chicagodads

The first time we went out together with her (for something other than a doctor’s appointment, I believe) was during our anniversary - about two weeks after Jocelyn was born. We decided to go to the local theaters for an innocuous and relatively quiet kiddie movie and then head over to a Chicago institution, a local chocolate and ice cream parlor named Margie’s Candies . We waited outside the shoppe for several minutes and then finally got seated in a tight corner (well, the whole place is one tight corner after another - it’s a full circle of tight corners. And deliciousness).

We got our dinners, which mostly consisted of wonderful old fashioned ice cream overlayed with melted, rich, dark chocolate, and were chowing away when we realized that the daughter had plans of her own, which eventually left her very uncomfortable. We had to do some immediate clean up, but there wasn’t room to manuever and the place had no open bathroom, certainly not one large enough for what we were in need of. Fortunately, we live within walking distance and were able to rush home, but it was a long five minutes.

Taking little ones out in public can be, at the least, a hassle. You always have to plan for everything and then some. Some places may have adequate stalls and cooperative and helpful staff. Some places may be baby and kid friendly, others only sporadically so. We tend to patronage the places that have those amenities, but sometimes you’re stuck. And sometimes, it’s just best not to go and bring the party home.

Outdoor festivals, however, are a bit of a tricky widget, I suppose. This last summer, we took Jocelyn to the Puerto Rican Festival. We made sure to take lots of pictures, get her in lots of rides, take her to hear music, see her play with dogs (poor dogs)… She had lots of fun. But we could change her on the grass. We were able to bring food and even buy some there. We brought her to a nearby Puerto Rican restaurant (Borinquen - also highly recommended. Especially for their wonderfully garlicky, crunchy, and chewy jibaritos) afterward and she ate the bread (it was really cute. Had to stick my fingers in her mouth to rescue her from her own squirrelly-ness).

But we were able to get in and out easily enough, it wasn’t overcrowded, and it was near home. Not so much with the inauguration, it seems. An advisory for the upcoming presidential inauguration - according to the NYTimes - is telling parents that they should not bring their young children to this mid-winter and overcrowded event. To hear some people tell it, that should be the case with all public outdoor gatherings (partly, my immediate suspicion is, because they’re fascists. But also, we parents do have a way of not knowing where we’re going with our massive strollers sometimes [and heck, we need ours to survive the Chicago winters and sidewalk terrain. So I’m not going to apologize for having one]). Others think that it’s more curtailing of rights of individuals to bring their babies into highly hazardous areas where a bomb or a sniper may arise.

Umm… anybody up for deliberate moderation on this?