Adventures in Mommyhood: Chicagoland Kids Expo

Saturday morning Anabelle and I drove to the Schaumburg Convention Center to attend the kids expo. I had read about the expo in a magazine that lists events for children and thought it sounded like it might be a fun thing to do. The cost was $9 for me to get in and Anabelle was free, parking was also free. They opened at 9am and I wanted to be there early so that it would be too crowded. It's not like before having a child I was that punctual, but now it's almost impossible to be anywhere on time with Anabelle in tow. So we arrived at 9:15-not too bad. If you don't know what a kids expo is, it is a place where vendors from all over the area can hand out information about their product/service. So there were lots of booths for food, toys, books, entertainment, and fun places to take your kids. Most of them hand out a pamphlet, some coupons, and a little freebie for your kid. Along with all of this stuff they also had 2 stages with music and dancing, big inflatable rides and bounce houses, a photo booth, a petting zoo, a firetruck, lots of costumed people walking around, and a rock climbing wall. Anabelle and I decided to walk through all the booths first since it wasn't crowded yet.

Anabelle did a great job of holding my hand as we walked and she really seemed to like it. Every few feet there was a new booth to explore, new faces to see, new people to ooh and ahh over her cuteness, and a new little toy to hold onto. What could be better for a toddler? Along the way we got some great coupons for area attractions and lots of information about things we can do this spring/summer. We also ended up with a bag of little stuffed animals, crayons, balls, toy jewelry, and snacks. When we were done with that we walked over to the stage area to do some dancing, which Anabelle loved! There were lots of other kids all dancing around and having fun with the parents all whipping out their cameras to snap photos. Sadly the inflatable rides were a little too chaotic for Anabelle to try, there were some really big kids jumping around and I thought she might get smooshed. It would have been different if I could have gone in with her, and helped her... maybe next year she'll be ready. So we tried out he photo booth, which was funny, Anabelle wasn't quite sure what we were doing inside a little box. Then it was time to check out the petting zoo. They had lots of animals and it was pretty clean. You could walk around the pen and pet them all, and they were all very kind and gentle. I was impressed, I wasn't sure how nice all the animals would be. They had some very large animals, a donkey and a llama. Lots of goats and sheep, and some baby goats too. The baby animals were adorable and also the perfect size for Anabelle to pet. She knew right what to do, and was very gentle with them. It must be all that practice petting the kitties.

After the zoo we were tired and ready to head home. It was about 11:30, and we had packed a lot of fun into 2 hours. Not bad for only $9! I would definitely recommend this to other families, and I think it would be fun for kids as old as 8 or 9. Here are some pictures from our day.

Anabelle loved the bubble machines and played with them for quite a while.

They had a sock monkey booth where you could make your own monkey ears.

Anabelle was instantly in love with these huge costumed animals. She had a huge smile and just followed them around trying to touch their fur.

This huge bird was dancing with Anabelle for a long time and she really adored him. He would mimic all of her dance moves which she thought was so funny. She even cried when he moved on to some other kids.