An adventurous life

Poopy emergency! Poopy emergency! I called out to my oblivious children.

It was a beautiful irony. The older kids were at the dining room table playing the game of Life, and here I was running around the apartment searching for more evidence of warm brown baby dookies on my carpeted floor, playing at Life, for real.

I snatched up the offending toddler whisked her off to the bathroom, straight into the tub, pulled down her wet pants, and discovered...NO DIAPER!

I lathered her up with gobs of suds, sprayed her down, and strapped her into a new diaper. I dressed her in a snap-crotched onesie and denim overalls, the type with lots of snaps and buckles, in the hopes that her diaper was now secure. At the very least, it kept her busy for the next several minutes trying to extricate herself from my trap. And then I set out to find a discarded, abandoned diaper somewhere in my apartment. I sniffed around like a bloodhound, searching in drawers, toy chests, closets, and under beds. The diaper was nowhere to be found.

Kids, this is important. I need your help finding your sister's poopy diaper.

"Um." Began a guilty looking big sister. "She took it off before we left the house."

You're sure? I demanded, incredulously. Before we left the house was hours ago; before the trip to the pharmacy and before the trip to the library.

"Yeah. I saw her."

And you didn't tell me? "I did, but you didn't hear. She threw it in the garbage."

I took out the stain remover and saturated the carpet, all the while thinking, I need a vacation. But I don't blame my kids. They're doing what they're supposed to do: explore their world, explore their bodies, and unfortunately, their bodily functions. I should have been paying better attention, but I blame it on the diet my husband and I have begun together.

Winter has finally ended, but the extra insulation we padded on is still there. After months of watching the scale creeping up, we finally decided to take action. On Sunday, we took out the diet book (South Beach, if you must know), planned out our menus for the week, and put together the massive grocery list, and then my husband went out to stock up on loads of healthy, but otherwise unexciting provisions. Vegetables, low-fat cheeses, plain yogurts, meat, chicken, and fish. No yummy cereals, pastas, or breads to satisfy the stomach, or soul, for that matter. For a woman who is happiest while stretching her creative culinary muscles, this was not going to be fun.

On Monday, we packed up PB and J's on homemade challah, string cheeses, and fruit leathers for the kids, and chopped salad with tuna, plain yogurt with artificial sweetener, and celery sticks for the chubby grownups, and we drove downtown for a Memorial Day adventure: a double decker bus tour of downtown Chicago.

We started off near the law school, sitting on top of the open bus, enjoying the cool but glorious day, half listening to the tour guide squished up in front of us. We admired the amazing architecture of Chicago's majestic skyscrapers, and learned a thing or two about its storied past.

After an hour, we disembarked at Millenium park for a snack in the shadow of the Cloud Gate sculpture, locally known as The Bean.

The kids got a kick out of seeing their distorted and multiple reflections.

They asked a million questions.

"Why did the artist make it reflect?"

"Why do I look so funny?"

I had a few myself. Who cleans all these fingerprints?

We elbowed past fellow tourists to gaze on our reflection in the great big silver structure, and then went to the famous Crown Fountain, or as I prefer to call it, the Spitting Faces Fountains.

My brave hearted daughter carefully removed her shoes and made a beeline for the water. I watched in amazement as she joined dozens of small children in underwear, bathing suits, rain slickers, and other various conditions of dress running around splashing and playing in the water, while I sat huddling, freezing in the cool mist. After half an hour of shivering, I had enough. It was time to find the bus again.
We rode around on the top of the bus for another half an hour or so checking out the beautiful views of the Chicago skyline, the waterfront by the museum complex, and the famous Buckingham Fountain. Then we stopped back at the Law School for a light and nutritious lunch.
Classes were out of session, so except for a few medical students looking for a quiet place to eat and study, we had the campus to ourselves. The children could not have found a better playground than among the purple couches and giant staircases in the Northwestern Law School atrium.

They stopped playing for bites of their sandwiches, while my husband and I grazed. Our meal finished, we took a vital potty break and found our way back to the bus stop.

Our next stop was Navy Pier, where we enjoyed the indoor botanical gardens and a peculiar steel drum band made up of three white guys in pirate's garb. I was shocked to discover this hidden gem in an place I'd visited several times before. The gardens were lush and tropical and adorned with really cool fountains.

We finally made our way to the Children's museum, finally getting to enjoy our membership card there. The two older kids knew exactly where they wanted to go first: the rope course, where they could climb three stories up in a rope net gerbil cage-like contraption. This was the first time my daughter was old enough to join her brother.

I was concerned she'd get stuck and panic. Let your sister go first! I called out to her big brother. She may need your help! Big brother stepped back and let his sister go first, all the while, calling out words of encouragement and support.

She didn't need them. She scrambled up like a little monkey, with a huge smile on her face. Before I knew it, they were scrambling downstairs to do it all over again.

The next stop was the building center where my daughter became immediately engrossed on the project she was creating. I tried dragging the kids away, but they weren't interested in anything else.

Finally, the task was complete, and we could move on to our final destination: The Ghirardelli Ice Cream shop. I stood in line with the three kids, while my husband got the car. For an excruciating twenty minutes I breathed in the scent of rich chocolate, and watched people shuffle past with bowls of heaping ice cream, whipped cream, and dark chocolate sauce.

It was a bad day to start a diet. My husband pulled up to the curb. We strapped in our three exhausted, chocolate-coated kiddos, and I looked over at my husband.

Any celery left?