We are at my in-laws today. We arrived yesterday and spent the night. They live out of state from us. Just over a 2 hour drive. We usually visit and drive back home the same day. In all reality since Jack has been born they visit us more and make the over 4 hour commute both ways.

There is a reason for that. If you have read about Jack through my posts you will find that he is a really laid back, energetic, easy going, happy kid. He usually sleeps until 10am or later. We don’t really have a rigid routine. We have a “theme” as I call it. We tend to do similar things each day, but we are flexible with times and events. He is even fine if he has to eat breakfast in the car on the way to a class. On Thanksgiving he did not take a nap at all. He didn’t have a melt down. He didn’t even whine once. He was super happy. We are lucky.

There is one thing  he is persnickety about. He does not like to sleep anywhere but his own crib in his own room. He will doze of in the car occasionally  but that is it. It takes him a while usually to even fall asleep there. He has been in his crib in his room since the day after we brought him home. He HATED sleeping in the pack n play in our room. He would scream bloody murder as soon as we put him down. If we put him in his crib we could at least get 45 minutes of sleep at a time.

We have only gone over night places 3 times before this weekend. All ending with very tired nights. It has been over a year since the last time we went overnight somewhere.

This was Jason’s brilliant idea. He said that Jack would be fine. He is older now. Other people also chimed in and said the same thing to me. I just kept saying “he hates the pack n play. He only likes his crib. This is going to end badly, but ok, we can try.” I was right. Last night we were up until 3am. 3 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING! We even tried bringing the pack n play in to the room with us, instead of him upstairs in an extra bed room. He gets terrified in it. It isn’t a bratty cry/pout. He got this terrified look on his face, begging for me. I can’t leave him in a strange dark room when he is like that. I am not that kind of mom. We tried in bed with us. He was hyper like he drank a triple shot espresso from Starbucks. He didn’t of course, but he could not unwind. Jason even took him in the car and drove around for over a half hour. As soon as he put him in the pack n play, next to me mind you, he was screaming. We watched the entire length of Cars. After that we said night night and said he had to settle down. It was 3am. He dozed off shortly after, next to me. Thankfully. It took a ton of work, and it was a long night.

I have this pesky internal clock that tends to wake me up at 7:30 the latest every day. So that happened. I was able to doze in and out of sleep until 8:30, then I was wide awake and gave up around 9. I am going to suffer today. That is certain.

Around 1am Jason said I was right. He would never not listen to me again regarding Jack’s habits. The thing is, I know my son. I really know him well. I cannot think of one instance where I have predicted what he will do and I have been wrong. Not one. No one ever listens to me though. We always end up with something like this happening or him having a fit over ice cream, or spitting out the carrots, even though he asked for one. That child and I are intertwined. I can predict most everything he is going to do. He is my entire world. I knew this is how the night would go. I probably could have predicted it play by play if I had sat down and wrote it out! Sadly, I was right. I am not happy that I am super exhausted and still slightly sick. It was exhausting last night. A ton of work. But my momma heart couldn’t let him cry it out. I have never been good at that. I do know when he is playing me and when he is genuinely frightened or something is wrong. If we were at home, at a certain point I would have likely said ok honey you need to go in your bed and just go to sleep. He doesnt get that scared look at home, here it was different. So I soldiered on. I actually kept my patience intact. Jason was a little more frustrated than me, but he did well overall. I think I was just kind of in, “I told you so” mode. It kept the frustration at bay. If you would have listened to me….we could have all be in our home in our own comfy beds, sleeping peacefully.

It has passed. We go home today. If that wasn’t the original plan, it would have certainly changed to it after last night. But it was the original plan. We were thinking of going to South Carolina in the later summer. Jason’s sister is due July 6th with our 2nd niece or nephew!!! We wanted to go see that sweet little babe, but Jason officially canceled our ROAD TRIP (can you imagine?!!?) as of last night. I smugly pointed out that moving to a new home in a couple months should be a blast! My only hope there is the fact that his actual crib will be involved. We can decorate the room almost exactly like his current bedroom. I will paint the damn walls the same two shades of blue myself, if I have to! So no vacation until we can start explaining over night trips to him. Right now, as a near two year old, he has no concept of that.

He is lucky he is cute though, that is all I have to say about that. This was this morning around 8:30. I do love this little smooshy face!