Checking Back with Zac: The Great American Girl Meltdown and Other Chicago Tales

Well, it is finally day 14 of our 1st Chicago trip and it's been quite a visit. After leaving Dr. Bauer's office on Tuesday, we were so happy with Zac's progress. He was feeling good, had a really good dressing change by nurse Susan, had two of the three drainage tubes taken out and were told everything was looking good. Unfortunately, for our very good Arizona friends, the Meltons, things did not go as planned. While we were at Dr. Bauer's office, the Meltons (Adam, Christine, Katie and Joshua), after of series of things gone awry with Josh's experience, were on their way home at long last after 15 days in Chicago only to return two days later!! The two expanders that Josh had put in two weeks prior needed to come out due to complications from some residual bacteria in the body from an ear infection Joshua had two weeks before his surgery! The good news is, after they had the expanders removed, Dr. Bauer was also able to remove a great deal of Joshua's nevus. You can read more about it if you click here. Thank you for all your prayers and well wishes for this wonderful family. I saw them all last night and little Josh (Zac's BFF) looks fantastic!

So...what do you do when you are in a strange new town and get clearance from the Dr. to get out and about...? Well...you explore the town! We wanted to take in a few of the sites in Chicago while we were here so I asked some of the very nice people who work at our hotel and they said the 'easiest' way to drive to downtown Chicago was not to drive at all! They said it was easier to take the train from a nearby station and then cab it from the train station. Evidently this is a nightmare city to drive in between the construction, the rush-hour and all the one-way streets. The nearest train station was about a 15 minute drive and train fare is only $4.50 per adult-one way. SO...we packed up the kids...and the gear...and we headed to Shedd Aquarium, via the Metra! After missing the 10:26 train by just a few minutes we waited at the train station for the next one at 11ish. I packed Zac in the Baby Bjorn and took Zoie by the hand - Bruce did the heavy lifting with the stroller and diaper bag... and we all loaded on the train. We found seats right away and enjoyed a 45 minute train ride to Union Station!

Don't be fooled-he LOVED the idea of taking the train.

Merilee, Zac & me

The train ride was great despite a certain 4 1/2 year old moving from seat to seat but after Dad handed over his phone for her to play with, she was pretty good. Much more relaxing than driving (though probably not much cheaper after you pay for the RT tickets and the cab ride) and highly recommended-but pack light! The less you have to mess with (dang winter jackets) the simpler it is. We arrived at Union Station and headed toward the string of cabs waiting outside. We were hoping for a van-type cab so that the Vance family could fit in with us but alas...all we saw when we went out into the ice-cold outdoors were regular cabs. So...after freezing for about 3 minutes, we made a quick decision to just take 2 cabs to the aquarium. Our cab driver's name was David, he was a native of Chicago and he was super-nice. He and Bruce mainly talked about football the entire way and da Bears playoff game on Sunday. We arrived safely at the aquarium! Mission accomplished! Everyone happy...cold...but very excited!!

With 32,600 animals the Shedd Aquarium is one of the biggest aquariums in the WORLD!

This aquarium was inSheddable (teeheehee). There were several different reefs all divided by their general habitat. Shortly after we got there we were all hungry so we went to eat at the BubbleNet Cafe. We were amazed to find that this cafe offered beautiful views of the city and Lake Michigan! I also had my first Chicago-style hot dog. My first thought was WOW it tastes...just like a hot dog with a ton of stuff on it LOL. For those of you who are as clueless as I was... a Chicago-style hot dog includes a huge hot dog loaded with mustard, relish (which is usually fluorescent green), sport peppers, tomatoes, celery salt, onion and a pickle spear.

Not the best pic of my Chicago-style dog...but you get the idea...

After lunch we headed to the 'Aquatic Show'...well, all I can say was this show was as boring as it's name...DO NOT pay extra to see this. After about 10 minutes Zoie exclaimed.."Ugh, this is painful...can we go now!" If you've been to Sea World then this show will not be very impressive. So, we left before the best part...the end...and went to explore the other fish in the sea. We saw a ton of cool stuff, coral reefs, frogs, fish, etc. and then it occurred to me that we hadn't seen the Polar Play Zone. This is the spot for kids to touch and explore sea life. It was pretty fun down there. There was a penguin exhibit (even though the penguins were taking the week off to have a spring clean of their habitat). Kids could literally dress-up in black and white penguin outfits and waddle around in a penguin habitat. It was hilarious. Once we got Zoie waddling around, Cali (the Vance's 2 1/2 yr. old) followed along. It was great!! As we kept walking we then saw a makeshift submarine for the kids to play in. They had a blast playing with all the little buttons and sound effects.

Coldest...Coolest..Colder

Waddle like a penguin

Playin' in a yellow submarine

After all that playtime, it was time to leave. Two babies, two kids with no naps all day...you do the math. After we successfully caught a van-cab leaving the aquarium, we decided having dinner in downtown Chicago, as fun as it sounded, would simply not be realistic. So, we decided to head directly to Union Station and then to the hotel. This time around our cab driver was awful...and that is being nice. It is now rush hour in Chicago, our cab driver was getting frustrated with the two lanes to our right who were stopped behind a big bus and he put the cab in park...IN THE THIRD LANE TO THE LEFT and said "It okay, you get out here..." YEAH RIGHT! With two babies, two kids and a ton of crap...we'll just step out the door into oncoming traffic and attempt to safely get our entire family across the busiest street in Chicago during rush hour! As soon as he said that, the bus started to move which freed up traffic to move...Bruce said, "Hey, if you wait a minute, the bus is moving..." Still the driver insisted...so I have Zac strapped to me and a death-grip on Zoie's hand, Merilee has Brooklyn in her carseat carrier with the same grip on Cali and Dustin and Bruce are moving like hell to get both strollers and everything else out of the cab and across the street while cars are honking at us and moving!!! Nice!! Jerk!! Well, when things start to go downhill...they really go fast... We rushed into the train station (why we were rushing I do not know...LOL-trains literally leave every half-hour or so in the evening). We got separated from the Vances but since they were in front of us, we just decided to keep moving because surely they were already headed toward the train...right? We got on the elevator, found the level we needed and then found an info desk, asked what train we needed to get on and successfully got on! Whew!! Perfect!! Except for one thing...hmmm, something was missing...the entire family we came with. Merilee and I were frantically texting each other back and forth, they evidently did not have the same luck that we did and weren't able to get on the same train as us. However, since there was another train a mere 20 minutes later, they were able to get onto that one so all in all, the trip was a success! I loved riding the train! The train ride home was quiet, with two very tired kiddos. We reached the train station and got to our car and not one minute later had two beautiful sleeping children in the backseat. We decided to pick-up soup and sandwiches from Potbelly (a place we have grown to like here) and a Starbucks for me and head home...home here = hotel.

Bruce and I decided that taking the train was so wonderful, that we just may do it all over again the next day. We knew that convincing the Vances might be a different story though. On Friday, in a spur of the moment decision, we decided once again to take the train into Chicago and see some sights. The first stop, The beloved American Girl Store. This store is ginormous! There are two floors of nothing but wayyy over-priced but very cute, American Girl dolls. I wasn't too familiar with them but I was sure that Zoie would enjoy this special store. It seemed it was the one thing we could do this trip that was especially for her.

These beautiful pictures were taken of my precious little girl right before The Great American Girl Meltdown. I don't even know how to explain what happened after we got to the second floor of the store. She was whining about wanting every doll she touched, she wouldn't listen to reason or anything we said for that matter...I finally just couldn't take it! "That is it!" I said and I just started walking out of the store with the stroller. Bruce and Zoie following behind...Zoie, now crying and screaming..."I WANT A DOLL!!" over and over again. The store led to a mall...which led to a food court. We figured this would be a great time to have lunch and so we sat down and took turns getting our lunches. During this time, my sweet little girl transformed into a devil-child!! She continued to have her meltdown, sitting by the elevator instead of with us making ugly faces, pouting and crying. RIDICULOUS!! I have never seen her act like this! Poor kid...out of her element, out of her sleep pattern...out of her mind.... So, we did what any parent would do at this point. We ignored her and ate our lunch LOL. After a little while, she decided she was hungry and decided to join us at the table.

After lunch, we decided to take in the view from the John Hancock Observatory. It had brilliant views of Chicago and a Skybox that was screened in so you could even stand outside to take in the views - but, who the heck wants to do that in January? The day was pretty foggy so we weren't able to see very far, but the multi-media tour w/ headphones was pretty neat. Zoie even had her own set of headphones with a kid-friendly version. The tantrums were still on and off all day but we managed to have a terrific time taking in the views and walking around the exhibit. It was not a structured tour, which was nice for Zoie because she could basically run all over the place. They even have a little cafe so we relaxed, got some yummy gelato and spent some time kicking back - 94 stories up in the air.

Lake Shore Drive

As punishment for being so bad I made Zoie wash the windows of the Observatory (hehe)

After our site-seeing, we walked a few blocks to have dinner at Ditka's, Mike Ditka's Steakhouse...man it was cold! Zac fell asleep and I had Zoie moderately under control so all in all it was a fantastic dinner. I won't say it's hard to believe we have been here for two whole weeks because it seems like we have been here for a very long time and we are more than ready to go home. I wish we would've gotten to see a bit more but then again...we have three more trips here this year alone.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is another day I have been dreading. It is the day we will go to Dr. Bauer's office and learn how to 'fill' Zac's expanders and pull out drains so that next trip we won't have to stay so long. Lots of anxiety over this part of the process, but for those of you who are curious what a 'fill' is like....I shall fill you in tomorrow. I will miss hanging out with Merilee, my nevus mom friend from Montana but I will be so happy to get out of this freezing weather and head home tomorrow....oh, and did I mention Chicago is expecting a snow storm tomorrow....grrrr.