Day 3

I really wanted to wait before I posted the rest of the trip so I could include pictures and video but I'm afraid my memory will not hold out that long - so I'll insert them later if you want to check back then.

UPDATE: Pictures and videos are up and running.

On to Day 3:

I woke up bright and early, got ready then woke everyone else up to get them ready. The hotel gave us a list of breakfast restaurants within walking distance - so we decided to try out The West Egg. We packed everything up that we needed for the day as we weren't real sure when we'd get back to the hotel. We had a full day planned.

We found The West Egg....everybody was enjoying their breakfast.

And the moment. The moment of all moments. We were getting ready to head out so I do the bathroom check -"who needs to go to the potty?" Evan didn't really answer which means he's already done something in his pull-up. I turn him around to check and that's when I saw it. The disaster that had hit his back side. It was all over his shirt, shorts, legs. It was everywhere!!!! This is what happens when you have too much milk at dinner. I quickly haul him to the bathroom...but...at The West Egg the bathrooms are down a very steep staircase. AND, of course, another mother was walking her children to the same bathroom at the same time. I'm panicking...I have NO change of clothes in our little backpack. Just another pull-up and a package of wipes. If you are squeamish or eating something as you are reading - just go ahead and skip the next paragraph.

I begin to undress him on the changing station...it is the slimiest, greenest, drippiest, smelliest shit that has ever come out of him. I was horrified and so was this poor other mother in the rest room that was desperately trying to ignore the scene I was causing in the bathroom. Evan is standing (there is no way I was having him lie down) naked on the changing table thing. I have used half a package of wipes to clean him off as best I could. Next step - what do I put him in...clearly he has to go back to the hotel room, bathe and change his clothes. The only thing I could do was rinse his clothes off in the sink. Luckily, the other mother and her 3 children have left the restroom as I'm sure they were scarred for life after what they witnessed. Evan has on a pull-up and now soaking wet/half poopy clothes. I call Bryan on his cell, "meet me outside - we are not coming back to the table!" And that was that. We walked the 7 blocks back to the hotel room - the kid got another bath and a change of clothes. We also packed another set of clothes in the backpack "just in case." Oh - so gross!

After our small delay we were back on track - we walked back out to Michigan Ave and found the bus stop that would take us to the museum campus.

We happened to meet a lovely family that was from Ennis, TX on their family vacation. They told us about this "Go Chicago Card". I'm telling you - if you ever come to Chicago to purely sightsee - than get this thing. It saves you a ton of money and time. We had to buy it online or at certain locations in the city...after doing some research we finally learned that we could buy one at the Shedd Aquarium. We weren't really planning on doing the Aquarium - we have a great one in Dallas....but now we "had" to since it was included in our Go Card price. We did that whole Aquarium in less than an hour. You've seen one fish you've seen 'em all, right?

After a small lunch on the grounds of the Campus we headed to The Field Museum. Sue was most excellent in the eyes of Brennan and Evan.

We did as much as we could muster in the museum...animals

(seriously, how many dead, stuffed animals can one see?), Evolving Planet (with more bones), Ancient Americas and the Underground Adventure (where you get shrunk down in size to learn what it's like to be a bug in the dirt). Everything really was interesting but my ADD was in full force. We saw soooo much!

We then hopped on the bus (again) to the Water Tower area to do the Hancock Building Tour (included in our Go Card). I did buy a bus pass - once we figured out how much we were really going to use that. We did check out the Hershey Store

(while Evan napped in the stroller) and got our free Hershey Bar. The Hancock Center has 95 floors...the Tour is on the 94th floor...Jerry Springer lives in the Hancock Center. They had great audio tour headphone thingies - that just "frustrated" Brennan to no end.

it was all very fascinating.

We headed to Gino's East Pizza on Superior Street.

Aunt Eleanor headed down there to meet us for dinner. Uncle Jim wasn't feeling to great so he stayed back at home. We were so excited to eat there and we decided on a half sausage half cheese medium deep dish. After we order it the waiter says "okay, that will be about 45 minutes, 'kay?" "WHAT?!?!?" The place specializes in these things and it takes 45 minutes?!?!?!? How in the world were we going to keep Thing One and Thing Two occupied for 45 minutes! Aunt Eleanor was very sweet and I hope I looked like I was really paying attention to what she was saying - inbetween the screaming, Coke spilling, arguing, and jumping-in-chair behavior coming from Thing Two. BUT, the pizza was REALLY good once it did arrive. We wolfed it down - except for 1 piece that we took to go along with a Cannoli for later. We helped Eleanor hail a cab - even though this octogenarian needed no help what's so ever! Said goodbyes and headed back to our hotel. The weather has been gorgeous and it really was a nice evening walk back.

The boys took a swim in the hotel pool

and then they were seriously ready for bed. Glad to report that there were no more poop issues - at least from Evan and that cannoli was really good.

Time to rest up for Day 4!