Weekend Away

We have some great friends from college.  Great friends with great vacation homes!  This past weekend we got invited to one said friends lake house out in hill country, and here's the set up: all great friends from college that we've known for 10+ years, and everyone has children under the age of 3 (and two of the kids are all Grady's age within a month).

It was great.  It was great for a number of reasons, but chief among them was we all parent (give or take) about the same; scheduled naps, no germaphobes, lots of sunscreen, and early bed times.  Did I mention the early bedtimes?  Because that was awesome.

The house is back from the lake about 50 yards, and down at the lake is the boat dock, which is covered.  So when the kids would sleep, we'd drag our monitors down to the dock, sit in the shade or float in the lake and wait for one of the kiddos to wake up all the other kiddos.

Now my kid didn't get the memo on this plan.  The first day he refused to nap (and in public I ain't gonna fight it at nap time) but he slept okay until Lewis inadvertently woke him up - the joys of sharing a room.  After that he slept in bed with me but I was petrified of him rolling off the bed so I barely slept a wink.  The next day (yesterday) nap went a little better, and he went down for bed super easy.  But he woke up 2 hours later screaming the house down, and couldn't be consoled without me laying down with him.  And that wasn't going to happen again.

Finally Lewis went in there and rocked with him and patted his back until he fell asleep.  A couple of culprits at work ... one I forgot the stupid soy milk and was giving him cows milk.  I had not even thought of this until after he FINALLY went down and one of the ladies (an RN) said, "you know he could be cramping."  Oh damn it.  Bad mommy.  Then this morning I'm feeding him bananas and I feel a new tooth.  Someone explain to me why this kid is always cutting teeth on my vacations?!?

And it's so hard being the only one with a kid that was difficult at bed time.  Granted, either option 1 or 2 up there could have been the culprit.  And G was great all weekend and he just was off with the sleeping, they've all been there.  But it's just embarrassing and hard to listen to and I swear to the ground that nothing makes me tense up quicker than listening to him scream.  Even though in my brain I know he will eventually fall asleep, the rough nights come back to me all at once and I just. can't. go. back. there.  Not on vacation.  Not with witnesses to watch me cry right along with him!

All in it was a wonderful weekend.  One of the best most relaxing weekends away we've had with the kiddo.  There were lots of hands to help, lots of people to prepare food, grab this, don't let him touch that.  It was wonderful.  In fact, it was so wonderful, last night all 8 of us were all marveling out how wonderful it was and could we do it next weekend!  And we decided the reason(s) it was great was because we've all known each other forever - no anxiety about social performance with this crowd - and we all parent about the same.  It was a very nice weekend.

Now I'm glad to be home (blissful quiet! 7 kids are loud!)

On the way home we stopped at Dinosaur National Park and saw the footprints.  It was wicked, wicked hot.  So I couldn't bear to linger.  But G enjoyed the diversion!