There’s a lot to see at C2E2’s Family Day.
Ivan kept pointing and saying “BEAR!” which meant everything from someone dressed as a bear to someone dressed as a Wookiee to someone wearing a giant rat head to a fuzzy anime creature to a girl in a Winnie the Pooh outfit.

Ivan also said, “Batman!” pretty well. He only managed to offend one girl of about seven who said, “I am Catwoman not Batman.” She was wearing black and had pointy ears I could see the confusion.

Ivan discovered that the McCormick Center has escalators and revolving doors.  This convention has rides too.  Ivan was impressed.  We rode the escalator up and down about 8 times.  He amused an entire line of folks waiting for the shuttle bus with his antics in the revolving door.

In a superhero presentation, a superheroine with a green cape was leading the group in singing Superman’s theme song.  Ivan launched himself into my arms because to him this is the song we sing when we fly him around like an airplane.  I lifted him over my head and sang along with the crowd.

Ezri pointed out people dressed up as “bad guys” to Ivan.  They often had large weapons.  Many of them were dressed in black.  As we rode down the escalator down past a Chicago police officer in a dark uniform with a holstered sidearm going up, Ivan bounced in my arms saying, “Bad guy! Bad Guy! Bad Guy!”  The cop just smiled.

When asked by a girl wearing elf ears if Ivan was dressed as Dr. Who. I simply said, “Bowties are cool.”

Meeting R2D2 was a highlight for both my children.  Ivan chased him around saying, “beep beep bweee-oooo.”  Before the Star Wars academy presentation I had trouble keeping him out of the curtained area behind which he knew R2D2 was waiting.

There were a pair of folks with giant bear heads.  Ivan saw the heads from two flights down over a railing and pointed excitedly saying, “bear! BEAR! BEAR!”  We went up to meet them and his joy with the bears made other attendees stop to take photos of him playing with the bears.  They played peekaboo with him over and over and gave him many high fives.  They were very kind bears.

Also kind are folks like the Han Solo who helped me get the stroller through doors in the parking structure and the storm trooper who returned my cell phone when Ivan tossed it over a barricade.

It was a good day. . . but we are tired.  We lost two pacifiers, but made it home with Ivan’s favorite blanket despite a brief panic that it was missing (just underneath the C3PO costume in a bag as it turned out).