Staycation redux, day one

Last week, we were happy right here in Chicago, even in the bad baseball traffic and with the eight million other families trying to squeeze one last bit of summer in before the school year. We played the radio louder than usual in the car and we drove on Lake Shore Drive even when it was out of our way, just so we could see the blue blue water as much and as long as possible. It was here and it was happy.

On the first day, there was the Field Museum. Lil E served as my personal docent, which led to many conversations over the following two days that began, "Mommy, what's that t
hing I am when I show you all the dinosaurs in the muuuuseum and take you everywhere inside there and then tell you all the stuff I know about them?"

"Tour guide," I told him every time.

"Oh yeah," he nodded every time. "Tour guy."

"Exactly," told him over and over.

I hadn't been to the Field Museum since high school and had shamefully never seen Sue, the reconstructed T-Rex in the middle of the main hall. We
had a great time trying to say the dinosaur names as fast as we could,
unearthing and brushing off bones and writing up field reports in the
Play Lab paleontology area.  We wound our way down into the tomb in the
Ancient Egypt section, studying unwrapped mummies and adding the word
"sarcophagus" to Lil E's vocabulary.




We ate lunch in Sue's shadow and carefully picked out a Quetzalcoatlus souvenir that has lived many hours since in my big silver bag so that he might travel with us always.



Later, Lil E took a long nap, clutching the plastic flying dinosaur
that he liberated from my purse. When he woke up, we snuggled in his
bed for a long time next to the stuffed Tyrannosaur and green
Allosaurus and other cast aside animals. When Lil E was finally awake,
we dressed up for a dinner date to Penny's Noodles, one of our favorite
places to order pad Thai and lad nar and try to grasp ice cubes with
our chopsticks.



That night, though, the dinosaurs joined us. And for that meal, I sat
in the shadow of this little boy with hair I wet and combed down for
the occasion, and his big, curious spirit that lights up small dining
rooms and great halls.



He held my hand as we walked back to the car and after I tucked the
dinosaur babies back in my purse nest, we swung our arms and sang our
way back to the car.



This new trip was about history, and not just the stuff of museums and
millions of years past. It was about time to explore like we always
want to but I don't often have or make the time to embrace. It was
about letting the boy take my hand for a day and lead my tour guy do
what he loves most.