Day Out with Grammy Part 1

So, like I said in the previous post, Steve had to be out of town for four nights in September. We hate, hate, hate when he's away.  It's like the kids forget he's gone every morning and wake up asking where he is. Jared especially takes it hard and will wake up crying in the middle of the night for him. I can't even imagine families where the dad is in the military or a similar situations and has to be gone months or years at a time.

Our first adventure after my mom came over that Monday morning took place at the Chicago Children's Museum downtown. We've been there quite a few times already but have never gone with my mom. We arrived near lunch so we went to the atrium area, a sun-lit place full of tropical trees and plants, and ate. Birds soon flocked near our feet looking for some crumbs, so we obliged.

As soon as you enter the museum, you pass through the fire station exhibit. Even though we've been here many times already, they (particularly Jared) still like to dress up and play with the hoses.

During the next few months the museum is hosting a Mexican tradition exhibit in the revolving exhibit room. I found the masks warn in Day of the Dead celebrations fascinating. I had thought Jared would have too since he loves dressing up, but since these were locked away behind glass, they held little appeal for him.

Instead the kids were interested, for a short time anyways, in the small play figures and little replicas of Mexican stick huts.

Next, we visited the large central area, which also holds revolving exhibits. This month's focus was on physics and had a lot of toys and angled slides.

They were really psyched to show my mom the dinosaur room. They had already worked at digging for pretend fossils the previous time were were here. This time they were more interested in trying on the life-sized dino claw (sorry, I forgot which one it was!) and hiding inside the jaws of a T-Rex.

We ended the day with a trip to the grocery store....

a ride on the bus....

and some climbing and sliding in the lower level playground.

By this time my mom and I were ready for a treat. So we bought some delicious cinnamon-sugar  and cheese prezzles and headed outside near the lake. A mini-train ride was set up next to our tables, so the kids just had to take a trip.