City Mom #2

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of the world.
Every color dark or light
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

This is the song that went through my mind this evening at our neighborhood playground.
Thank goodness we no longer sing red, yellow, black, white.
Have you ever met anyone that was literally red? yellow? black? white? Me either.

Caucasian, Hispanic, African, Mexican, Brazilian, Romanian, Bosnian, Vietnamese, Korean, Pakistani, Indian, Filipino. These are the nationalities of just some of the people playing with Ella at the park this evening. She notices no difference in any of them. They're all just kids. Just like her.

This is another reason why I love Chicago and love being a city Mom.

City Mom: Part 1

I know many of you often wonder, what is it really like to live in the city with a kid? Well, I'm going to do a series of posts on this topic overtime. Here's the first.

Today, at about 8:50 a.m. I was all set-up at the computer on the Chicago Park District website with my wishlist ready to add to my cart, multiple windows going, etc. (based on veteran Mom's advice--thanks Jen!) watching the countdown clock at the top of the page, waiting and waiting for it to hit zero, registration to open, and to click away hopefully adding my daughter's fall classes to the shopping cart before the thousands of other Chicagoans filled them first! Seriously, it's that competitive. You see, there are of course many places to take classes in the city, but none come close to the reasonably priced park district. For example, Ballet for 10 weeks=$20, Outdoor Soccer for 6 weeks=$30, etc. Of course our taxes are funding the rest, but that's part of the benefit of living in the city! So I clicked ballet first because it had fewer slots available--success--it went into my cart. Quickly clicked soccer--error box pops up: Sorry the program is full! Can you believe it--one second after registration and a class with 20 slots-poof--gone. So after getting upset for a minute, I notice at the bottom of my cart it says you must complete your order within 30 minutes of 9 a.m. So being determined I sat and clicked add to cart over and over and over and over, watching as the slots available diminished to "1 remaining slot" at 9:30, and there it went--right into my cart. YES! I was so happy. Someone who got the slot, didn't check out soon enough and I stole it from them. This is a happy day in a city Mom's life! Two classes for $50!!

City Mom: Part 2 coming soon.