Date night!
When Gina told me she got in to the lottery for the Chicago Marathon, after saying “Yay!!!” and “Congrats!” my next words were “If you want to get a hotel in the city for the night before the race, you should do it asap cause they’ll book up soon. We can watch Luca and bring him down in the morning!” (so bossy!)
My house is NOT near downtown Chicago. We’re a good fifty-five miles away. It’s an easy drive in (on a Sunday morning before sunrise) but that would have required a MUCH earlier wake-up call! So Gina and Steve got a hotel room. We dropped them off at the train station Saturday afternoon and then we had a date night with Luca!
I wanted Luca to be excited about our date night (and not sad that his parents were leaving him with us for the night) so I mentioned it a few times before his visit so he knew it was coming. That must have worked – Gina said Luca was telling a running friend of hers about his date night before they came, and when Gina and Steve left on the train, Luca wasn’t phased at all! Gina text me to ask if he was crying and I basically told her it didn’t even seem like he noticed they were gone. Ha!
I had A LOT of ideas for what to do on date night (I see all these kid activities out here and note them for when I see Luca) and sent them to Gina before they came to see what she thought. She recommended picking a few and asking Luca which he wanted to do. I presented my list and he picked going to the park AND gave his own suggestion of going bowling. Steven and I were game for that – we both have our own bowling balls and shoes and (obviously, ha) enjoy playing! And we hadn’t gone bowling near our new house yet.
So we dropped Gina and Steve off and went right to the park. Local people will recognize this park – I think it might be a bit legendary. It has really tall slides and a super high spider web to climb. And, seems completely dangerous to me. Ha! I stayed close to Luca and I bet the other parents there thought I was nuts!
Luca was worn out from the park and went down for a nap at home, during which Steven researched where to go bowling, and I worked on figuring out some spectating information. After an hour, I went to wake Luca up and ask if he wanted to go bowling, and he said yes and fell right back asleep. Ha ha. I told him to wake up on his own and come down when he was ready. Thirty minutes later, he got up, and we went!
Steven has bowled most of his life and knows a lot about it, and was in his element teaching Luca about it!
We bowled two games, then went home to make dinner. The boys “played Orchestra” while I made dinner.
We had dessert (fruit), got ready for bed, read a story, and he went right to sleep! And we went to bed at close to the same time too, since we had an early wake-up call to get to the race. I was wondering if Luca would have as hard of a time getting out of bed as he did getting up from his nap but he didn’t! He was excited for the day!
We helped him get ready, took a photo of our shirts (they were a surprise!) for Steve to show Gina, and took off to begin our spectating adventures!
Steven and I really enjoyed having Luca for the night and hope we get to do it again! There is a lot we didn’t get to do – go on the Jelly Belly tour, go to the local petting zoo, make cookies… I am sure my list of ideas will continue to grow!
Themocracy
How sweet that you made the date with Luca so special for him, and I’m sure Gina appreciated not having to take care of Luca before her big race. What a good friend you are!
Thanks 🙂 We really enjoyed it and wanted to make race day (and the night before!) as easy for her as possible! 🙂
You guys are the best!!!
Oh my gosh you are so awesome! Where is that park? It looks awesome!
Thanks 🙂 It’s on Sheridan Road in Waukegan 🙂
Aaaahhhh…Bowen Park! It’s the best 🙂
So glad you got to have fun with Luca!
Yeah! I’ve wanted to go there since I heard about it! Luca liked it 🙂
You and Steven are so generous and considerate to have Luca as your guest for the night! You are such good friends! I love the “playing orchestra” – so adorable!
Aww, thanks 🙂 We had been looking forward to it for a long time!
What a great time!
Ahhh, I didn’t put together that the bowling photo you sent me was part of your date night. That is SO sweet and considerate–and it looks like all of you had a blast. I’m really glad it worked out so well!
Also, please take me to that park next time I visit. It looks awesome! (Maybe adults aren’t allowed to play on it though…) I read an interesting article a few years ago about this playground in Europe (maybe Sweden?) that’s like sort of a junk yard where kids are allowed to play unsupervised, and it’s basically no big deal. It sounded totally nuts from an American perspective (fire! hammering! metal scraps! ropes!), but the article said that most playgrounds here are totally sanitized and not all that interesting for kids. And what’s more, really safe playgrounds don’t teach kids to know their limits and respect actual danger. I’m not sure how I’d feel if I had kids, but I did think that was interesting!
Me too! I hope we get to do it again! 🙂
I will totally take you there – I was having fun climbing around with Luca! The European concept is interesting – I agree that kids need to explore and learn proprioception but this playground seemed VERY dangerous for kids who don’t have it – they could easily fall 10+ feet to the ground!
That is so sweet!
Awww so cute! I keep talking about inviting our nieces & nephews to our place for a Cool Aunt & Uncle weekend but it hasn’t happened yet.
I hope you get to do it! 🙂
Aww too sweet! You gave him the best date night ever:) he will probably start wanting weekend visits lol