about our Tennessee trip

I mentioned in my post the other day that Graeme has been on four trips already in his little lifetime. The first three (Atlanta, Florida, Wrightsville Beach) were pretty easy. Well, Atlanta especially didn't phase him at all since he was only five weeks old. Our last trip that we took to Tennessee was probably the hardest on all of us. Don't get me wrong, we had a great time. When we were with family, it was great to have extra help. We all had fun every day. It was just...a little hard. I think it was a combination of things (the age Graeme is at, the fact that we changed locations three times...) that probably caused this trip to be a bit more trying.




We left on a Sunday after church. Graeme had a full tummy, a clean diaper, and he was exhausted. (He always is on Sunday afternoons.)  It was a six hour drive to our first stop at my grandparents', and we were able to drive half of it while he took a long nap. We stopped at a Zaxby's for dinner, got food to-go, and we all ate in the car. We rented an SUV, so Graeme had plenty of room to eat his dinner too.

After this stop, I rode in the back with Graeme and Penny took my seat. Graeme didn't need another nap before bedtime, so it was my job to entertain him for the last three hours of the drive. Thankfully, between toys and music, he was happy the whole way. We did have to pull out the annoying fun light up noisy toys towards the end. I was a little worried about his ears hurting while we were going up the mountains, because mine always hurt really bad. I gave him a pacifier (if you'll remember, we took it away two months ago and only save it for emergencies) just in case. (Spoiler alert:  this wasn't the last time we saw the pacifier this week...many emergencies to come...)

We got to our cabin a little past his bedtime, so he was tired and hungry. After a quick hello to everyone and setting up the pack-n-play, we put him right to bed. Of course, it wasn't that easy. The new surroundings kept him looking around and he is not the biggest fan of the pack-n-play anyway. I try to put him in it for naps sometimes and he plays in it a lot. It's not like he's not familiar with it. But, he is a roller and a mover in his sleep. He spans his whole crib over the course of the night. The pack-n-play is a lot smaller, and he does not enjoy that. 

Anyway, it took him quite awhile to finally fall asleep. Then, enter our first challenge:  every tiny move you made in the cabin made a creak. Every floor board. Every cabinet. The door to the bedroom where we were all sleeping. And the bed right next to the pack-n-play squeaked with the tiniest movement. 

Well, when we went to bed, I knew I was in for a long night. Like I said, Graeme moves SO much in his sleep and makes a bunch of noise. And I guess because of my "mother's intuition" or whatever you call it, I sleep t-e-r-r-i-b-l-y when Graeme is in the same room as us. That's probably why he only lasted about two weeks in our room after he was born before he went straight to his crib. 

Eventually, the squeaks of our bed from us moving in our sleep and him constantly rolling into the side of his pack-n-play woke him up. He ended up in our bed in the middle of the night. And, again, he's a mover and a kicker. Every time I would drift off, I would get a kick in my stomach. Somehow, Aaron slept through all of this madness.

Despite a rocky first night, it was a great day the next day. We went outlet shopping and out to lunch, and then everyone got a good, long nap. Graeme adjusted much better to the cabin the second day, and he went down a lot easier that night.

However, like the night before, his ninja-sleep skills didn't have as much room as they typically do in his roomy crib. He ended up in our bed again. Note the pattern that is occurring.

The next day, we had another fun day. We made a trip to the pool, and you've already read about Graeme meeting all of the cows.

That night, we entered into our second challenge of the trip:  Graeme acquired a terrible stuffed-up nose.

I sucked his nose before bed, but as soon as we laid him down, he sounded awful. He was asleep, but he sounded like he could hardly breathe through his nose at all. This, of course, did wonders for our sleep. 

No.

Graeme woke up three times during the night because of his nose. He doesn't eat in the middle of the night anymore, so I would suck his nose (while he screamed because he hates the snot sucker), and then he would go right back to sleep in our bed. The poor kid didn't feel well at all. At this point, I kind of wished we were going home the next day instead of continuing on. (Not really, but it did cross my mind.)

Wednesday, Graeme was as happy as could be, but his nose was still runny and stuffy. We packed up to head on to Murfreesboro, which was three more hours away. We had to say goodbye to Penny at this point. She stayed behind with my parents and went home with them.

She gets suspicious when we pack suitcases. She was not too happy with us when we left her.

We left in the afternoon at nap time, and Graeme was asleep before we even drove a mile. We couldn't quite make it to our destination without a stop. When we were 45 minutes away from Murfreesboro, we found an exit to pull over. Graeme had slept the whole time so far, thankfully. We stopped for coffee and fed him before we got back in for the last little bit of the drive. He didn't fuss for the rest of the way, but he was not very impressed with any of his toys and seemed to be quite done with the car.

Seriously?

We were invited to stay in the home of the lovely family that hosts the INFUSE retreats. When we arrived, It was about 4:30pm central time. Because we were only going to be there for two nights, we decided to keep Graeme on eastern time. This proved to be a little tricky (mainly because my phone and the retreat schedule said one thing, but my watch and Graeme's schedule said another), but I think it was worth it overall. Since it was 5:30pm to us when we got there that night, we started Graeme's bedtime routine of a bath and pajamas and books.

It was another new surrounding, so I wasn't sure how bedtime would go. 

Well, it went seemingly well right off the bat. Graeme fell asleep during his bottle and laid right down. But, it couldn't be that easy, of course.

He woke up about 30 minutes later with a stuffy nose and then realized he was somewhere strange and in that pesky pack-n-play. It all went downhill from there.

He wouldn't calm down. His breathing still sounded terrible. I wasn't sure if he was also feeling bad with a sore throat or something. I took his temperature to make sure he didn't have a fever. He didn't, but while I was holding the thermometer in there, he peed all over his PJs and the Lovie he was holding. Disaster.

He kept screaming while I changed his PJs and gave him the back-up, identical Lovie. I tried to feed him in case he was still hungry, but that wasn't his trouble. Aaron was in the house (he wasn't neglecting us...he was in the middle of a podcast), and he came to check on us after I had been in there for awhile.

Aaron saw my frantic state and tears and the exhaustion from the previous nights of bad sleep. He sent me to take a break while he held Graeme. He wouldn't let me come back in until I took a shower.

I could hear from the bathroom and Graeme just would not settle down. It was terrible. It was probably the worst bedtime we've had with him.

When I went back in, he was still so upset. I took him from Aaron and he proceeded to spit up all. over. everything. My pajamas. His pajamas. Back-up Lovie. He had worked himself up so much and made himself sick.

Well, now we were just in a real pickle. I changed quickly. I stripped Graeme to a diaper and didn't dare force him into more pajamas. I found a random other little blanket we had  with us that kind of felt like Lovie.

Graeme was basically just crying in his sleep at this point. I laid down with him in the bed, and he finally fell asleep. Aaron made sure I was okay, and then he went back out to work. Graeme and I slept for the rest of the night.

It was an early morning the next day. For some reason, Graeme was up at 6am our time (which was 5am there). He was happy though, so I didn't care. We played in the bedroom with him until it was closer to 7am (6am) and then he ate and we went out to the living room.

He took a great morning nap that day, which I'm sure he needed desperately! I was also able to do a quick load of the laundry that had accumulated the evening before, including Lovies. I'm not sure how we would have survived the rest of the trip without them.

We had a good day and were able to meet up with Aaron and the group for lunch. That night, Aaron had a dinner with everyone at a restaurant. They were going to eat at 5:30pm (so it was 6:30pm for us). Graeme and I, therefore, had to skip out. And that also meant I was up for bedtime duty by myself. Yikes.

Well, it wasn't quite as bad as the night before. There were no bodily fluid mishaps, but he did have a really hard time falling asleep. It didn't help that it was really light outside still, and he's used to his black out curtains. (Oi. We don't do him any favors for when we travel.) This is when, in my desperation, I resorted to the pacifier. He finally stopped crying. He laid there holding Lovie, sucking the paci, and holding my hand until he finally slept. (The sweetness of this entirely made up for everything prior to it.)

He was in our bed again that night, like he had been basically every night of this trip. But, for once, I slept awesome. He did too.

The next day, not much could get me down. It was the day we would start our trip home. I was SO ready. Don't get me wrong, it had been a great trip. But, home definitely sounded sweet.

We went to breakfast with everybody. At this point, it was the last day, and I was all like "Anything goes to make Graeme happy, and we'll deal with whatever the fall out is at home."

Clinging on to his two favorite things and yes, using that pacifier.

We took one last nap in our room at the house, and then packed up the car. The plan was to leave from the restaurant where we were eating dinner that night.

Dinner was great and Graeme had fun "flirting" with all of the ladies across from him. We gave him his bottle and put his pajamas on before we got in the car around 7pm (which was our 8pm...a little past his bedtime, but oh well).

We left Tennessee behind while Graeme drifted off to sleep with no problems. It was a five hour drive to our next stop right outside of Asheville at Ridgecrest Conference Center. The plan was to stop once for gas and that was it.

Thankfully, our plan worked. We stopped for gas after just an hour of driving. Graeme slept through it, and then I took the wheel. I was a bit nervous to drive the freakishly huge Expedition on the curvy mountain roads, but at this point, Graeme had passed Aaron his sickness and Aaron felt awful. The boys slept the rest of the way and I survived the curvy roads.

We rolled into Ridgecrest at 1am and Aaron ran to check us in. Graeme woke up at this point, and he was very quiet and curious as we made our way to our hotel room. Aaron fed him while I took a shower. We didn't even bother with the pack-n-play at this point. Graeme fell right back to sleep in the bed and Aaron and I crashed, finally.

The next morning, we lingered for a bit since it was only another four hours until home. We all took a morning nap, and then left around 11am.

Graeme put up no complaints, but I sure felt bad putting him back in the car.

Here we go, again.

He took an hour nap in the car and then I carefully climbed in the back to play with him until we stopped for lunch. After that, it was the home stretch.

He fell back asleep for his afternoon nap, and we made it home with no other issues.

Home sweet home, indeed.

Graeme's nose persisted for a few more days, but it cleared up and he's great now. Aaron passed the bug along to me, and I'm just now over it. Goodbye sickness.

He didn't have any problems with the pacifier suddenly being gone again, so that was good. It really helped on our trip, and I'm glad I still keep an emergency one in the diaper bag!

I was also nervous about how he would sleep by himself again since he had been in bed with us the whole week, but I think he was just as happy to be back in his crib as we were to have him out of the bed!

For all of the hard parts of the trip, it was still fun. It's crazy how much trips and vacations change once there's a baby to bring along. Of course, it's worth it, but it's almost more difficult to be away from home. I know traveling will get easier and easier as he gets older. Our next big trip is to Disney, so despite whatever hardships it brings, we will be at the happiest place on earth!