Field trip with the friends!

So, after about 2 and a half months of trying and failing, we were finally able to get down to the Children's Museum with Munch's 2 little friends and their Mamas.  It was well worth the wait.

Little A's Mama decided to drive down there rather than take CTA with the rest of us--A tends to get sick or fussy more easily than Munch or Little K, and since this was her first really big outing and she was coming from further away than the rest of us, her Mama and Daddy had some very real concerns.  So her Mama drove down and paid the exorbitant parking fees of that area...and as it turned out, they ended up getting there WELL before we did.  You see...while they were driving down in relatively smooth traffic, we had followed the same path Daddy and I had taken back in December:  park near the train, take the brown line down, transfer to red, then get off at a stop that gives better bus options...Except that we never made it onto the red line.  We got off our nice, lightly populated brown to discover a seriously overcrowded (i.e., no room for strollers at all) red.  So we let that train pass, thinking, 'we had to wait a while for that one, which means the next is probably right behind it, being held up by all the crowds on this one.'  Yeah...that wasn't the case.  The next red came (9 minutes later) and it was worse than the first!  So we got onto the next brown that came, and found our way there by another route, which, thankfully, we didn't have to wait long for.  We ended up getting there nearly an hour after A and her Mama had, but only half an hour after the museum opened.  And can I just say how grateful I am that the weather was sunshine and 50's??  In the middle of a Chicago Winter???  That was awesome, and we could not have planned for a better day at this time of year.

From there we started exploring.  It was much the same as a month ago with Daddy and I in terms of where we went, but this time, Munch could walk it herself!  K and A are much better walkers, and were traipsing around all over the place without a care and loving every minute of it.  Munch instead fixated on a little bridge that had a small ramp and tried to learn to navigate that strange, uneven floor.  She also insisted on carrying something in her hands wherever she went--a rubber frog, a leather fish, a couple of plastic foods, colorful whiffle balls.  She loves to carry things around, but it doesn't go so well for her when she, say, trips or stumbles on a ramp...or loses things to children who move too fast and grab things right out of her unsuspecting hands.  At least she was none the worse for any of that, and the other moms that were there were very aware of their children and the need for appropriate social behavior.  She didn't get pushed, and toys always got returned to her.  We spent the longest time in that first Treehouse room.  It was by far the girls' favorite.

Carrying toys...

Rummaging through a nice big fridge.

From there we moved on to the Big Backyard.  Munch was NOT a fan.  Maybe it's too dark for her liking, or there aren't enough things for her to carry, I dunno.  There were several larger kids in there who had taken over the giant shoe--the only part she'd been interested in the last time--so there was nothing to hold her attention.  Instead, all she wanted to do was push her stroller around in the big hall outside, as she'd been doing when we'd walked over there in the first place.  Which I thought was pretty adorable, except that she really couldn't steer...

The other 2 weren't particularly enamored with the area either, so after a very brief stint there, we all headed for the Town, and spent the rest of our time there.  Munch rediscovered her stoplight, and figured out what the button she liked so much last time actually does:

She also found something to push instead of just our stroller:

Her friends, meanwhile, discovered the bus:

 

And we all enjoyed the time to sit, laugh, play, and chat:

We even found a couple people who've been going to the same music play-time that Munch and I and K and her mama have been going to.  And when we ate lunch in the McD's downstairs (don't worry, we brought our own food, and just got some drinks to legitimize our presence--and *I* got a Shamrock Shake!), the guy sitting at the table behind ours treated us to stories about his 19 beloved nieces and nephews.  Life with a toddler is so much more social... :)