Mission Accomplished!

K. being served with a court summons to appear in adoption court.

Well, we did it. We all woke up in time to be dressed, breakfasted, and out the door by 6:45 am. We caught an express train downtown and even had enough extra time to grab a cup of coffee on the way to the courthouse. The whole thing was almost a non-event. We arrived, signed the papers our attorney had for us and then waited a bit. Then it was downstairs to the sheriff's office so K. could be handed his court summons. A couple of pictures and plastic badges later and were back upstairs in the family waiting room to appear in court.

K. playing in the waiting room.

After waiting for a while (the family waiting room was well supplied with toys), we were called into the court room. The judge was very nice and our children answered his questions. (Some members of our family are still refining their people skills, so this was an achievement.) It took all of five minutes and we were done. Unfortunately, Cook County does not allow any photographs in the court room, so no picture of K. before the judge. Since it was only 10 am, and it was a gorgeous day in Chicago, we decided to walk over to Millennium Park and play tourist for a bit.

Here we all are being reflected in the sculpture known as 'The Bean'. Officially, it's called 'Cloud Gate', or something like that. Since no one ever uses the real name, I'm a bit fuzzy on what it actually is.

Here we are standing in front of it.

(from l to r, across front of picture) M., K., A., D., and P. The others didn't care to get wet.

We stopped for a bit at the spitting fountains and children waded while I nursed a baby. By this time it was getting on toward lunch, so we decided to make an occasion of it and stopped somewhere to get some food. Afterwards we hopped back on the subway and had an easy ride home despite the Cub's game about to start. (It's always best to run into a bunch of fans pre-game rather than post-game.)

It turned out to be a great morning. There were no melt-downs, everyone was pleasant, the babies slept all morning, and it was a beautiful day to be out and about. And I was right that riding the 'El' would be the highlight of the day for the boys. J. gets the hero award in that he was up all night with the babies. Literally. I think he got one hour of sleep. (I had a minor breakdown yesterday, no doubt due to lack of sleep and J. was letting me get some rest.) That alone makes him a hero in my book, but on top of that he ended up sitting with D. and TM who peppered him with endless, excited questions the entire trip downtown about the train, the trip, and what they were seeing out the window. It was a brutal assault that J. handled without even a touch of annoyance in his voice.