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!
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