Downtown Chicago in the summer is not just the place where Chicagoans in business attire ascend tall buildings to their office jobs, or the place where sweaty tourists oggle the skyscrapers and lug around large cameras. Or even the place where a sweaty Jenna oggles the skyscrapers and lugs around her large camera, though that’s been known to happen every few weeks.
It also hosts a summertime tidal wave of kids who come to this fountain to cool off. Set at the base of Millenium Park, it may be called ‘Crown Fountain’ . . . but I choose to call it Freako Fountain. Those tower-tall faces are just a little freako.
Every so often, the (blinking and breathing) larger-than-life faces purse their lips into a big ‘O’ and water spouts out from the wall. Stampedes of children run towards the waterfall with squeals and shouts, and chaos reigns until the face resumes its normal benign expression and the water is cut off.
Last year I snapped some pictures of a seriously cute cutie-pie right about this time.
Cutie-pies, you’ll be pleased to know, are in no shortage this year either. Like this little crawling one.
Or this gleeful little runner.
Oh my! There are two!
The matching shorts! The rounded bellies! The diapers peeking out! The springy halos of brown curls! These two just kill me.
There was a small blond one that made me feel those baby-snatching impulses . . . again. You’re going to get tired of hearing about that real soon. I’m just sayin.’
Happy summer, everyone! And please make a water angel if you get the chance!
