OP here. My flight only changed by 10 minutes. I called the airline, but they didn't want to change it, and I realized there are no alternative flights that I want, anyway. The next one is something like three hours later. If we miss our connection, then we'll be on that one anyway, and if it's fully booked, we get an extra night in Chicago which isn't the worst thing in the world. We arrive at ORD on a Thursday afternoon, and we don't go back to work until Monday, so an extra day eating deep dish pizza is something we could handle.

We will have just flown 10-1/2 hours from Rome, so purposely spending 6 hours in the airport for our connection, rather than trying to make this one in 1 hr. 55 min., is pretty much equally unappealing. Especially because we are traveling with our three kids (ages 9, 14 and 16). They will not want to be stuck in the airport six hours if they can avoid it. They're old enough to walk fast through the airport with us, but young enough to be a pain in the booty when they're bored in an airport.

Thanks for all the input. I do appreciate it.