We got back last night, rather late, and went straight to bed. I’ve still not quite got my bearings again; but I’ve taken today as a day of rest and recuperation. Tomorrow I’ll begin to clean and prepare to host the family Thanksgiving feast.
Evidently Isabella concurs on my agenda for the day. So far she’s done nothing but eat and sleep and wake up for a brief play time and eat and sleep some more. I’ve never seen her sleep so much. She must be completely wiped by her grand adventure.
I have so much to say about our trip, I hardly know where to begin. It was, on the whole, a great success. Next time we travel with Bella, I think I’ll aim to avoid flying during the witching hour of five to seven in the evening. She gets so tired and cranky but can’t really fall asleep.
On Thursday by the time we got settled into the hotel it was 11 and she was very cranky indeed. She had a brief social time after her fit in the car from the airport to the hotel and then she had a complete meltdown, screaming full throttle. She just couldn’t settle down until I’d shooed poor Stephanie out of the room and turned out all the lights. Even then she was too upset to nurse. I had to walk her back and forth making shhshh noises and then couldn’t put her in the portacrib. She had to sleep with me all night and nursed every couple of hours.
The next evening, Stephanie and I were afraid of a repeat and it might have indeed happened that way except that Stephanie had the brilliant idea of covering the crib with a blanket—“like they do for parrots”. It was like magic. I nursed Bella then gave her some cereal. Then turned down the lights, put her in her pajamas and nursed her again while Steph went to hang out in the jacuzzi. Then I put Bella in the crib, covered it with blankets, while feeling a bit foolish. I sat out in the hall, just outside the door, and called Dom. Within minutes the screaming stopped and when I went back in she was sound asleep and stayed that way until 3 or 4 in the morning.
So while I still haven’t solved the problem of getting her to sleep at someone else’s house—we had to leave the after-party at the Houser house Saturday night to put Bella to bed using the same method—still, I have been sucessful at getting her to sleep a good night away from home. Which definitely saved my sanity on this trip.
I’ll write more about the wedding stuff later. Now I need to make a snack while Bella is still out.
