Last week I talked about adulting and how it sucks. This weekend I decided to be a kid again. Ginger Snap turned nine earlier this week and his mom and dad, Second Daughter and Second Son graciously agreed that I could kidnap him on Saturday for one of our adventures about Chicago. I wish I had lived in a city with this much to offer when my children were young. Movies and books became our adventures. Which was in hindsight not bad at all.
But Ginger Snap and I had Chicago at our feet and for a few hours decided I that money would not be an issue. When I'm in this mood it's usually a great time to be near me because I plan events at places I've never been or can't afford to go to often. It started for us, as it usually does with a train ride to downtown from our neighborhood. Not being in the suburbs it doesn't take very long but Ginger Snap still loves the train rides. And to get to Navy Pier we needed a train and a bus. But that just means more chatting time with Ginger Snap. I thanked him for wanting to hang out with me and he looked at me like a thirty-year-old and said, "Grandma, for you I will ALWAYS want to come." If only that were true. But there will come a time very soon now where my loving little Ginger Snap will want to spend more time with his friends, girlfriends, and then partner than grandma. You know what they say, " A son is a son until he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for the rest of her life." I assume that's double for grandmas. But I'll take him at his word until adulting time comes for him too.
Now if you aren't from Chicago, look up Navy Pier on google so you can see how large it is. It's like two malls full of shops and food are at either end, with an amusement park stuck in the middle so our enormous Ferris Wheel is seen predominantly from sea or shore. It stands 196' (50' taller than the old one First Daughter and I rode) and can withstand winds of 115 mph. Modeled after the one in Hong Kong it has 42 gondolas. Unfortunately, they just finished the new wheel and will be testing it all next month before a May opening. I may have to make Di and Dave ride it when they come for Mother's Day. But never fear Ginger Snap and I went to Amazing Chicago Maze, and the Children's Museum instead. They were playing Superman v Batman at the IMAX but his dad is taking him to that so we passed. We attacked the children's museum, climbing all the rigging like a pirate and burying him in the dinosaur digging room. The other kids helped and then dug him up...the rare Ginger Snap fossil. Of course, we bulked up on popcorn and ice cream before attempting the maze. Neither of us had been before. And we both loved the mirror maze part. And actually got lost for a while with all the flashing laser lighting and twinkle lights. It was like a disco on crack. I can't remember the style of instrumental music that assaulted us during our time in the maze but I do remember that the more lost we became the more annoying it was. So I blocked it out in favor of trying to find the secret mirrored door. There were a lot of parents and kids lost. So when we found it, we yelled out and waved hoping our reflections would help others lost in this hideous dungeon. The rest of the maze was twisting halls and darkened dead ends. The motion sickness tunnel was awesome. Although if you didn't keep moving you felt as though you would fall off the narrow metal bridge into nothingness. Once we found the exit we went back and did some more. We didn't want to leave yet. And we even found time to build a couple of bears and the Build a Bear Workshop. Ginger Snap built an all black Darth Vader Bear, (that's my grandson!) and I built a Minion Bob Darth Vader. Who looks just like me since I have a brown and green eye too. The staff loved the idea and I couldn't understand why no one had thought of it before. One millennial was eyeing it fondly and when I called him on it, he said he did want it. LOL. Darth Bob was the star of the moment. The way home, six hours later, was a bus and two trains so Ginger Snap could go underground on a train. I showed him where I worked and we hopped the blue line to our familiar brown line and home. I was so excited to have been able to show him such a fun day, and I had so much fun being a kid with him. We both want to bring his whole family to the maze as soon as Sammy Bo Baggins is old enough.
Kind of makes today's grocery shopping and writing seem dull by comparison.
Cheers,
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