After S's Friday evening meltdown and subsequent hibernation, M and I made one of our better decisions ever. We were planning to stay in Chicago Saturday night and drive all the way home on Sunday. We decided that was not a great plan...we realized that S would be crazy tired again Saturday afternoon, so we abbreviated our Saturday plans and checked out of the hotel a day early.
Of course, we couldn't check out until we had recovered baby Mary.
I had intended to hit the Children's Museum at Navy Pier Saturday, cruise Lake Michigan aboard The Windy, and ride the Ferris Wheel with my girl. We skipped the museum and climbed aboard the tall ship. Clearly you know that I believe in karma. Good and bad. And our experience on the boat leads me to believe that there are a handful of people out there who would've earned it if their wallets had leaped from their pockets into the water of Lake Michigan.
The boat was scheduled, according to the internet, to sail at 1030. I went to the ticket window at 10 where I was told they were sailing this morning at 10 if we wanted to climb aboard. So we did. Only when we got onto the deck there weren't many places to sit. There was a completely empty bench at the edge of the boat, so we hauled the kids to it. We were promptly told by 78% of the passengers that we couldn't sit there. The bench wasn't secured to the deck. Okay. Then we saw what was essentially a large box behind the wheel. Easily room for three Ouiser family butts. We went to sit upon it and were again thwarted by our fellow passengers. This left zero space for a family of four...except that the one long bench under the sail was occupied by four people. There was space for two in the middle and a seat for one on each end. And all four of those people were twerps. One of them even said, "There's room for one right here," as he pointed to his right, "and there's room for two here," as he pointed to his left. I wanted to scream, "Hey, genius! If you and your lady friend moved over, we could sit down right where you are."
I really do hope his wallet got lost. Maybe not his whole wallet. Maybe just his cash. And I hope the cash got picked up by some deserving soul with good karma.
We ended up having to squeeze all three of us into the space for two, and S ended up getting those people to move down a bit by wiggling and being a four-year-old. Normally, I would be very careful to keep her contained, but they earned a couple of pink Keen kicks to the thigh.
We arrrrghhh pirates!
Once we were seated, the boat ride was great. There was a totally inappropriate pirate song. S laughed uproariously despite not knowing that the song was about a drunken sailor's man parts. There were people dressed as pirates, and they gave little mini presentations on sea/lake exploration and piracy. The best part of that was when they asked if anyone knew the names of any explorers. S whispered to me, "Mom, I know one. Dora." It was classic.
T was awake for nine seconds of the trip, and we got photographic evidence.
The water was lovely, the sky was blue, and I didn't get seasick. I did, however, get the mother of all sunburns. I'm talking about an embarrassing sunburn. One that makes you realize that not only were you an idiot for not applying sunscreen, but also you're advertising the fact that you're an idiot. Amazingly, no one else in my family got scorched. Pink cheeks, yes. Sunburned, no. I'm the one who is still molting. They're back to normal.
This face pretty much sums it up.
Also, S helped fire the cannon, and we didn't take a picture.
After the boat ride, S and I rode the Ferris Wheel and the carousel. She completely lost it because the horse she chose to ride didn't go up and down.
Right before she realized she wasn't moving vertically.
We went to a cafe on the pier for lunch, and she continued her display of whining because I'd told her that she could NOT have shaved ice for lunch.
I decided to let her have a shaved ice after lunch, and things were looking up. There were smiles. Then she dumped the entire thing. There were more tears as M scrambled back to the shaved ice stand to replace it. When she was so loaded up on sugar and artificial coloring that we thought she'd explode, we threw both of the kids into the car and left Chicago in our dust.
That's it. The whole story. Pretty exciting, eh? Now we can all move on.
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