A Weekend with the Cousins

This past weekend we made a quick visit to South Carolina to visit with one of my cousins and her family. This was the first long car trip (~4 hours) and overnight trip we have made since Anna was 7 months old. We left in the morning after breakfast - in the past Anna would take a morning nap during car trips, but since this is no longer her "schedule" she was in need of entertainment for the few 2 hours. We tried out the DVD player which worked for a little while, but Anna was still very antsy in her seat. We decided to stop for an early lunch to let her get out and stretch her legs and fill her belly. This worked great because once we were back in the car, she slept the rest of the way.

My cousin has a 2 1/2 year old daughter who had been asking for Anna to come visit for a several months and so Anna had an immediate playmate.

The next obstacle was going to sleep in the pack n play. Anna has never slept well in it - and acutally doesn't get many opportunities to try. We even planned this trip to one stay one night for fear of not getting any sleep over the weekend. Anna went to bed great with no fussing since she was exhausted, but decided around 11:30pm to start crying out in her sleep every minute. We tried holding her, rubbing her back, putting her in our bed (gasp!), but nothing seemed to work. Around 12:30am Anna was wide awake and ready to play, not good. My husband took over at that point and Anna slept soundly from about 1:30 until time to get up at 7:30pm.

The next morning it was time to play a little longer before we headed home. There was one final obstacle to go. At one point Anna rubbed her cheek on one of the chairs since she was getting tired and her cheek broke out in a rash. We are thinking the rash was a reaction to cat dander. I took Anna upstairs for awhile away from the cat and the rash went away. It was soon time to go for Anna was exhausted and fussy so we loaded up the car and headed for home. Anna was asleep by the time we hit the interstate and slept over 2 hours.

It was nice visiting with my cousin but I have to admit that there's a part of me during every trip that realizes how much easier things would have been if we had just stayed home. I know I can't let obstacles stand in the way of visiting with relatives or taking a vacation, but sometimes I sure would like to :(.