Our worst idea EVER

We are currently in Louisville visiting Rich's family for a week. His cousin is getting married on Friday and we took the opportunity to spend time with Rich's family and let Joseph get to know his extended family better. We'd been planning the trip for awhile and debated the best way to travel up here several times. Given the price of flights and the amount of stuff we seem to travel with these days, we opted for driving. Joseph likes sitting in the car for extended periods of time about as much as he likes his vaccinations. As the trip is 6 1/2 - 7 hours, Rich and I came up with this brilliant plan to drive at night. We figured if we headed out around 6 pm, we'd stop around 7:30 pm (Joseph's normal bedtime), go through the whole "goodnight" process in the back of the car, plop him back in his car seat and he'd be off to dreamland for the next 6 hours. We'd arrive around 1 am, which isn't ideal, but better than the thought of driving with a fussing 6 month old in the middle of the day.

So the plan went into action last night. At 7:30 pm we stopped, gave him a bottle, changed him into PJs and rocked him until he was sleepy. He fell asleep pretty quickly in the car seat and we settled in for the long, tedious drive (the fact that we had the radio on so slow we could barely hear it and had to talk in whispers made it even more fun than usual). Everything was going as planned until about 45 minutes later when Joseph wakes up and is fussing. He can't really seem to settle himself into sleep and we decide all the headlights and lights on the highway are the culprit. So I throw a blanket over the seat to darken everything up, which seems to help matters....until Rich decides to say "Do you think its hot under there? What if he suffocates?". Now, if you know me, you know that is all that had to said for me to go into panic mode. So now I am lifting up the blanket every 30 seconds to see if he is still breathing. Even with the blanket, Joseph just can't seem to sleep. He'll drift off for 15-20 minutes, only to wake up and fuss for 20 minutes. We play this little game until about 10:30 pm, when we start to worry that he is just not going to sleep. And if Joseph doesn't sleep....watch out!

So at this point Rich and I are clearly thinking the same thought because suddenly Rich says "What should we do?" and I respond "I am thinking its time for a hotel room". Of course by this time we are in nowhere land Tennessee and our hotel options are few and far between. Finally, around 11:30 pm, we find an exit that has several less than stellar options. Most of them are motels, which freak me out. We finally find a little local hotel that looks bright and clean. Rich checks in and starts pulling out the necessary items from the car (all of which were conveniently located at the very back of the trunk). By some stroke of luck we had decided to bring the Pack N Play at the last minute (even though my mother-in-law has a whole nursery with crib and everything set up at her house) and I am suddenly thankful for my horrible habit of over packing.

Preparing Joseph's night time set up is no easy task. We come packing about 3 monitors and the motion/breathing monitor is no small job to set up. It has to be set up just so and I require Rich to test it a minimum of about 5 times before I am confident it will actually go off if Joseph stops breathing. So Rich goes up to the room to start in on this process while I give Joseph a bottle and try to get him sleeping in my arms. Did I mention its about midnight at this point? Luckily, Joseph falls asleep in my arms and once Rich is done, we bring him in (blanket over his head) and he goes right to sleep in the Pack N Play. As we are putting him down Rich looks at me and says "In the eight years we have been together, this may be the worst idea we have ever had."

Of course, there are like 10,000 things we have to do before we can sleep. I am still breastfeeding (but pumping and bottle feeding Joseph) and its been about 7 hours since I last pumped, so I am feeling it. I get out my pump and I am hovering with the tiniest little light we can manage to get set up to pump. We are in the bathroom trying to put all his milk on ice without making too much noise to wake him up. I could go on and on...but needless to say its straight out of a sitcom. Around 1 am, we finally fall into bed in the clothes we were wearing all day and no brushed teeth or anything. This is highly unusual for me...I have about a 30 minute bedtime routine that I undertake every night and if I don't do every last thing, I usually have a hard time going to sleep. But last night I was way too tired to even worry about it. I guess I am lucky because Rich admitted this morning that if at 1 am, I had started running a bath, he probably would have killed me...or taken the car and left me in rural Tennessee alone...not sure which would have been worse. I should also note that at around 10 pm, Rich had downed the largest can of liquid NoDoz I had ever seen. As I am drifting to sleep he says "I am so hopped up, I can't sleep"...to which I respond "Good, if he wakes up you can deal with him and let me sleep."

Surprisingly, Joseph slept well the rest of the night and tolerated the remaining 3 hours of the trip well today. Rich and I on the other hand, are pretty darned exhausted today. So the moral of the story is...do not travel at night with a 6 month old...it will not end well. We are still trying to figure out our options for the return home, but I can guarantee we will be searching for flights for Christmas.