Epic Fail II
We had another comically catastrophic family failure last weekend. Karl was in Switzerland for work last week and wasn't scheduled to get back until 3:30 on Saturday. He e-mailed me on Tuesday, forwarding a message from his friend Brian attaching the itinerary for his wedding weekend and saying the were looking forward to seeing everyone in three days. Three days....the wedding this weekend. The wedding we had on the calendar for next weekend. The one that Karl is supposed to be in, so he can't miss it. Oops.
Though it is theoretically possible to land at Dulles at 3:30 and be in Baltimore in fancy clothes at 5:00, bending the laws of DC-traffic physics didn't seem like it was going to happen for this particular occasion, so Karl did some scrambling and arranged to end his meeting half a day early and get on a Friday flight. We would miss the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but at least we'd be able to get to Baltimore for the wedding with more than seven seconds to spare. We were a little frazzled by the whole prospect because we don't normally screw up stupid things like that, but we decided to try and make a fun weekend of it and planned to take the whole family (including Izzy) to stay in the hotel, then hit the big aquarium on Sunday morning before coming back to DC.
Saturday was a little hectic because I get behind on life when I've been flying solo for a whole week, and we hadn't packed any of the three hundred objects necessary to do an overnight with a child and a dog, and Henry decided to nap an hour later than normal, so we got to the hotel later than we had planned and had approximately 15 minutes to wrestle Henry into his awesome wedding outfit and get ourselves formal-ready. Karl took Izzy outside the hotel to do her business, and when he came back in, I think Henry and I combined were wearing one shirt, one bow tie, one bra, two socks, a pair of tights, three dress shoes, and zero diapers. We made it to the wedding with exactly seven seconds to spare.
The wedding was very nice and Henry was well-behaved by toddler standards. He mostly ran around at the back of the room and pulled the ornaments off the tree in the hotel lobby. The happy couple exchanged vows to the romantic aroma of banana and goldfish crackers. Henry made a lot of friends during cocktail hour and chased the flower girl around the dance floor. You can totally tell who has kids/grandkids and who thinks of themselves as that superior class of people that would never, ever take a toddler to a social function.
We weren't planning to keep Henry out very late but dinner wasn't served until after 8:00. Little guy held out to eat half of my steak and fish, but was fading fast, so I took him back to the hotel around 9:00. I figured that wasn't too bad -- he'd only be down an hour later than normal, and with any luck, he'd let us sleep a little later than normal too. I was so, so wrong. I put him down in the pack-n-play and he screamed bloody murder. We were in a normal-sized hotel room, so there wasn't anywhere I could go so that my presence didn't fuel his rage at being cruelly abandoned like that. Red-faced, angry-pointing, tonsil-showing, ICANSEEYOURIGHTTHEREYOUHORRIBLEWOMAN toddler rage. I let him go like that for fifteen minutes before I caved and got him up. I thought maybe he would be happier cuddled in bed with me. And he was...so happy that he giggled and crawled and rolled around and patted Izzy and flopped on the pillows for TWO FREAKING HOURS. If it hadn't been three hours past his normal bedtime it would have been a delightful experience. I didn't know it was humanly possible for anyone to be both so adorable and so infuriating. At eleven o'clock I gave up and stuck him back in the pack-n-play, and he screamed angry rage at me for ten minutes before collapsing into a sleepy heap.
I fell asleep about two minutes after the screaming stopped. The work I was planning to do after Henry went down most definitely did not get done. Karl wasn't back yet, so I was holding out hope that Henry would sleep extra-late, given that the whole family was having a late night. No such luck. He was up at six o'clock in the morning and feeling super chipper. I, on the other hand, was feeling extremely surly and in no mood to try to find toddler-friendly breakfast at six in the morning. We packed our bags and drove back home, aquarium and family-fun plans be damned.
It was a lot of hassle and very little sleep just to see Henry in a bow tie, but it might have been worth it.
Though it is theoretically possible to land at Dulles at 3:30 and be in Baltimore in fancy clothes at 5:00, bending the laws of DC-traffic physics didn't seem like it was going to happen for this particular occasion, so Karl did some scrambling and arranged to end his meeting half a day early and get on a Friday flight. We would miss the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, but at least we'd be able to get to Baltimore for the wedding with more than seven seconds to spare. We were a little frazzled by the whole prospect because we don't normally screw up stupid things like that, but we decided to try and make a fun weekend of it and planned to take the whole family (including Izzy) to stay in the hotel, then hit the big aquarium on Sunday morning before coming back to DC.
Saturday was a little hectic because I get behind on life when I've been flying solo for a whole week, and we hadn't packed any of the three hundred objects necessary to do an overnight with a child and a dog, and Henry decided to nap an hour later than normal, so we got to the hotel later than we had planned and had approximately 15 minutes to wrestle Henry into his awesome wedding outfit and get ourselves formal-ready. Karl took Izzy outside the hotel to do her business, and when he came back in, I think Henry and I combined were wearing one shirt, one bow tie, one bra, two socks, a pair of tights, three dress shoes, and zero diapers. We made it to the wedding with exactly seven seconds to spare.
The wedding was very nice and Henry was well-behaved by toddler standards. He mostly ran around at the back of the room and pulled the ornaments off the tree in the hotel lobby. The happy couple exchanged vows to the romantic aroma of banana and goldfish crackers. Henry made a lot of friends during cocktail hour and chased the flower girl around the dance floor. You can totally tell who has kids/grandkids and who thinks of themselves as that superior class of people that would never, ever take a toddler to a social function.
We weren't planning to keep Henry out very late but dinner wasn't served until after 8:00. Little guy held out to eat half of my steak and fish, but was fading fast, so I took him back to the hotel around 9:00. I figured that wasn't too bad -- he'd only be down an hour later than normal, and with any luck, he'd let us sleep a little later than normal too. I was so, so wrong. I put him down in the pack-n-play and he screamed bloody murder. We were in a normal-sized hotel room, so there wasn't anywhere I could go so that my presence didn't fuel his rage at being cruelly abandoned like that. Red-faced, angry-pointing, tonsil-showing, ICANSEEYOURIGHTTHEREYOUHORRIBLEWOMAN toddler rage. I let him go like that for fifteen minutes before I caved and got him up. I thought maybe he would be happier cuddled in bed with me. And he was...so happy that he giggled and crawled and rolled around and patted Izzy and flopped on the pillows for TWO FREAKING HOURS. If it hadn't been three hours past his normal bedtime it would have been a delightful experience. I didn't know it was humanly possible for anyone to be both so adorable and so infuriating. At eleven o'clock I gave up and stuck him back in the pack-n-play, and he screamed angry rage at me for ten minutes before collapsing into a sleepy heap.
I fell asleep about two minutes after the screaming stopped. The work I was planning to do after Henry went down most definitely did not get done. Karl wasn't back yet, so I was holding out hope that Henry would sleep extra-late, given that the whole family was having a late night. No such luck. He was up at six o'clock in the morning and feeling super chipper. I, on the other hand, was feeling extremely surly and in no mood to try to find toddler-friendly breakfast at six in the morning. We packed our bags and drove back home, aquarium and family-fun plans be damned.
It was a lot of hassle and very little sleep just to see Henry in a bow tie, but it might have been worth it.
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