This isn't my normal blogging time, but the boy is in a (deserved) snit about everything that has gone awry, and one can only sit there and lend a sympathetic ear over a pint of butter pecan so long. At least, I can't. That boy...he's a keeper. Lest you weren't sure about my intent with that last sentence, I assure you, that was serious. He's wading in the deep end of the customer service experience for my technology issue.
Well, it's been two days of travel with the Squiddgles (HAIL the LOO YAH that we figured out the magic that is audio books), and I'm here to testify that Cincinnati and I are not bosom buddies. Street signs seem to be hit-or-miss, I have less than your average bear's worth of directional acuity in that city that has me every which way mixed up, and there's about three cities' worth of cars jammed in on those highways (which we always seem to need to be on when we navigate those muddy waters). But, in Cincinnati we were for a few hours shy of 24 in order to meet...
...a new nephew! Any day is a good day when you can say those words. I've been through this 1-ring circus twice before, and still, those bandy little legs, the amazing and ephemeral facial expressions, and the enormous yawns still catch me by surprise every time. There was a lot of head petting during the visit. And let's take a moment to appreciate that I put that there baby to sleep before handing him off to the boy. Fine, the chap is only 3 weeks old, so putting him to sleep isn't hard at all. But still.
I just wanted to throw in this picture to show what the boy looks like in pretty much every picture ever. Squinty.
And while we drove in 3 solid hours of pouring rain (torrential for the first 30 minutes) on cantankerous interstates to meet the nephy, the bulk of the day was fantastically humid and spring-like. And so we did this.
And for the coup d'etat, I found a new-to-us bed and breakfast option that was a) affordable, b) a reasonable distance away from the new nephew (and his parents), and c) a suite option with t-w-o bedrooms. Finding this trifecta made me want to dance. Discotheque style. 'Cause while the squiddgles are a terrific duo, you don't put them in the same room to sleep.
I think that last sentence doesn't full capture the essence of what I'm trying to say. Let's try that again.
Think Katy Perry's "Fireworks" in a volcanic, dripping acid kind of way.
But two bedrooms I found and two bedrooms we had. And there was a separate living room for us parentals to stay up to the late, late hour of 10:00 p.m. The boy bunked with the Elder in a king sized bed (my ideal, so this isn't a sacrifice that I made without thinking long and hard) while I joined the Younger in a full sized bed, of which we only used my 1/3. It turns out that I could have joined the boy and the Elder as she was lost without him and squirmed her way over to kick him awake at 4:52 a.m. (Funny, when we score a king sized bed, I squirm my way as far away as possible and he shalt not come within arm's reach. Give me some space, I say.) I still would have had more room in that arrangement than I did with the 28 lb. dynamo who was anywhere and all where but her side of the bed.
I even tried to preemptively nip this possibility by insisting that she sleep on her own pillow rather than keeping Mommy's pillow warm until she came to bed. You know what they say: There's nothing better than a feisty 2-year old on your side of the bed making your pillow hot.
But, she was a mercifully quiet sleeper once I eased into my morsel of space. Until 2:08 a.m. when she started flopping around, throwing blankets around willy nilly. What, oh what, did she possibly need?
A kiss and her duck.
And then she went back to sleep. She kicked me well and good for another 10 minutes, inching closer and more on top of me as she did so. But that enabled me to luxuriate in my second 3-hour stretch of sleep of the night. I was actually expecting less.
And then 5:30 found me up and at 'em with not a drop of coffee (sadly, when one stays in a bed and breakfast, one is often left relying on the whims and caprices of the innkeepers, who compromised with a 7 a.m. breakfast) but a baseball game on the iPad and a favorite magazine in hand.
Oh, what a couple of days it was.
No comments:
Post a Comment