We have roared into Chicago!

I had to call it quits on the packing last night, turn in and hope that I'd get it done this morning. All but one toothbrush seems to have made it so I give myself an A. The kids have been certifiably insane today, if hyperdrive talking and behavior is an indicator of such madness. On the way to our hotel from the airport, the cab driver, a kindly Pakistani man with two boys of his own, asked, "are they always like this?" They were talking like fiends. I said, "pretty much. Were your sons extremely energetic too?" He said, "No." Jesus.

Then, at one point later, while strolling through Lincoln Park - strolling is a wildly inaccurate descriptor of the speed-walking in which we were engaged - I truly thought I might throw myself into a lane of oncoming traffic. The incessant chatter is like a blind woodpecker who perched on your shoulder thinking you were a tree and is going to town on your temple.

Oliver fell apart because of the lack of a playground in the park. There's only a zoo? What kind of nonsense is that!? Good god. Tom had the profoundly nerdy yet valuable idea to pull up google satellite images and see what looked like a playground in our vicinity. He thought something looked promising and damn if he wasn't right. To Cummings Park we were led; it was a good one! The boys are pretty cute when they play together- they just adore one another. A good thing.