Fabulous Carnival - except for the Bird Man

The weekend before Memorial Day, my in-laws were in town and we spent all day Saturday and Sunday at University of Chicago - which was quite a blast. My nephew Stephen goes there and on that Saturday they had a carnival with free burgers, ice cream and all sorts of carnival food including fried Twinkies and cotton candy. They also had inflatable rides.

Liz had a blast and got her face painted, went on several rides, including an adorable train. It all went perfectly until University Of Chicago's mascot, The Phoenix, started strutting his stuff. Now, Liz understands it's a man in a costume, but that didn't matter. She was terrified, and I mean terrified into hysterical tears every time the Bird Man was near.

At one point my nephew Daniel was posing with the Phoenix showing off his tattoos (see below) and Liz was still terrified of the Bird Man crying and running away from him. Keep in mind she's seen her cousin Daniel in his military combat attire and didn't flinch. But this is a strange man in a strange outfit and it's all quite different. Let's just say if she saw Bird Man 50 feet out, she began crying.

As we were resting taking a well-needed break from all of the food we'd ingested in such a short period, I, the pregnant lady, decided to venture out for some more food - because there's really no such thing as eating too much food at a carnival. I left the group to wonder around, and I saw the Bird Man and heading right toward Liz.

I had to make an immediate choice. Do I just walk by him and hope that he doesn't head straight for Liz - causing her to crumble in tears - or do I dare try to communicate with a mascot whose code of ethics does not allow him to speak aloud.

That's right - I suddenly found myself speaking with a large human in a bird costume - who seemed to want to help but could do nothing but use his arms pointing the same way the person directing traffic points his arms to the left and right and by the end you're so confused you have no idea which way to go.

Finally, he kept pointing toward Liz and I kept shaking my head, saying NO NO - don't go in that direction. And, suddenly, I felt like the traffic guy pointing my arms high above my head trying to show him where he should go. In just a few minutes of this very-odd communication, Liz eventually saw me talking to the bird man and certainly became quite concerned. Fortunately, I did somehow quite clumsily manage to direct Bird Man into another direction.

I still don't understand why the "no speaking" is so important to mascots but Brian maintains that Bird Man is forbidden by all Mascot rules to speak to me and he couldn't make an exception - even if it meant saving a little girl from more trauma. By the end, she was probably traumatized just seeing her mommy so near the scary Bird Man.

Here are some pictures - courtesy of my sister-in-law Helen since we've still got some technical difficulties here. But you should be able to make out a pretty nice baby bump!

Here's a great one of Liz with her face painted. She really wanted the butterfly but the line at face-painting was probably about an hour-long. It didn't look that long with only about 7 people in front of us but with only 2 painters and some of the creations taking 15 minutes, the time ads up. I decided to wonder around while she waited with Brian and I found a face-painter with NO line. So, we dashed over there, and they did a most excellent job on the butterfly.



Here's Liz and I stuffing our faces - me more than her!



No, Liz wasn't swimming at the carnival. She was in swim classes at our local Y and here's a cute picture my sister-in-law got of her.



Here's a picture of Brian, my brother-in-law Curt, Liz and myself.



Here's the infamous Bird Man with my nephew Daniel. While this picture was being taken, Liz was sobbing hysterically running away from the Bird Man.