Sunday, November 25, 2007

Crazy Night

We've been away for Thanksgiving, which is why I haven't posted. We had a wonderful day in Somerville, NJ with almost the whole family (Amy, Roger & Chloe are, of course, in Vienna--you were missed!) and some friends, too. This year we went back to the church hall, which in the past few years had fallen out of favor, but since we were 36 strong this year, it was wisely decided that there would be more room at the hall than in David and Donna's house. The main benefits of the hall are: a restaurant kitchen in which to prepare the giant feast, a gym-like atmosphere for the children to run around like mad things without breaking anything (they even played basketball while the adults enjoyed coffee and talk!)and, for Poppy, the fact of the full bar gives him a job! He loves nothing more than to play bartender to all. People gathered round the bar to talk and laugh, and Julia was doing her "vibrating eyes" trick, which she said was "entertaining the bar folk!"

For the first time EVER, we took a route back to Mom and Dad's house in Brooklyn that allowed us to avoid all traffic. This is a major miracle, for those of you not familiar with holiday traffic patterns in the NY metro area. Susan and Sean have been saying for years that they never hit any traffic on the way back to Brooklyn, and we finally decided to go their way--it worked! It was heavenly. This does involve going out of the way (we take the Holland Tunnel to Manhattan, over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn, then have to drive clear across Brooklyn to Canarsie. The horribly jammed way is much more direct, through Staten Island and over the Verrazano Bridge to the Belt Parkway, a few blocks to Mom and Dad. Susan and Sean live minutes from the Manhattan Bridge, so it makes much more sense for them.) But as I told Matt, I'd prefer driving 20 miles out of the way if we can keep away from traffic jams. (Mom and Dad took the Staten Island way, sat in 45 minutes of traffic, and we still beat them by 15 minutes going the longer way!)

Anyway, this long story is leading somewhere! Emma was the only child to sleep on the way home. (I know, great, huh?) She'd been asleep for around an hour and a half, and given the long day, I didn't think anything of it. I carried her in, and did get into bed with her to snuggle when she woke up. She appeared asleep a few moments later, so I got up and headed into the bathroom. I was startled when she came in.

"I'm ready for breakfast!" she announced sleepily.

"Uh--sweetie, it's the middle of the night," I said, amazed. "Time to sleep."

"No, Mama, I don't think so," she said firmly. "I'm not going to bed!" She plunked down on the bathroom rug, ready for battle.

I won't bore you with all the details, but I went back to bed with her twice, then gave up and left her sitting on the floor. Rachel put her to sleep twice, but she just would wake up when no one was there with her. Finally, at midnight when I was ready to sleep, I simply got into bed with her, and that was it. Guess she just needed someone with her, because she didn't move for the rest of the night.

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