Settling In

I think that we (the kids and I) are finally settling into a good rhythem at the lake.  Riley has taken good naps for the past two days. (He slept three and a half hours today!) and is going to bed more easily at night.  He is still waking up at the crack of dawn.  But I feel better able to deal with it.

Megan is sleeping better too and I have gotten her out of my bed, where she insisted on sleeping for most the past week.  We fixed it by putting Riley in the room* with her.  I'm not sure that this is the best long term solution.  When Riley wakes up at night and cries, I'm panicked that Megan will wake up too.  It is bad enough having one child awake at 3 am.  Although I more worried about him waking her up at 5, it is rare that they go back to sleep after a 5 am wake up.

Here are some pictures from this morning:


Later in the morning, I took Megan out to buy Riley a birthday present.  Riley stayed home with my mom and behaved better than expected.  Possibly because he was very, very tired; my mom reported that he fell asleep while eating his lunch.

I enjoyed my time alone with Megan.  I like being able to focus on her and I enjoyed the break from trying to contain Riley the destroyer.  We spend about an hour in the toy store after the gift had been picked out, so Megan could play with the baby dolls and the doll houses and show me the twelve dress-up costumes that she liked best.  Such a different experience that going to a store with Riley in tow.  Those store trips are more like surgical strikes; get in, get the item, pay for it as quickly possible (or decide that whatever it is isn't actually needed or could be ordered on-line), and get out.

But I'm hoping that we can cobble together more one-on-one outings with Megan before we leave.


*Megan's room at the lake is actually a large under the eve storage closet.  When the house was being built, Megan saw it and declared the space to be hers