24 Hours in Chicago

Colin has been working so much lately that Sophia and I thought we would give him a commuting break. So we threw some clothes and diapers in a bag, hopped a plane, and met him in Chicago while he was in between trips.

Sophia is already a fairly seasoned traveler and she did great....right up until we put her in the hotel crib. The tears and wails flowed freely and she was not easily calmed or comforted. One hour after she finally drifted off the sleep, she woke up screaming and would not open her eyes, no matter how much we tried to wake her up. I was really worried that something was seriously wrong with her. I checked to see if she had a fever and she was cool as a cucumber. I was just on the verge of total panic when I remembered that she had done this once before when we were in China. It happened a couple of days after Gotcha Day and we had concluded that she had a night terror.

During this night terror, Colin had enough common sense to take her out into the crisp night air and it was cold enough to wake her out of her private nightmare. It took her the better part of a hour to calm her down and get her back to sleep. She woke up a mere six hours later and, boy, were we whooped! All three of us.

Wanting to salvage something of our trip, we took the El downtown. Without going into great detail, we chose to take a train on one of the few times that the CTA had an operational meltdown. A journey that normally takes 45 minutes took more like 90 minutes. We did not have a lot of time to go to Colin's old neighborhood, but we did have a lovely walk down State St. and Michigan Avenue. And lo and behold, we came across a Halloween Haunted house. We didn't go inside, but Kat...I mean, Sophia, loved looking at the pumpkins.