On top of that, Abby appears to have carried over her new-found (over vacation) tendency to wake up early (around 6:00 or 6:30), get super-cranky by lunchtime, and nap for 2-3 hours instead of her usual 1-1.5 (after waking up around 9:00). I'm not a fan of this development, and I hope she phases it out once she feels more settled. The long nap time does me no good, having another baby with an entirely different schedule, and leaves me feeling anxious and guilty during what should be my only 2-3 stress-free hours of sleep in the morning, knowing that Tom is trying to get through breakfast with two babies, all on his own.
And breakfast this morning was a doozy (though, since it was late, I was awake for it). As were lunch, dinner, and several points in-between. I'm not sure whether to chalk it up to a necessary adjustment period after our long vacation, or the almond croissant that Tom treated her to this morning on his Wegmans run with her (she's pretty sensitive to sugar and her behavior suffers greatly for it), but Abby was not at all herself today. Every meal became a crisis, every frustration and miscommunication a major catastrophe.
And, especially given how thoroughly this vacation wore me down, even in the midst of it, I am sorely in need of a vacation from my vacation.
Sigh.
No rest for the weary.
But I still managed to upload and edit some pictures from Sunday's visit with Aunt Irene and Uncle John (thank you, Flickr, for actually functioning tonight).
Camera phone pictures again- still working on getting some functioning cameras around here.
Playing with blocks.
I don't have photo documentation, because my phone's camera can't keep up with fast-moving toddlers, but the highlight of the evening, for Abby, was getting to try on the fancy dress she will be wearing as one of the flower girls in Tom's cousin's wedding next month. She looked like a little princess.
And here are some more pictures, taken by Tom (you can see that his phone's camera is better than mine) of blocks and dinner.
And one more from Point Lookout, because I love it: Daddy and daughter.
The trip home, by the way, did not go nearly as smoothly as the trip up, though it could definitely have been worse. We had a rocky start, as we remembered about 30 minutes in that we'd forgotten to give Michael a bottle before leaving, and so had to pull over and do so on the side of the road, prior to getting on a major highway. We managed the rest of the way with just two good-sized stops, and then got stuck in a slow-moving backup on 95 south that turned out to have been caused by an overturned trash truck. Two of four lanes had to be closed. The backup was aggravating, but at least it was not at a stand-still, and we were only stuck in it for about 45 minutes. However, for much of that time, Michael was screaming, as he does not stand for traffic delays. We decided at that point that rather than head straight home, we would spend a couple of hours at my parents' place in Rockville, MD, which was closer, and would allow us to put off getting on 495, surely congested in the throes of the DC area "Rush Hour," which we'd come back just in time to hit. It was a pleasant, quiet dinner, just the four of us (my parents and sister were away for the evening), and an easy drive home from there. The tough part was having to wake up the kids one last time to get them back in bed (Abby was easy to put back down, Michael was not) and unpacking the car in the dark while trying not to let the screen door slam (for fear of waking Michael) and attempting to slip in quickly before the mosquitoes and other bugs could follow.
A tough day it may have been, but no question- it's good to be home.
