Yesterday, my handy-dandy Treo calendar reminded me that there was a lunchtime puppet show happening at the Cultural Center. I don’t even remember where I found out about it; I have been jotting down activity ideas on my calendar as I come across them and it has been paying off.
Our morning breakfast ended with a look outside to find it was snowing. Snowing! I rushed over to the stairwell calling up to my husband, “It’s snowing! It’s snowing!” because it was so exciting. He was less enchanted since he bikes to work. Fiona declared that she needed her hat! and mit-tens! and scarf! The snow stuck on the ground for a few moments, peppering it white but quickly melted leaving the brick patio wet and dark.
Maybe it was the sight of snow that got things moving; I packed up the bee and me, stuck her on my back and took the bus to the train headed dowtown. We were about five minutes late to the puppet show (of course) but found a couple of seats. Fiona took it all in the way she does, intensely fixed and determined. It was a pretty good little play but the journey was really the better part of the adventure. I think every time we have taken the train, Fiona has fallen asleep for at least a little bit; she just can’t overcome the lulling noises of the train and the gentle, friendly voice of the recorded announcer.
After the play finished up, I called Johnny on the phone and invited us to have lunch with him. In the meantime, we walked up to the puppeteers who were showing off the puppets. It was a swirl of people and hard to get a good view of anything so coats and hats and mittens on and out the door. %We stopped for a couple donuts across from the Cultural Center% and Fiona ate one from her backpack perch. She dropped a bit of it here and there, leaving a little trail as we walked up Michigan Avenue. We met up with Papa and at some hamburgers and gave him a donut. Then we stopped at a Sanrio store and bought Fiona a little shiny charm to fix onto her coat.
I thought about going home but then I considered the likelihood, or unlikelihood, of us getting downtown again anytime soon and decided to take Fiona to look at the Thomas Hughes children’s section of the Harold Washington Library. So we said goodbye to Johnny and walked a mile to the library. It was late in the day so we read a few books then they announced the library would be closing (early) in a half hour. We didn’t really see much of the room though it was a very nice, big space. I looked it up just now and saw there was a big dollhouse and some other, interesting materials that we didn’t get a look at. We picked up a few books, paid my outstanding $3.40 fine from May and were on our way back home.
We read a few books on the train but I saw Fiona’s eyes get faraway and I bundled her up onto my lap. She fell asleep almost immediately and left me to consider the relationship between sleep and uncertainty about new experiences and strange places.
When we came to the station, I thought Fiona would wake up. But she remained sound asleep as I picked her up, carried her out of the station, across the street, and sat in the bus shelter waiting for the bus. She slept on as the bus pulled up and I negotiated the fare card, found a seat, and we rode down the street. Her sleep was untroubled by our exiting the bus and walking toward home. So unusual. But I was feeling so sentimental, holding her sleeping form, I couldn’t bear to wake her up, whatever the bed time consequences.
I got off the bus a block late so we walked past a pumpkin patch. Fiona woke up a block later and I asked her if she wanted to look at all the pumpkins. We doubled back and she found a nice little one. Bumpy with green shading. I popped her into the backpack, surprising the pumpkin man with the unexpected contraption, and we headed home, all pumpkin-toddler-books-hats-mittens-coats. When we got home we had some hot cocoa and cinnamon toast to warm up and I wished, all zen-like, for the ability to allow all days to be like this one.
