Spring Break Day Three: The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

Our neighbors the Dos took Jack with their son Brandon to see the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and he came back raving about it so much that Molly and Ben insisted we go on our break, regardless of how many times I explained that it was more "Jack's style" than theirs.

Being on vacation "time" it took us a little longer to get moving in the morning, but I was a bit proud that I made my first solo drive into the city without incident!  We got there at 11am and as we were in line for the parking garage they CLOSED it!  We were the very last car in, and luckily got a spot, though it was a pretty terrible spot that required us to walk around the mazelike garage for 20 minutes until we found our way in.

Once inside, we got to stand in the ticketing line for another half hour. I could see we were in for a crowd, so I figured we'd hit the cafeteria for lunch first.  Being 11:40, I thought the rush wouldn't have hit yet.  I was wrong.  The lines were so long that we could only get 'grab and go' food, which consisted of blue Jello, a cute pudding dessert called a 'dirtt cup' with gummy worms on top, some Cheetos and two flavors of gatorade.  Then we got to sit in the 'overflow' room in the bowels of the building to eat.  At least we got seats!  My neighbor was there the next day and couldn't even get IN to the cafeteria!

So as not to repeat the "we had a whole lot of fun in the seventh level of hell" vibe I had going on in my last post about head injuries and swimming pools....I will just show you the FUN parts of our visit.

First, and FUNNEST was the 20 minute chemistry show they had when we first got there.  It was all about fire and explosions - and didn't disappoint!  They set all kinds of different elements and gases on fire to show what colors they turned and then blew up balloons filled with highly combustible gases like hydrogen (remember the Hindenberg?)

This one was Lithium, you know, like the lithium in camera batteries?

I don't quite remember what this one was, but it was definitely cool to watch!

This was a table with 8-10 tubes blowing air and 4-5 balls to float on top of said air.  With 200+ anxous children waiting in line for a turn, you can see how the math here doesn't quite add up.  But we happened to catch it before the big lines formed and Molly was in her glory playing for those five minutes.

Then there was the super-cool static electricity ball.

 

The little ones were mesmerized by this one.

 It took me six tries to get this shot, of the electricity right at the moment it jumped into Ben's hand.  Definitely worth the effort!

This looked cool.  It was basically a periodic table thingy that didn't work.  But it took them a while to figure that out.  I was just happy there was no line.  :)

This is part of a corridor that was an homage to circus history.   This teeny tiny circus full of carvings was really neat.  The painstaking details were amazing.

And then there was this unique interactive display.  To our eyes, it looked as if we were in a dark hall, facing a white screen.  On the white screen was a movie of colored rocks falling down in a stream.  But the crazy part was that you could use your body to CHANGE the stream.  You could essentially, divert the rocks, catch the rocks and do some other funky things with the rocks.  Jack worked at it for a few minutes and really got the hang of it.

I was fiddling with my camera settings and was able to 'see' all sorts of colors that weren't really there.  To the naked eye, it was just a white screen.  But my camera was seeing rainbows!

I loved watching how Jack's excitement over it all drew the little ones in.  They had no idea what they were doing, but they knew he knew what he was doing, so they followed suit.  This is rare for my little band of individualists, who want to do everything their OWN way.

And then it was time for the SUBMARINE!

It is so enormouse my camera couldn't even fit the whole thing in one shot!

This is the only real German U-boat of it's kind left in existance today.  The Allies captured it in 1944, but kept it secret until the war was over.  They extracted technology from it and then allowed the Museum to keep it after a massive effort to move it to Chicago from it's dock in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  The move was completed in 1954.

This is Molly, posing in front of the submarine.

This is Jack, posing in front of the submarine.

This is the beginning of the scuffle that ensued when all three children posed together in front of the submarine.

Shortly after this moment, we learned that the tickets for all remaining submarine tours were sold out for the entire day.  This is after the only other thing the kids wanted to do was also sold out for the entire day.

To voice his disapproval, Ben launched his own allied offensive, which sounded a whole lot like his opera in the locker room two days before.  Only this time I was able to maneuver/manhandle him into his stroller and runwalk the whole way back through the exhibit and out to the safety of our minivan.  This ordeal took an hour and a half, as we got lost, stopped for lunch (at 3pm, the cafeteria was finally empty!), got lost again, and finally, BLESSEDLY buckled in and headed home...I mean, into a two hour traffic jam.  And then home.

To sum up the parts in between the pictures....basically the entire afternoon, from 11am-4pm consisted of this...

**Child:   "Mom!  MOM!!!  Look!  Look over there at THAT!!  Let's go see THAT!!"

Me:   "Okay honey"

Child:   "I can't see it.  I can't SEE IT!!  Why are all these people in the way!!!?"

Me:   "There are so many people here today that we're just going to have to be patient and wait our turn"

5-15 minutes pass and just as it is about to be our turn...

Repeat from **

It was the song that never ends.  It just goes on and on my friends.  Somebody started singing it not knowing what it was and now they can't stop singing it forever just because this is the song that never.....(you get the picture right?)

I was going to ask for my money back, but when I asked the girl at the information kiosk when a less crowded day would be, she said, with a cheerful grin of someone who has no clue what a whining children can do to one's sanity.... "Hmmmmm.  SEPTEMBER is a really slow month.  Especially after 3 in the afternoon.  You could try then!"

Yeah.....no thanks!  So cross that one off the old "bucket list" and call it a day.  Because I swear on all that is holy, I will never EVER go back to that awful, overccrowded, disaster of a mess.  Not even for FREE!!!

(and yes, I know that I will eventually have to eat those words.  But right now?  I'm feeling far too haughty and indignant to care)

To end on a positive note, I have to say that if you can get yourself into the cafeteria, the food is really quite impressive.  Desserts that any bakery would envy, and entrees as impressive as you could ever ask for. 

Might I suggest September for your visit?

Hello, My Name Is...

What?

My name is..

What? 

My name is

(wicka wicka) 

Slacky McSlacksalot.

I agree, it doesn't have the same ring as 'Slim Shady', but it does have a big fat grain of TRUTH.  As in, somebody has not been keeping up with the old blogeroonie these days.

Truth be told, we've been doing so many bloggable things, that I'm a little overwhelmed at the task of blogging it all.  But there's nothing like a good challenge to dive into, no?  So let's dive, shall we?

SPRING BREAK, DAY ONE...

Two weeks ago, the kids and I enjoyed their Spring Break by trying to cram as many activities as we could dream up into one week.  The reality was that the weather was freezing, and most of their classmates were headed for warmer climates (our timing was a bit off this year!).  So we decided to create a mini-bucket list of all the things we'd been dreaming of doing but couldn't because two certain someones are otherwised indesposed Monday through Friday.

Number one on the kids' list was, as you can guess from the picture of Molly above, SWIMMING!  We went to an indoor pool in the next town over.  It's called Pelican Harbor and has an enormous outdoor water park for summer, but a small, fun for the kids pool during winter.  There was a lap pool and another zero entry pool with a small slide for the toddlers and three bigger slides for the older kids.

Ben of course, did the obligatory "let's give mom a heart attack" routine and ran into the water as fast as he could until he was over his head and drowning.  Until recently, this was always Jack's job.  But baby brother played the role admirably and came up coughing and gagging as I grabbed him out, reminding him  that NO, he didn't know how to swim...all the while listening to him scream "Yes I do know how to swim!!  Put me DOWN, Mama!"   I think it's the testosterone.  Molly never did this.

Speaking of Molly, who actually does know how to swim like a fish, and did so just a few weeks ago in Turks and Caicos...she proceeded to 'forget' how to swim and claw my skin off my body the entire time.

When I'd reached the point of exhaustion, trying to chase Ben and keep him from drowning, with Molly on my back clawing at my neck....Jack came up with the most INGENOUS solution.  He suggested I check with the front desk and see if they have life jackets. 

Well, DUH!

Thank goodness for 8 year olds with the good sense their mother is lacking.

The second hour of our visit was MUCH more pleasant.   But our spiffy underwater camera had a case of dead batteries, so all we have are our memories, and these...

Well of  course I'm wearing glasses!  Who can remember contact lenses when you're having this much fun!?

We went in the afternoon when they had "open swim" and the sun was streaming through the windows like spotlights.  When we got too chilly, we'd sit in one of the bright puddles of sunshine and get warmed up.

The kiddie slide was a hit!

The closed captioning for this moment reads

"Don't touch me, Mama!  Don't you touch me!!  No!  Don't touch!  I can do this BY MYSELF!!"

(glurg.  gag.  cough.  sputter. snot.  hiccup.)

And to top off the afternoon, the kids decided to ramp it up a notch.   They must have noticed that the "drown the toddler" routine didn't shake me up anymore, so they brought their game to a whole new level.

The one drawback to Pelican Harbor is that the only way in to the pool is through the locker rooms.  And boys over age 5 are not allowed in the women's locker room.  And there aren't any "family" changing areas.  So this meant that Jack, who has never so much been in a men's restroom alone in his life, had to go into the men's locker room ALONE, strip naked and change and later, when we were finished, had to go into the men's locker room by himself to shower and change. 

As a mother in 2011, it is my solemn duty to be terrified at a prospect like this!  I imagined all sorts of scary people in there doing goodness knows what!  I told Jack to rush through on the way in and met him on the other side of the door while counting the ticks of the clock.  And when it was time to leave, I sent him in there under instructions not to speak to ANYONE and if anyone tried to talk to him or touch him or seemed creepy at ALL, to come right back out or start screaming bloody murder.

But I never, not in a million years, thought to say "Be careful, the floor is slippery!"

Well, DUH! (dope slapping self!)

The story that ensued is this.  As he was putting his shoes on after his shower, he leaned backward to brace himself on the counter.  But he misjudged the distance - the counter was three feet behind him.  And so he fell, HARD.  Smashed the back of his head on the floor so hard that he bounced.  And when he bounced, now under the sinks, he managed to smash his face into the pipes.  And his nose started gushing blood.

When the lifeguard comes up to you and says "Are you Jack's mom?" you just know it isn't good.

He was in the infirmary leaning over a trash can crying his eyes out while a really gorgeous 17 year old blonde lifeguard tended to his nose.  Poor baby! 

I then had the task of getting Molly and Ben, who were struggling to get out of my grasp and back into the pool, dressed and ready to depart.  And I knew that Ben was planning on leaving over his cold, dead body. 

What happened then was the stuff that parenting books DON'T tell you.  Twenty minutes of screaming, biting, kicking, writhing and hyperventilating.  I imagine it was like trying to wrestle a wet tasmanian devil out of his swim trunks and into a sweatsuit.  While in a room lined floor to celing in tile.  Oh, the acoustics!

We did eventually manage to get back to the car, and on the way to the pediatrician's office, grabbed some drive through Steak and Shake (after they towed the car that broke down IN THE DRIVE THRU!).  When we arrived at the doctor's office, Ben had managed to pee all over himself and his car seat, down to the SOCKS he was wearing.

It's only by the grace of God that I had, that morning, chosen to pack pajamas for him "just in case he got tired". 

So.  Day one of vacation.  Everyone lived.  Fun was had.  Aventure, even!  And you BETCHA, when it was all over, there were adult beverages served.

This is the face

Of a 'Parent's Day Out' dropout.

Since the separation trauma that was Turks and Caicos, Ben's tenuous acceptance of his Thursday mornings with miss Carole was blown.  To smithereens.

So Thursdays, like all the other days, are now spent together! I remind myself that someday he'll be over this intense, tender, slightly stalkerish adoration for me.  And then i'll be FREE! But also sad that this 'stage' is over as his independence grows.

So when I'm doing my 'Thursday errands' with my little partner, and they take ten times as long, and are frought with tantrums, tears and arguments...I try to remember that doing errands alone didn't include any hugs and kisses from someone who thinks I'm a rock star.

But man, a little cooperation and obedience wouldn't be a bad thing...still waiting for that to kick in (though if he like his brother, it might be a long wait...)

More from the Desk Cleanup Front

A few days ago, I found a bunch of sticky notes.  They read as follows...

aiprool foolsdai praingcs

Poot drt in bens dipr

chainj momus hedband into my hedband

Poot popcarn undr momus peloe

This explains a lot of giggling heard behind the couch after Molly and Jack made off with my sticky notes!  What a hilarious window into the mind of a five year old trying to be 'tricky'.

A blast from Preschool Past

As part of my 40 bags committment (also so that I can function without needing to BE committed) it was high time to clean out my desk.  The drawers were so jam packed that the current filing was stacking up so high it was falling all over!  One of the key offenders to jamming up my filing drawer was Jack's school mementos from preschool all the way to today.  I keep a file for each child, for each year.  But after five years in the system, Jack's stack is about 7 inches thick! 

Today I started the project of weeding through each year's keepsake work and filing it in a handy new tote with 24 legal-sized sleeves.  It should last through college! 

One surprise was that a page of his preschool memories was covered in oil from a snow globe project that exploded in his bag that day.  It had degraded to the point that it's barely legible now, and was starting to bleed through to the other papers.  So it's got to get tossed.  But I wanted to record it here so it wouldn't  be lost completely.

ALL ABOUT ME AT PIED PIPER PRESCHOOL

At school, I liked to play with the blocks

My friends at school were Heather and Joseph

When I went outside I liked to do everything!

My favorite stories were about Miss Spider's Tea Party

My teachers were

Mrs. Pigeon, Mrs. Isenor and Mrs. Braddock.

Farewell to a Dear Friend

It was only a year ago when this happened at our house...

When we began our adventure, one of the best things about Chicago was that I already had a fantastic friend here.  She and her little family had been relocated to Chicagoland the year before (from Japan no less!) and she was a wealth of information, not to mention support, during our move.

Not too long ago, they got the call again.  It was time to move, this time back to where they started - the lonestar state!  Ever so happy for them that they can return to family and friends, but ever so sad for us that we can't just call them up and meet at the Children's museum, or the Land of Nod outlet, or a girls' night out at Francesca's.

The one thing that is for sure in life - nothing stays the same!  You have to enjoy each season, each blessing as it comes, because time stands still for no one and soon it can all change!  I'm happy that we did enjoy our time in the same state for all it was worth, and that we had a fun day together before it was time to go, along with some of our other favorite Illinois friends.

Smiley J. 

Princess A.

The Mr.

And his sister!

We had as much fun as a barrel of toddler/preschoolers can have

Playing in the school room with the windows of light that make me want to take pictures all day

'Borrowing' electronics from our friends

(by borrowing we of course mean pitching a Jupiter-sized fit until we got what we wanted and then refusing to give it back until our mom pried it out of our greedy, little, three-year-old hands. 
You know, "borrowing")

We enjoyed a delicious lunch
(like Mel had nothing better to do than cook for a crowd six days from moving day?  I'm kicking myself for not suggesting pizza delivery!)

Talk about service with a smile!

Some of us had trouble staying in our seats...

...and made heart-melting frowney faces in response to being made to eat a proper lunch.

Others would have eaten a proper lunch no problem....if only teeth weren't a requirement!

And if all that wasn't fun enough, then there was GYMBOREE!!!

We sat mesmerized as Miss Brittany sang us songs....

...rode the air log like a pro

Climbed UP

Slid DOWN

Crawled THROUGH

Acted SILLY

Smiled BIG

Peeked IN

And then it was time for bubbles

And Gymbo hugs

And Gymbo stamps

And a few indulgences, leading to an impromptu jam session

Are those blue eyes or WHAT?

And finally, teddy bear ears and pink cheeks, because no day of fun is complete without those!

Oh, and there was this too....

But this is NOT a "goodbye" photo! (sniff)  It is simply a photo of  dear friends tied together by a thread that will keep them connected whether they are in Akasaka, Massachusetts, Illinois, Texas, or anywhere in between.