Sunday, February 22, 2009

Wednesday- Art Institute and Concerts

Wednseday we went to the Chicago Art Institute. It was an adventure. Michelle had bought Thomas a Van Gough Art coloring book the day before. Thomas brought it with him and was super excited to find some that "matched" what was in his book. We walked fairly quickly through different halls to this one. This was both Thomas and Nicholas's favorite piece of artwork we saw.

Thomas and Michelle admiring another Van Gough.


One of many self portraits by Van Gough.






Shortly after this a security guard noticed a water bottle I had in the stroller and asked us to go dump it out. No one mentioned dumping water as we went into the museum, but I guess we should have thought about that. As we were walking away to find a restroom, the security lady saw our sack lunch sticking out of our bag. That was the last straw for her...she promptly escorted us out. I understand the importance of preserving and protecting that amazing art, I just didn't think about it. I guess that shows what a small town girl I am.




We didn't want to throw away our lunch, so we walked down a few blocks to the Cultural Center. Thomas started feeling pretty comfortable walking around downtown Chicago.

We walked right past "The Bean" but didn't stop because it was COLD!!!

We ate and then went to a free lunch concert at the Cultural Center. It was a string quartet. I was really bummed, though, because Estella was being noisy and I had to leave with her. Once I was out, a grumpy lady wouldn't let me go back in with her, because it needed to be "absolutely silent!" I took Estella back to the Memorial Room to wait for the concert to finish. After it was over Michelle told me that same lady who wouldn't let me back in came to her and asked her to take the boys out of the concert. Michelle held her ground and promised that they would be "absolutely silent." They were...more silent than many adults in the room. It was great for the boys to hear such accomplished musicians. They really enjoyed it.











3 comments:

Monica Hudson said...

Don't you love those kind of people...like they've never experienced being with a child and think of them as little evil germ-harboring, noisy pests, instead of the experience absorbing, very responsive and "quiet" sponges that they really are...glad they were "absolutely silent" just to prove to people like that that kids can be even more respectful of the arts than adults at times!

Laura said...

Sounds like Chicago isn't a very child friendly city! How neat that you get to take your kids there and expose them to all that culture!

Ammon said...

My brother lives in NYC and often talks about how things are segregated for adults and kids. It is definitely a big city/east coast thing and it drives me crazy to hear about it.