St. Thomas

The trip to St. Thomas went well, all things considered.

It started out rough, but at least that only gave us the ability to improve from there!

We had to be at the airport by 5am on 11/21. We hadn't started packing until 6pm, 11/20.

After a whirlwind of packing, we were finally in bed by 10:30. Since we were so wound up, I didn't fall asleep right away. So, when the Chipmunk woke up at 11pm I was actually thankful that it had happened then, making me think that I wouldn't have to wake up to feed him at some ghastly time of night before we had to wake up at 3:30. Hah hah hah hah....

The Chipmunk finished his bottle and then went straight back to sleep...ahhhhh...for an hour. After that was fuss city. So, I got about 20 minutes of sleep before fuss-fest 2008 started. At about 3am I finally woke Hubby up to deal with the fussy Chipmunk who REFUSED TO SLEEP. Granted, the Chipmunk is hit or miss when it comes to sleeping through the night, but at least he goes straight back to sleep without problems...normally. He must have known something was going on. Anyway, I managed to get another 20 minutes of sleep before I had to wake up and to get ready to go. We woke the Monkey up at 4am to get him ready for when the taxi arrived to take us to the airport.

The taxi was scheduled to arrive at 4:30.

At 4:35 the taxi was still nowhere to be seen.

I called the taxi company, where I was politely told that they were having trouble finding a minivan (all of our stuff and bodies would not have fit into a regular sized taxi).

No problem, I said. Just send two regular sized taxi's but only charge us for one (don't I think quick for someone without any sleep at 4:30 in the morning).

No can do, taxi company said. But, we can get a minivan there in 5 minutes.

Tick Tick tick tick.

5 minutes passed. No minivan. Called taxi company again. It'll be at our house in 2 minutes, but it's not a minivan...doh!

So, I told them to forget about it and we took ourselves to the airport. The reason we wanted to take a taxi was because of the amount of stuff we were taking and getting that stuff into the airport from our parked (in long-term parking) car was going to be near impossible with only two adults, a sleepy 5 year old, and a sleeping in his infant car seat baby.

I say near impossible, but as it turned out it was quite possible. With the help of some guy on his way home from a business trip (thank you thank you).

Anyway, we arrived in the airport huffing and puffing after walking from long-term parking with all of our crap at 5:20. We wait...and wait...for our turn to check in.

After checking in, I run to the security line with the Monkey and the Chipmunk while Hubby is still loading our bags to be weighed.

Security takes forever, but this ok, since now we only have to wait for our group of seats to be called to board...silver lining, right?

At this point the Monkey hasn't had any breakfast (neither have his parents) and the Chipmunk hasn't had anything since that 11pm bottle.

We have no time to get the Monkey fed, but I do have time to get some bottled water to make the Chipmunk's bottle with once we get on the plane.

It turns out that I shouldn't have bothered with the water. The Chipmunk refused to eat anything the whole day.

Oh yeah, did I mention that we were traveling for 18 hours and had to take three planes? Fun times. At least all of our planes left on time and our luggage made it to St. Thomas...see, silver lining.

So, after 18 hours of traveling, after being up all night, with a baby who refused to eat a drop I was exhausted.

Thankfully, Nanny and Pop (Hubby's parent's) were at the airport waiting for us. It was such a relief when we finally got there. And, like I said, things just got better from there.

The reason for going to St. Thomas was for my brother-in-law's wedding, the day before Thanksgiving. The stars must have aligned properly by then because things went perfectly where the Chipmunk was concerned.

After breakfast I think I fed the Chipmunk and then we all went to the beach. Hubby or I played with one or the other of the boy's. Nanny came by and offered to take the Chipmunk for a walk to see if he would take a nap - yes please Nanny. That worked out while Hubby and I took the Monkey for some lunch. After a pretty long lunch we headed back to our spot where the Chipmunk was waking up from his nap, which was good since it was time to get back to the hotel to start getting ready for the wedding.

After feeding the Chipmunk some more he went down for a 3 hour nap!

While the Chipmunk was sleeping, the Monkey played quietly (again, stars aligning) with lego's on his bed and the Hubby and I got ready for the wedding.

15 minutes before we were supposed to the leave for the wedding location, the Chipmunk was still sleeping (!). I woke him up, fed him, changed him, and put him in the car at the precise time we were supposed to be leaving...like I said, the stars aligned.

The wedding went off without too many problems, the main concern being that no sounds were made by my well rested, well fed Chipmunk.

I guess it could have been worse. The trip out to St. Thomas could have gone perfectly and the day of the wedding could have been a disaster. Thankfully, the trip home from St. Thomas actually did go perfectly. The Chipmunk ate 7 ounces every three hours on the dot and slept the entire flight from Dallas to home (on me).

Ahh, if only every day could be that perfect.