Dog Days of Summer in Homewood

My mother had offered to take the kids home with her, which concerned me as I knew she was tired, and how she becomes a white-knuckled driver in unfamiliar environment. So I made a wise-crack statement and told her "uh-uh- no way, I don't want the kids to spend the rest of the week in Children's Hospital with Hope due to a car accident". We laughed but I was very serious.

Just as soon as we left the hospital, my mother was insistent that I was going the wrong way, however I continued to drive in the direction of the skyscrapers I was familiar with or we would have been in Indiana or Wisconsin had I followed my mother's wayward directions. The air show had just ended and hordes of people were on foot and the streets were suddenly congested. Then it started to rain.

Thank goodness the boys were so tired they had passed out, otherwise I would have been stressed out by a car full of screaming kids. On our last visit to Chicago, Kai took to biting Cohen, but now he took up the art of pinching Cohen and yelling "No", "NOOOO!!!" or "STOP!!!" without his cousin's doing or fault. I realized Kai was in the "me" stage.

We drove past Chinese demonstrators meditating on the sidewalk.

Driving past the Sears Tower...and I thought San Francisco traffic was bad!

My mother then proclaimed we were in Chinatown! I inquired how she knew as I did not see any big Chinese signs off the highway to indicate this. She said it was because the guardrails on the overpass were painted red. I laughed with her, and pointed out the woman walking across the overpass was Chinese so we must be in chinatown after all...she laughed so hard her stomach hurt. Then she said, since we were lost why don't we stop and get some Chinese food for dinner? It was my turn to laugh hard.

This is how my mother and I interact, as with my sister. We have the contagious "sillies" that run through our family.

I was so glad I drove them home...the traffic was really bad with the rain. We dropped mom off at her house and we continued to the Dog Days of Summer in Homewood.

This was the 5th annual festival for the resident dogs to meet alongside with their owners. I did not bother to pick up their dog Pepper due to lack of space in the car and the fact it was wet outside, and I just can't stand wet dogs (can't stand the stink).

Adira ran off to greet her daddy Matthew, who ran his Sweet Home Kettle Corn business there and at farmer's market and other events. I joked that I should get a percentage of the profits, as it was my idea he start this business 4 years ago- so I took off with a soda he was selling, while Kai stole a bag of kettlecorn.

Matthew just won second place for eating 5 hot dogs in the hot dog-eating contest in 3-minutes. I was like- that was all? I expected him to do better, as I've seen how much he could eat.

Kai had fun petting all the dogs, eating kettlecorn and hotdogs, and running across the lawn with arms stretched overhead and screaming when he lost his balloon to the sky gods.

The rock group plays at the Irwin Center in Homewood while Kai dances away.

We had backstage passes, haha.

They played at the park and clambored on this statue.

I had just mentioned to Adira that we should watch them both more closely as they may slip and fall from the wetness on the playstructure. Sure enough, Murphy's law came into action when Cohen fumbled 3-feet off the playstructure steps and luckily, landed on his back unto wet bark to break his fall. Luckily he did not land on his head! The timing would have been really, really bad.

After Cohen's crying spell, he suddenly stopped and ran up the stairs again to the slide. It was time to go when the boys were soaked from the wet grass and were becoming more clumsy.

I was the party-pooper when I took them home for their baths. It had been a long day, and this was my third day of drinking wine since my arrival. I usually don't drink, but deserved to on this trip.