Shedd Aquarium with a Tiny Tot in Tow

For our first family road trip - we traveled over the course of two days up to Chicago. Breaking up the trip to visit family in between because our little one has a history of not so-much enjoying car rides. She completely blew us away though! Did so well! But, we have gotten a little smarter and have figured out her nap times and traveled during those times only. Helped a ton!



One stop included the Shedd Aquarium - which I remember doing once or twice at least growing up myself. Funny how things are a little different when you go back as an adult. Everything seems so much smaller - I kept looking for these huge tanks where I swear you could see whales...lol. Must be the childhood memories making everything gigantic.

It was a fabulous time, though a little rough with a little one who isn't walking yet but who WANT to get down and crawl on her own (though we saw a few couples there with babies only a few weeks/months old (no other kiddos with them). We brought both the stroller and my new Munchkin wrap. There wasn't much space for her to just move about on her own. The one place zone was awashed in crazy older kiddos practically climbing the walls - definitely not the safest place for a crawling wee one. So we had a grumpy gus partway throughout the visit...she finally conked out but was awoken a lot by yelling adults and loud kids. Sigh. No quiet area anywhere to be found. We resorted to just going outside a few times - to nurse in relative and to just let her get down and crawl for a little bit without the throngs of people and strollers etc.

 (notice us sitting by the elevators on the floor - trying to give her a chance to be active while out of the way - oy! by this point she didn't in the stroller at all or carried at all - she wanted DOWN)

I think we are a little (ok - a lot) accustomed to all the small-child friendly facilities at the Indianapolis Children's Museum. Complete with a large, comfortable, clean and quiet family room where you can nurse or nap in a fair amount of peace. And their age supervised play zones for little ones 2 and under - they monitor how many people go in at a time - limiting it so that the little ones are not overwhelmed. LOVE IT! Not to mention that almost every exhibit is pretty baby (crawling and learning to walk) friendly. Each one has interactive areas that are low to the ground that a baby can crawl over or touch etc. Very nice.

She did love taking it all in though - the kid watching at the huge tanks where she could get up close and see right her face - big fish etc! So cool on that aspect. Will definitely have to go back when she is older!