Prioritizing

So, I have been lax in posting while on my vacay. Let me tell you a little story.

The Story of Why I Was Not Posting
by Me.

Whenever we travel to Grammy and Grandad’s house, Stinkerbelle takes some time to get acclimatized. She plays shy with everyone, but warms up soon enough. She gets familiar with the house really quickly, enough so that she likes to roam around and asks to climb the stairs and knows where the toys are in the kitchen and runs round and round the kitchen island. And she thinks Grammy and Grandad’s yard and deck are THE GREATEST PLACE IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

But she is not so sure about her bedroom.

The first night, after travelling all day, she takes some time to run off any excess energy and eat and then, generally, crashes. She sleeps pretty hard that first night, waking and crying occasionally, but normally it’s just a bit of fussing and she’s so tired she quickly dozes off again until morning.

The second night is when she is NOT HAPPY WITH THIS ROOM. AT ALL.

Every time we visit, the second night, when she is overtired and overstimulated and just generally wigging out, is a bad night. Sometimes it is the third night, but usually it’s the second. It happened her first Christmas, when she was up all night Christmas Eve, which was, coincidentally, the second or third night we were here. It happened when we drove down. It happened in the Summer of Cold and Discontent when we visited and spent 10 days indoors to avoid the cold and bugs.

And Thursday night? Was no exception.

That Baby crashed early, rocked by her Grammy, and that gave us a great opportunity to enjoy the last of the mild weather and go for a walk, because a storm was due to blow in overnight and into Friday morning. So we took advantage of that, and walked to get our exercise in. It was a beautiful evening, and the snow was only just starting, so we were out for quite a while. We got home and carried Stinkerbelle up to bed, and we sat up and watched a little TV, and then went to bed sometime after 11:30.

Only to have the Second Night Not Sleeping Festivities begin about 15 minutes after we got to sleep.

Stinkerbelle screamed and wailed and cried. She was scared of her new room and the new noises and the new crib. She was only content enough to sleep when she was being held. She fussed and asked for milk and tried to stay up.

She was successful. I got about an hour and a half sleep while BDH spelled me off. But then at around 4:30 her hysteria was reaching a crescendo, and BDH was tired and frazzled to the point of being really upset and so I strongarmed him off to bed. I took That Baby into her room, and calmed her down, and managed to sing her to sleep. And she had worn herself out enough that I was able to get her into her crib without waking sometime around 5:45.

I snuck back to my bedroom and got ready to crash. But then I looked outside.

There was supposed to be a storm coming in. But this was not a storm. It was beautiful.

I looked out at trees in which every branch was absolutely coated in snow. There was fluffy snow covering the ground and the property and the land beyond. It was absolutely still and quiet. It was breathtaking.

I thought for a moment about going out and trying to take some pictures. But I have never tried night-time photography before. And it was pretty chilly in just my jammies, so I would have to get dressed. And I didn’t want to wake the house by going in and out. And, oh yeah, I was not only tired from travelling, but I had been up ALMOST ALL NIGHT.

I chose to go to bed, and would take photos in the morning.

I woke at 9, and got up to get That Baby up and back on schedule. And OMGWTFSTORM!

The storm was in full-on blowy and cold mode outside. Wind whipped in sounding like a freight train. Snow was blowing everywhere. My winter wonderland was gone.

One one hand, I regretted not taking those pictures the night before, but I was glad to have gotten a couple of hours sleep.

The rest of the day, we were hunkered down staying warm and grabbing naps where we could. And then last night, we opted to go up the road and have a little Wii fun with the family. So no photos or posts got done then either.

And then we came home and went to bed and slept hard for a billion. And now it is as cold as a freezing thing that is way below zero so I am staying in where it is warm but I am rested so NOW I can post. YOU — YES YOU — are my top priority today.

Well, you, and some wine and a crackling fire and some doro wat.

Also, I have many pictures.

The End.