shedd aquarium

like i mentioned in the last post, matt has been at a conference in chicago. he was going to be done around noon on friday, so we thought that it might be nice for madelyn and i to join him and take a trip to the shedd aquarium. sea life seems to be one of madelyn's favorite things and we thought that it might be nice to do with her before the baby is born.

it was a gorgeous day and we had a nice lunch outside before heading in to the aquarium. madelyn loved driving through downtown - she keep pointing out every bicycle she saw. she was also really excited about all the seagulls hanging around begging for scraps while we were eating our lunch.

(unfortunately, there is no flash photography inside the shedd and pictures were very difficult to come by because most of the rooms are on the dark side, but i tried.)

i had started talking with madelyn about our trip to the aquarium on thursday and we went through her curious george book about a trip to the aquarium to talk about the animals we would see there. she told me that she was most excited about the whales and octopus. the one octopus was 'sleeping' while we were there and she wasn't all that interested in the beluga whales (until we saw their show) after seeing them once, but we saw lots of other animals that were amazing and new to even daddy and me.

she really liked this tank of jellyfish on our way down to the "wild reef" exhibit - i have to say that i was pretty impressed with it myself. the shedd has three different levels so i would ride in the elevator with the stroller while matt and madelyn took the more scenic stair path down each level. madelyn really likes the sharks when we go to the zoo (she runs back and forth with them telling everyone near her that they are "sharks") so i thought that she would be impressed with the sharks at the shedd. not so much. i was impressed with how large they were and how fast they were swimming in their tank, but madelyn would barely even look at them. i guess it was mainly because of her fascination with the sting ray tank.

i wish that i could have gotten a picture of her face and reaction when matt walked out onto the glass floor over the tank. madelyn was holding his hand and when she got to the edge of the carpeting she slammed on the breaks and almost sat back trying to keep daddy from leading her right into the water. it took some convincing to get her to try stepping on it. i had her feel that it was glass/plastic and okay to walk on. the picture isn't great, but you can get a sense for what the setup was like. once she saw that it was safe she kept touching the floor and stomping her feet trying to test it out. i don't even know how much she looked at the sting rays in the tank.

madelyn hugged and 'kissed' any of the model animals she could get close enough to hug and kiss. here she is with a sea turtle and penguins.

we just lucked into seeing a show featuring the beluga whales, a sea lion, and the dolphins by being in the right place at the right time and having a staff person tell us that a show was getting ready to start. the 'show' was basically a demonstration of how they are training the animals for their performance show that will begin later this summer. madelyn wasn't all that impressed until the dolphins started jumping and flipping. mainly because she kept missing the tricks because she was playing with and dropping a dime she found on the floor right before we went in to find seats. once she saw the dolphins she never looked away - even when she dropped her dime again. she was really disappointed when they were done. she just kept saying "more" and "again" in a soft way while never taking her eyes off the water. it was a beautiful set-up for the show too. you can't really appreciate it from the picture - no flash - but it was gorgeous out and the tank/pool overlooks lake michigan and there were lots of sailboats out on the water too.

here are just a few more pictures from our day:

here is a shot of madelyn watching the beluga whales. she also really liked a room where you could hear noises made by a beluga whale. i had to ask her to stop with the high pitched one because it was very loud and the room was not very large.

this was one of the coolest creatures we saw. it is called a seadragon.

it is difficult to see, but madelyn was overjoyed to run and play in this camping tent set up in the local waters section.

all and all it was a fun day and madelyn did wonderfully without a real nap - she napped about an hour on the way there. i am glad that we made the trip with her. and as you can see, she wore herself out taking it all in. dad and i were pretty pooped too. it was a lot of standing for me, but i wasn't in too bad of shape by the end of the day. love.