Chi-Town
We started our trip to Chicago on Thursday morning and finished it on Friday afternoon. We arrived in the city at around 4:45pm and proceeded to do some much needed shopping. I wish I had a cool or interesting story to relay from the trip over here, but I don’t. The most exciting thing that happened was that Josh got pulled over about 10 miles from the Illinois border. He got off with a warning, so even that wasn’t that exciting.
It’s quite surreal being here. I keep having to remind myself that we live here now. I’m not going back to Scranton in a week (or a month or two, even). This is home. The rectory where we’re staying is huge. It puts our house in Scranton to shame. It’s a neat space, but unfortunately, it’s going to be really hard to baby proof. Josh and I bought two baby gates last night, and when he tried to put them up, they wouldn’t work because the walls are uneven. There are HUNDREDS of outlets in this place, and Jude can remove the outlet covers we got last night. It’s an old building, so there’s some chipping paint (above Jude’s height), and I’m worried that more is going to come off and that it might contain lead. None of these issues would be a problem if it wasn’t for the fact that we have a (nearly) 15-month-old running all over the place, but since we do, they are. As it stands, we’ll be here for about 5 months. So until we get our own place, I’ve just decided to get out of the house as much as humanly possible every day so that I don’t have to stress myself out too much.
Speaking of getting out of the house… today was our first full day in the city, and we certainly got out and about. Jude woke up at 6:30am (damn time change), and we were out the door by about 9am or so. We stopped by the Noble Tree coffee house to get two cuppas and to use the internet to plan our day. From there, we walked to a huge farmers’ market on the south edge of Lincoln Park and got about $20 worth of produce. On the way home, Jude fell asleep in his backpack carrier. We dropped the produce off at home and then headed north to a grocery store called Treasure Island to finish our shopping for the week (look for this week’s menu either later today or tomorrow!).
I carried Jude on my back all morning long (about 2 miles, total), so when we decided to go to Lincoln Park after lunch to let Jude play a bit, I suggested Josh wear him for a while. We took a detour through the zoo, and on our way out, Josh lamented his tired back and legs, looked at me, and told me that he couldn’t believe that I carried Jude all morning long. Then he told me that I was a stud. Sweet.
Jude got filthy at the park, so as soon as we got home, Josh stripped him and we threw him in the tub. I thought he was going to take a nap afterwards, but no such luck. Josh was kind enough to insist that I get out of the house to write even though the little guy was wound way up. Bless him.
So, that’s life in Chicago thus far. Posting will be sparse until we get an internet connection hooked up at home, but I’ll do my best to pawn the boy off on Josh at least every other day until then so that I can hit the coffee shop and update. Cheers!
Glad you made it in okay! Just remember, we didn’t have half the baby-proofing things they have now when we were kids and we still have (almost) all our fingers and toes!
I am, however, super jealous that you don’t need a car. BOO.
Also, you ARE a total stud.
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