86'n It

We spent the last 6 days sharing a beach house in Charleston with friends. It was our 8th annual trip and it was a blast. Possibly more highs and lows this year than any other, but so goes life with a 2.5 year old.

The highs and lows are best summed up by Saturday's events:

The morning started off finding a some rare starfish on the beach, then chasing dolphins in the ocean in a kayak. Immediately after I found a huge live conch in the surf.


Lunch was 5 different kinds of wings and nachos. All homemade by someone other than me. (I love being cooked for!)

Then, Franca fell asleep effortlessly on the beach and I relaxed, read a funny memoir, and chatted with friends for over 2 hours. What alternate life is this??

Dinner and evening were fun until Franca's bedtime fiasco during which she refused to sleep until 11:30pm despite all the usual tricks, a stroller ride on the beach, and a Mexican standoff of purple face 'I don't want to go in my bed' crying during which I put her back into bed 11 times and cried myself.

I *might* have joked about throwing her out a window. Not my proudest moment. The night was only made worst by my increasingly bad restless leg syndrome which resulted in 2 hours of sleep the for whole night. More crying.

Parenthood. Pregnancy. Hurrah!

Just goes to show how high the highs were to overcome those lows, right? Dolphin chasing: Magical. Sitting on the beach for two hours: refreshing. Crying: sucksville.

Coming home to a cold, rainy Asheville was hard and coming home to a house under constant renovation is always a bit of a slap in the face.

Good news is Night One of sleep retraining wasn't too horrible. She was asleep in her own bed before 9:30pm.

I'm already dreaming of next year's trip and more kayak time.