Family Grounds Cafe in the making. PART 1

Family Grounds Cafe in the making.  PART 1

The original concept for Family Grounds Café came to mind upon the birth of our first child, Sophia, on April 15, 2004. Needless to say, I found going from busy working-girl to being a stay-at-home mom was quite the transition!  I was just as busy staying home with my darling daughter, but it was a completely different kind of busy!  My day no longer consisted of chatting with my husband (John) on the el the whole way to work, lunches with co-workers, Friday cocktails, and rushing home to rush out to dinner with John.  Now my days revolved around this tiny 7 pound girl, who at times felt like she must be the bossiest 7 pounds on this earth!  I was the first of any of my Chicago friends to have a baby, and our schedules just didn’t coincide. John was working full-time and completing his Masters at Northwestern. On top of that, Sophia was a baby that despised sleep from the get-go. Yes, it was a really fun first year of sleep deprivation and exhaustion! Don’t get me wrong, Sophia was as cute as cute can be and we were instantly in love with our beautiful first-born daughter. However, life was different and it took some getting used to! I dreamt of a place I could go with my little Sophia, mingle with other moms, and find some sort of downtime. The first thought of Family Grounds entered my head. 

Fast forward two years…. We made it through the difficult first year with our sleep hating daughter.  For those of you dealing with a child like this, there is hope... she actually became quite the nice little sleeper!   However, now she had moved into the rambunctious two year old stage! By now, I had more friends than I ever imagined… funny how once you become a “mommy” you are able to find instant friends in other “mommies”. I had gotten plugged into moms groups, playgroups, mommy and me classes, and the like. Now, what I found was that it was incredibly difficult to get through a conversation with my new friends while my strong-willed, dare devil daughter was around.  Sophia constantly had me on my toes requiring my attention 100% of the time. She was full of energy and a non-stop talker and yes, as far as she was concerned the whole world revolved around her! Again, thoughts of Family Grounds came to mind… wouldn’t it be nice to have a place to sit with John or my friend(s) and chat with no interruptions while my daughter played happily nearby? 

To be continued....