Some trips are, well, long. It takes having a baby or toddler to make a two day vacation feel like a week.
That being said, we had a great Fourth of July in Indy. But we had some cracked-out tired kids! I was a bit ill-prepared for the nap issue. I brought along all the nighttime sleep aids-- blankie, pacifiers (although Izzy forgot to use the paci-yay!), Violet the musical dog, and the portable glowing mushroom. Oh, and Addie's sound machine. In the end izzy simply passed out Friday night from fatigue while watching Curious George. She had almost four hours less sleep than usual. When we arrived at my dad's Saturday morning I felt a storm was brewing, even though the skies were clear.
I suddenly realized I had a toddler who had 3-4 hours less sleep than usual and a baby who had slept late enough that she hadn't had her morning nap before we arrived. I couldn't enjoy myself pondering when I was going to see the fallout from this. Having gotten very little sleep myself, my anxiety was a bit heightened.
So I relied on the ol' standby. The nap on wheels (hummed to the tune of a certain Thrill Kill Cult song). I loaded up the crabby exhausted tots and took off. Within literally sixty seconds, they were both asleep. I was still grumpy so I pulled over under a shady tree and closed my eyes while listening to the radio. Then we drove some more. Forty-five minutes and ten dollars in gas later everyone was a bit more rested and happy. Best ten bucks I've ever spent.
Not an ideal parenting strategy, I know. But it's one of our survival tools that just needs to be used once in awhile. If I could have a redo, I'm not sure I would have done things much differently. Right now in our house we are going through nap limbo with Izzy. She needs a nap but won't go down. She goes to bed earlier but still really needs a nap. With having a baby in tow it's tricky having time to get Izzy into a nap. I wouldn't have wanted to take that all on while out of our normal environment. In my redo, though, I may have set up a nap setting for Addie, but I was too tired to think of that. Usually she can get by being worn and sleeping in the baby carrier, but I wasn't going to do that in 95 degrees!!
So we did our best and everyone got what they needed. That's what parenting is sometimes, just doing our best in the moment when our best laid plans fail, or in my case, when I had no plan at all!
It's probably no surprise to tell you that our drive home conversation was comprised mostly of dreaming about the day when all the kids are old enough that we can go on a kid-free vacation (get ready for the drop-off, grandparents!) I just hope I will still be young enough to be seen in a bathing suit by then :).
