All is Calm

Ah, another holiday season has come and gone. As usual, MLW and I drug the mini-BG through three states in order to visit our families. Fortunately, I took some extra time off this year, so we were able to have a day that didn't require driving.

The routine has changed somewhat in the last couple years, and I'm now trying to view these excursions as yet another in my long list of reasons why I never plan on getting divorced--I'd prefer that the mini-BG not have to go through the additional hassle of trying to get all the relatives within the space of three or four days.

Again, the relatives didn't go completely apeshit on the Beach Ghostlette, for which MLW and I were both very grateful. I figure we've got another year, maybe two, before she truly begins to understand the true meaning of getting gifts. Although, truth be told, I'm looking forward to dreaming up complex shell games to perpetuate Santa's existance (hopefully she won't discover this 'blog before she realizes the "truth").

New Year's, on the other hand, was probably a trip we shouldn't have taken. We went to visit an Aunt who's about a 4+ hour drive from us. We'd planned to leave by mid-afternoon, but instead hit the road after 6. The baby dozed briefly in the car, but was pretty much awake the rest of the way. By the time we arrived, it was after 11.

Then the fun started. The mini-BG generally goes to bed between 8:30 and 9:30, and is almost always asleep before her play aquarium has finished playing its calming music. That night, however, she had gone right past sleepy and into the realm of the overtired. We put her down and the wailing began. We both went in to soothe her, which of course is one of the things that you just do not do. By the time she finally succumbed to sleep, it was about 1 a.m.

When we woke on the day of New Year's Eve, it was clear that the baby had caught something. She was generally lethargic, and had a wet cough. The cough subsided as the day progressed, but the lethargy--and the fussiness that accompanied it--did not. We ended up ringing in the New Year in a quiet fashion, each of us reading a book, the baby doped up on Children's Tylenol and my aunt and her beau still at the dinner party we were forced to leave early.

The Beach Ghostlette showed signs of improvement on Sunday, and was pretty much her delightful self by the time we got back on the road Monday morning. Again, she was awake the majority of the ride, and providing constant entertainment in a confined space was as taxing in a car as it was in an airplane.

By the time the work week started, all of us were sick to one degree or another. But that seems to be going around. Perhaps the avian flu has made it here already?

Cheerful thoughts, no?

I'll end on an up note: regardless of how I portrayed it, it was good to see folks during the holidays--heck, I wish that we could have spent more time with some of them. And while there was a lot of travel, there were also time for quiet.

Plus, Santa dropped off some of the items from my wish list. Like this little light-hearted affair, which I'm off to read now: