Since Rowan has been so into her babies lately and so into spending time with mommy, I decided to take her on a trip to Chicago. Lance was there for work and was staying in a hotel right downtown, so I took advantage of that and took Rowan for a fun mommy-daughter trip. After dropping Tate off with my mom, we headed to the train station. Rowan loved the train ride. We looked outside, read books, ate snacks. We got to Chicago and headed straight for the Shedd Aquarium where Rowan grew pretty tired of "looking at fish all day", but loved the Beluga whales and the little canoe she could sit in. Lance picked us up and we headed to the Rainforest Cafe which was the perfect place for Rowan. While I saw some children literally hiding under their tables, I told Rowan it was just a giant puppet show and she was thrilled with all of it. And I was thrilled that she was thrilled.
Sleeping in the hotel was a bit tricky. Rowan had her own little room, but she would not stay in it, so she slept with us, which resulted in little sleep for anyone. But we weren't really expecting anything different.
The next day, Rowan woke up nice and early (of course) so we headed to a place called Day Frog downtown. It's kind of an indoor play place with doll houses, dress up, big slides, bubbles, etc. It kept us busy until it warmed up a bit and the stores were open. Then we made the treck to American Girl Place. I didn't tell Rowan until we were on our way because I knew we wouldn't be able to do anything else. She had been talking about getting a baby with brown hair and brown eyes just like her. She had been sleeping with the American Girl catalog that mysteriously followed us from NC to Holland to here. We got there. She was thrilled. She immediately named her Erica Madeline. She was in love. (Might I add, though, that since we've been home (since this trip was over a month ago now), she no longer likes Erica and only likes Clarissa because she loves a bald baby. Great.)
We ate Garrett's popcorn. We went to Millenium Park and looked at all of the huge sculptures and I even got a quick stop in at H&M, but somehow only bought a scarf for me and socks for Tate.
After we were done, I asked Rowan what her favorite part was and she said "The lions." "The lions at Rainforest Cafe?" I asked. "No, the lions that were outside of the hotel" she said. "The lion sculptures." I guess it doesn't matter how much you've planned, you never know what they're going to love the most. But I loved my time with my girl. And she loved having her very own "Girls' Weekend" with mommy.
