Visiting the Papas

Max, Molly, and I made an unplanned trip up North this weekend. Although the reason for our trip wasn’t a happy one, since we were heading out of town for a funeral, we did enjoy visiting with the "Papas" (Max still refers to both Grandma and Grandpa as "Papa"). I took a half day off of work on Friday and we planned to set out right after lunch. Since Dad had to work all weekend, I was making another solo trip with the babies. I cleverly planned to leave right at nap time, hoping one or both of them would sleep part of the way. Molly obliged by falling asleep almost immediately, but Max was too busy pointing out the "big cars" and the "MORE big cars!" and decided not to nap. But, even though he didn't sleep, he was actually a pretty good traveler. Molly woke up about halfway through the three-hour drive, so we made a quick stop, set up the DVD players (hooray for "Little Einsteins"!) and continued on our merry way. Molly got a little fussy near the end of the trip and wanted to get out of her seat, but the worst part of the whole drive was that I desperately had to use the bathroom for about the last half hour of the trip. And, since I really didn't want to try to drag M&M into a rest station bathroom, I managed to tough it out until we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Max and Molly had a blast, since there aren't many things that are more fun than going to another house, basking in the attention of a bunch of your favorite people, and taking sore advantage of the fact that nothing is babyproofed! Plus, Grandma has a whole bunch of cool toys that she saves for little visitors, and Max and Molly had fun checking those out. The only disappointment was that M&M's much-beloved Uncle Michael was out of town during our impromptu visit. But, Aunt May, who was originally going to be out of town, wasn't after all, so we all got to visit with her. Max sometimes gets his Aunt May and his Aunt Anne confused and calls them by the wrong name, but the clever little boy finally figured a way out of that difficulty. He's dubbed them both "Aunt Man" and that seems to have solved all of his problems. ;)

While we were in town, we had a little family reunion. Max and Molly got to see (and in some cases, meet) a bunch of their great aunts and uncles, their first cousin once removed, and a second cousin! It was great fun to visit with my aunts and uncles and so nice to see my cousin and meet her little boy (who is two). Max was a little standoffish with everyone at first, which is SO not like him, but he'd just woken up from an inforced nap and was still groggy. After he finished waking up, he was back to his regular social little self. He had great fun being the ringleader for the little kids and all three of them thought it was a riot to run in and out of the room, squealing happily and parading around various (loud) toys. It was a fun evening and I'm hoping there will be a full-fledged family reunion coming up soon!

Although we had a good time, the only problem with taking the little ones on out-of-town trips (aside from the fact that they are poor travelers and love to trash other people's houses), is that they DO NOT SLEEP. Although Molly will still nap in her Pack and Play, Max usually refuses to nap at all, which leaves him pretty cranky and difficult by the end of the day. Of course, since he doesn't nap, you'd expect that he'd go to sleep easily. That isn't usually the case! We were all staying in the same room, so I set Molly up at the end of the bed in her Pack and Play, I had the big bed, and Max had a twin mattress on the floor. After I put Molly to bed, I tucked Max into his bed, and decided to lie down on my bed until he dozed off (since it was a strange place and I didn't want him to be scared). Unfortunately, Max wouldn't doze off. He talked to himself, he talked to me. He threw his stuffed animal around and kept "accidentally" dropping his "spit" (the cloth diaper lovey that he sleeps with). After a half an hour of this nonsense, I put him in bed with me (thinking that might help), where he proceeded to do just about everything BUT sleep. I finally tucked him in, said goodnight, and left the room. He proceeded to wail for all of about 60 seconds before he crashed hard.

Everyone slept great until 3 a.m. when Molly woke up (like she often does in the wee hours of the morning). Unfortunately, she woke Max up and neither of them would go back to sleep. After much fussing and cajoling and whining and crying and flopping around, we all ended up falling asleep in the big bed together around 5:30 a.m. Of course, that only lasted about a half an hour and the everyone was back up again. It wasn't a whole lot better the second night, except that Max was so terribly exhausted that Molly's fussing didn't wake him up and I decided to let them both sleep with me early on in the night. Molly still proceeded to wiggle and squirm, poke me in the eye, and kick me in the face (don't even ask me how she manages that). All I can say is thank goodness for coffee!

The return trip was actually tougher than I expected. After loading the ridiculous amounts of stuff that we had to bring for a two-day trip, I packed the babies in the car and set out for home. We weren't even out of the driveway when Max started crying, "More Papa! See Papa, more!" Molly slept for a little bit in the beginning and woke up nice and cranky about 45 minutes into the trip, just as we hit some nasty weather and roads. We had to make a few stops, swap around a few DVDs, and listen to a few rounds of yelling, but we eventually made it home. We had made plans to have company for dinner, and I was SO thankful to see that Dad had been hard at work straightening the house and working on the food. As it turned out, our friends' baby came down with a nasty case of rotovirus, so we opted to reschedule the dinner for another day. I can't say I was entirely sorry, because that left Max, Molly, and I free to take some nice, long naps!