I spent the day building a crib and assembling a day bed...

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I spent the day building a crib and assembling a day bed...

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I spent the day building a crib and assembling a day bed...

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Ad Categories: City Life

Week 38: Drop and Give Me Twenty … Wipes

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I spent all day Saturday painting furniture for the baby room, which I figured would buy me a free pass to watch the AFC championship on Sunday. It was shaping up to be a great game: The Steelers had won 15 in a row, and the Patriots hadn’t lost a playoff game in years. An hour before game time, I asked Sarah who she thought would win. She looked around the basement at little piles of unfinished projects here and there, and answered: “Me.”

I spent the day building a crib and assembling a day bed…

Anatomy of a Political Event

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6:20 p.m. My colleague and I arrive at Hyatt Regency Chicago, site of Barack Obama’s Super Tuesday election night party. Navigate through crowd of campaign volunteers, Japanese TV crews, and supporters to check-in table.

6:45 p.m. Obtain media badge, walk through metal detector, scan crowd. It’s stocked full of media types, college kids, and local politicos such as Cook County Commissioner Forrest Claypool.

7:05 p.m. Attempt to enter ballroom, only to be intercepted by overeager volunteer…

Happy Super Tuesday

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One of the more genius uses of Flickr we’ve encountered: a presidential candidate sets up an account and, over the course of the year, steadily posts almost 15,000 photos shot at various events by thousands of users across the country. That candidate? Barack Obama. The wide range of photos includes your run-of-the-mill crowd shots, insightful behind-the-scenes peeks into campaign life, and quite a few downright artsy photographic dedications. We had hoped to find the same from the other candidates—but no dice…

Week 37: Bare-Assed and Pregnant

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I’ve spent much of my life avoiding women who appear to be pregnant, because they scared the hell out of me. What if I said the wrong thing? I had nothing to offer them, conversation-wise, beyond “So, what’s it like being pregnant?” Now everything is different. Today at the gym I asked the pregnant woman on the cross-trainer next to mine how she gets her recommended daily calcium intake.

Watched Sarah’s belly vibrate today. It looked like when you throw a stone into a still pond, and the splash ripples out to the edges…

Snow Day

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In honor of school closings all across the area today, a babysitting suggestion from the brilliant Saverio Truglia (flickr alias: The Dark Slide). According to Truglia, the Ace Hardware brand of duct tape works best for all of your child-rearing and furniture-building needs…

Week 37: Ten True Things I Wouldn’t Have Believed a Year Ago

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1. By the last trimester, a pregnant woman’s breasts may leak a few drops of colostrum (practice milk). It’s thick and yellow and has the consistency of wood glue.

2. Sometimes a drop or two of blood leaks out. Blood.

3. During pregnancy, the average woman’s uterus expands up to five hundred times its normal size…

Bowing Out

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With news that John Edwards will drop out of the presidential race today, we present this somewhat prophetic shot by Flickr user Mona T. Brooks (alias: mona, eh) at the YearlyKos convention in Chicago this past summer. Alone backstage, away from the bright lights and TV cameras, Edwards displays a look of pensive uncertainty.

The photo was to be part of our “Net Pix” feature in the February 2008 issue, but it got away from us…

Week 36: Puerto Rico, You Lovely Island…

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Our condo in Fajardo, a town on the country’s breathtaking northeastern coast, was lovely. We had a panoramic view of the ocean and palm trees—and our airy apartment had everything we needed. When the toilet became a little volatile one afternoon, Isaac decided to buy a plunger, and when he came home, he realized we already had one. Two plungers: now that’s the lap of luxury.

I was left alone to babysit Lillian one day. We had masses of toys at our disposal, but for two hours, she was interested mainly in three things: a book called Huggy Buggy, a tin that once held a deck of Seinfeld playing cards, and my facial hair, all of which she endlessly studied and put in her mouth…

Happy Monday

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Nothing chirps “top o’ the morning to you” like a giant sinkhole on a major North Side street.

Workers today will finish pouring the concrete to fill the giant crater left by the water main break on Montrose and Honore last Tuesday. The sidewalk is expected to open tomorrow and the street on Thursday, according to Chicago Water Department spokesman Tom LaPorte.

We thought we’d share with you some oddly beautiful photos of the mess. Kudos to Flickr users c.hiltz and absenter for capturing the collapsed street in…

The Chicago Slushie

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Who isn’t sick of winter already?

This photo by Matt Maldre (Flickr alias: spudart) stood out among the hundreds of Chicago winter scenes I perused to find a visual representation of my mood while de-thawing from the morning commute. I could have easily shared with you an artsy shot of the frozen river or a beautifully lit skyline shown through winter fog. But this photo said so much more about my current attitude toward winter in Chicago: dark, yucky, and yet still beautiful. Maldre describes it well: “a cast of characters huddling together in the urban coldness.”