One down, one to go...

Vacation number 1 is over and we survived. Vacation #2 starts tomorrow...which is actually good because we are exhuasted from #1. First I have to say that Ethan is awesome. Really. Ryan was pretty darn good for our first real trip away from home and I think it had a lot to do with the attention he gets from daddy (and his grandpa, and step grandma, and her kids, and his aunt and uncle and 3 cousins...but its mostly daddy). He took Ryan swimming everday while I sat in the shade and red the second installment of my vampire book. Seriously people, no joke, these books are extremely entertaining. I finished the first book in 3 days and its about 500 pages. Then I finished the second book today which was about 4 days total and bought the third book today to take on my trip. Then he carried him the entire way down and up in Moaning Caverns (245 stairs). Plus, there were enumerable times where he had to jet under the railings to grab our escaped child. He was inches from touching the "do not touch" stuff and almost ran right into a stalagtite/mite that was transplanted from a cave in China. But he had fun.

Our major issue was sleep, ofcourse. We managed to find the pak n play way in the back of the storage in the garage. When we put him to bed the first night we couldn't believe it when his head and feet were protruding from the mesh netting on both sides. Remember when we brought him home from the hospital and he used to sleep in that? There was a 30 min crying fit because he didn't want to stay where we were. He kept saying "wanna go in mommy car, Ryan's house." It was sad, but also nice to know he likes his house/room/crib. Because I'm super mommy (sometimes) I packed a new toy for him which stopped the tantrum in its tracks. Yay mom! 3 new magnetic bath boats....yipee.

We had 2 condos to split between 8 people and 4 kids. They were both 2 bedrooms w/ 2 bathrooms and a murphy bed. We ended up with my sister in law and her husband, and their 3 kids. Full house. Noisy house. Because the kids all had to go to bed around 8:00, that left the adults kind of stuck. The murphy bed was in the living room so we couldn't hang out there. The bedroom downstairs was smaller and didnt have a TV. We took the bedroom upstairs with the king bed figuring Ryan would end up with us at some point, and the pak n play fit in there better. I also thought my sister in law who is due in 3 weeks might not want to be up and down the stairs...and hey, we were only staying 2 nights, they were gonna stay a week. So, they got the condo to themelves when we left and could do whatever they wanted.

It was pretty obvious Ryan wasn't going to let us leave after we put him to bed so we got ourselves ready for bed. I think it was 8:30....and told him everyone was going to sleep. We pushed the blankets at the end of our bed to make a hill so he couldn't see us and we watched a movie on a portable dvd player with headphones. Oh, if there were only pics! I'm sure we looked ridiculous but hey, it worked. Ryan lasted in the pak n play til about 12:30, then 2:30 the second night. Better than I expected, but we were so tired in the mornings. Ryan spent most of the night kicking Ethan, and whenever he woke up he was usually up for 1-2 hrs before falling back asleep which meant I was up telling him to GO TO SLEEP.

All and all it was a good trip and I'm glad we went, eventhough I had major anxiety about it. I have turned into such a control freak and a worry wort. I hate that I have to be so scheduled, but at the same time, when you have a child that didn't sleep longer than 2 hrs at a time for a year and you find a schedule that works you hold onto it FOR DEAR LIFE. It really has saved us so when we veer from the schedule I get all twitchy and worried and nervous and...but I am learning to calm down and that we can fix it if it gets messed up. It might take a day or two, or a week, but it can be fixed. We left around 8:00pm so Ryan would sleep on the way home and got home around 9:30. He went right back to sleep in his crib. He did wake up around 1:00, nothing a little water wouldn't fix and he slept til 6:30. He's been waking up once or twice at night, then sleeping til 6:30 which is very late for him. So, we just need a bit of tweeking to fix the wake ups. Ofcourse I can't do that now because I'm leaving in 9 hrs. It will wait til I get back...just like potty training :)