prutopia

daddy daughter adventure #1

well, sunday was another fun daddy-daughter day. i took olivia down to navy pier. we did it native style, taking the red line down from our place and then hoofing it from the stop at grand.

the tall ships are in town, so the little stage inside navy pier had some weird pirate show going on. i'm going to come right out and admit that i'm not a great judge of the arts, but i'll make the bold prediction that it's not ending up on broadway anytime soon. my daughter, on the other hand, disagreed. it apparently moved her... literally. she was dancing along in my arms. mercifully, she allowed me to skip the encore .

we moved along to a store filled with thomas the train engine where olivia got to play with the merchandise. she also did a fantastic job of sharing with the other kids that were also hovering around the table.

after that i got sucked into the make-a-bear store. they are very evil people. the position of the store makes it nearly impossible to avoid. i had to make the false promise of re-visting the store on the way out. sorry, olivia... it was for your own good.

next came the highlight of the trip. the merry-go-round. olivia picked out a horsey that went up and down, and we had a blast. so much so that i didn't even mind the $5 charge for 30 seconds of merry-go-rounding. god bless the american way!

olivia also had her eyes on the giant swings, but i had to explain to her that she was too little. i dread the day when she actually understands what that means. we also skipped the ferris wheel, but with the wary eye that olivia gave it, i don't think she was too upset about it.

after that, it was lunchtime. you'd be surprised how many restaurants don't serve any kind of fruit. but here's a handy tip. if the place has a bar, the probably have orange slices. that will do in a pinch. olivia sure enjoyed them. she also enjoyed the main course, chicken strips and french fries. complete with ketchup, of course. i must interject here to metion that watching my daughter eat french fries with ketchup is one of the cutest things in this whole world. dainty and kid-like all at the same time. love it!

although it probably doesn't seem like much, we were ready to go. walking for 5+ miles while carrying 2 bags and a stroller or 30 pound kid at varying times will tend to tire a 34 year old 200+ pound, out-of-shape, gimpy dad 9 times out of 10. fortunately, the trip home was worth every last bit of fatigue.

whether on bus (her first bus ride!) or train, olivia charmed and entertained every last person she rode with. one point as we pulled away from the addison stop (where wrigley field is for you out-of-towners), she started singing "take me out to the ballgame" at the top of her lungs. she got a little shy when she realized that everybody was staring at her, but it was priceless.

as i suspected, the show on the train was due mostly to her slap-happiness, and she conked out on the walk home about 5 minutes from our house. she made a good transition from the stroller to the crib, and both daughter and daddy took a nice nap... with smiles from a good morning. 

posted by pru @ 11:33 PM