Please Excuse Me: A Stay in Milwaukee

Each year the State Public Defender's Office hosts a two day conference in Milwaukee. The kids and I tagged along for the first time back in 2015. Ben missed out on it in 2016 because we had a brand new little Mara Joy. But we did make it last year and then again this year.

The kids and I left home shortly after 4 on Thursday. I had a book on tape for the big kids, and Mara had skipped her afternoon nap, so I was counting on an easy drive down. All was going as planned until google maps had me go down Fond Du Lac Avenue to get to downtown Milwaukee. I would have avoided it, had the actual street name been given, but instead it just told me to exit onto county rd 145. I don't know how to describe Fond Du Lac Ave other than to say it takes you right through the inner city part of Milwaukee.

Usually I'm bothered by this "quicker" route because I have to stop at all those darn traffic lights, and --depending on the time of day -- it doesn't always feel the safest. As we drove through the neighborhood, I couldn't help but wonder if my kids noticed every single person we saw was black. I figured they didn't notice the run down little shops, as it didn't really look too different from certain streets in Oshkosh.

At first I was kind of disappointed that we wouldn't get that grand freeway entrance into the city. We wouldn't spot the skyscrapers from a mile or two away. We wouldn't see Miller Park or the Domes. We were just cruising down the ghetto. But at each light, I took the time to stop and look at the people in the cars passing us by. I noticed a long line of young men at the cash advance store. I saw all the women cruising home from a long day in the city. And for that brief little drive, I feel in love with that neighborhood. I wondered about the schools. about the home values, about gentrification and cultural appropriation. I realized I was still getting that breathtaking view of "welcome to the city." But instead of beautiful old churches, breweries, and skyscrapers I was seeing beautiful people. I was seeing the true heart of the city -- the people and families that live in poverty while doing the work that keeps the veins of that city beating.

I'm kind of getting away from the kind of writing I set out to share, but if you've been a reader with this blog from day one -- you know my heart holds a special place for those big city neighborhoods.

Anyway, the kids were begging to go back to SafeHouse for dinner. We almost convinced them it wasn't there anymore. There were a couple of locked doors down the alley, and I could see they were real broken hearted when the first two didn't open up. But soon enough we were at our table, spying it up while we waited what felt like forever for our food to come.

Ben was awesome at not being upset about the long wait. Poor Nell, who was the most starving, didn't get her food (a simple kid's burger) for another five minutes after all the rest of us. She did cry. Sigh. I console myself with the fact that my french dip was deeee-licious and we got eight new kids cups out of it.

Back at the hotel, we watched the last half of a Pixar movie (the one about Joy and Sadness, the name escapes me). The girls all snuggled together in one bed, while the boys got to sleep in the other.

The next morning the kids and I headed out for Betty Brinn and Discovery World Museums. We hadn't been to Betty Brinn for a while, and the kids were in heaven. Even Reid and Nell found enough to entertain themselves for just over 3 hours. Honestly, I think they all could have stayed even longer, but I knew we needed at least a couple hours at Discovery World. The two museums are within walking distance of each other, and even with nearly 6 hours down in the area, we didn't have time to see everything the two museums have to offer. These kids really were just soaking up all the fun and learning.