As usual, we went to the farmer's market after swimming lessons.  As usual, we bought too much cheese and bread.  Among the three adults and Nathan, we bought: a baguette of pretzel bread, some pizza buns, a four-year aged sharp cheddar, smoked string cheese, a creamy garlic dill cheese spread, some type of Italian cheese soaked in raspberry, some actual raspberries, and blueberries.

That was our lunch.

After lunch I started marinating some chicken, shrimp, and vegetables for dinner.  I'm currently digging on this Basil Shrimp marinade and this Honey Chicken marinade.  I instructed the men on how to start setting up/grilling the dinner, and then I went to the pool with Nathan and my mother-in-law Diana.

I don't have any pictures from the pool.  Just look at the photo above from swimming lessons, and then picture Diana and me swimming in that pool.  Please picture me about 30 pounds thinner, just for laughs.  Thank you.

When we got home from the pool, Bill and his dad were grilling up the dinner.  In addition to meat, seafood, and vegetables, we also grilled peaches and pineapple.  If you have never grilled pineapple, you should grill pineapple.  You know when your grandma or your mom or your Weight Watchers leader would say that fruit is "nature's candy"?  Grilled pineapple is one of the few fruit items that actually tastes like candy.

I also think it would be delicious to cut up the canned pineapple and put it over ice cream, with some toasted coconut, chopped macadamia nuts, and chocolate sauce to make sort of a Hawaiian sundae.  But, you know, there's that whole Weight Watchers thing.

After dinner we went to the local fireworks show in Chicago Heights, which is a suburb that's just about as classy as it sounds.  The fireworks are shot off in a field at a high school, and we parked outside a Little Caesar's down the street and walked tot he field.  But some upstanding Chicago Heights citizens were too lazy to walk and just set up their folding chairs right there in the Little Caesar's parking lot, busted out the beer, turned up the car stereo, and had a dance party.

Once at the field, I of course succumbed to the shameful parenting moment known as "buying your kid some flashy light-up junk from a street vendor."  I admit that I usually buy flashy light-up junk because I think it's cool myself, and also because flashy light-up junk has really gone down in price in recent years.  Last night's light-up sword was $5 and provided literally minutes of entertainment. 

Here are a bunch of pictures of us:

Yeah, okay, we brought the iPad.

Hey look--it's me!

In the interests of preserving these precious family moments for the future, I should note that only 60% of the members in our party enjoyed the show. Nathan and Bill thought the fireworks were too loud. But my in-laws and I were really impressed with the fireworks display, which lasted about 45 minutes and was truly varied in terms of the types of fireworks used. Unfortunately they did not have the firework shaped like a cowboy hat, as popularized on 30 Rock.

First Nephew of the Summer!

Yesterday after a swim with Nathan in Lake Michigan, I emerged onto dry land to find two voicemails, three texts, and an email informing me that my sister-in-law Laurin was in labor at the hospital.  The rest of the day, and through three different states, I eagerly awaited updates, which my West Coast relatives very thoughtfully gave me.  But as I went to be at 11 p.m. CST, there were no updates of the "we have a baby" kind, and things seemed to be indicating a July baby. 

This morning, July 1, I received a text from my mom that it was a boy!  My brother Brian and Sister-in-Law Laurin are the proud parents of:

Samuel John Richard Capanna 

Born July 1 at 5:33 a.m.

7 lb 1 oz.

20 inch.

As always, I will not post pictures without the parents' permission.  Also I don't have any pictures yet.  

As a fellow parent to a boy, I have already imparted my (four) years of wisdom onto my brother.  That is to say, I've texted him the basic identification guide to the engines on the Island of Sodor. 

Congratulations to the new parents!