Just a Routine Update

Well, maybe it's more than that. I just had a few things to touch on, and I needed a name to group them all together, so I called it that. Update 1: Potty Training. Currently at a stand still due to her 'not cooperating' at daycare. I figured it would be okay to wait for a bit. She's only 20 months, right? This brings me to update 2: actually, she is 21 months today, July 16th. Happy 3/4 birthday Caylen! Time is just flyyyying by! Update 3: We are in Pigeon Forge, yay! But not so yay, it is after midnight and I have yet to go to bed. Have I ever mentioned that I am a 10 o'clock-at-the-latest-bedtime kinda person?  I have been told I turn into the Hulk without sleep. Maybe that is why Caylen slept in the bed with me for 9 months? It did greatly improve my amount of sleep, I must say. That's just how I work! Anyway, I tend to ramble (note that all of this is in one paragraph...)when I am overly tired and get my second wind, which I am on currently. The deal is this: Caylen will not sleep on vacation. Never, ever, ever. We just got back from a trip to KY a couple of weeks ago, well not even, and on that said trip she slept nada. None. Zilch. She also, since being in daycare, is always sick on vacation. I am not lying. She is fine up until the first night of vacation and here comes this runny nose, cough, and drainage thing. Same thing every time. She will go to sleep okay, she is thankfully pretty good with transitions after all our moves and instability.... anyway she goes to sleep pretty fast, but then you hear her breathing, and you can tell she is congested, then she sucks some of that back and every few breaths she will have to cough, and this wakes her up. This means that she wakes up crying at least every 30 minutes. Great for the sleep cycle. Not only is the night so frustrating you want to go jump off the nearest cliff but you are too tired to look for it, but also the next day is complete agony. You, your spouse, your baby, are tired and grumpy and no one wants to deal with anything the next day and it takes all you can do to even get through it. So, tonight Brandon and I watched a movie after Caylen went 'to bed' and it wasn't over till 11. We turned the lights for about 2 minutes, then got up to tend to Caylen. I decided then, and I had been thinking of this earlier, that we would not go to bed at all. Unless, that is, she is asleep and no stirring for a good 30 minutes. This is about the best we can hope for. So far, nothing. I have come to a couple more conclusions, though. You all can take note of this and hopefully be able to hold me to my word. or, wordS.
1. We will not go on any overnight stays, with Caylen, anywhere other than our own home until Caylen is over 3 years of age. This means nowhere, folks. Brandon and I have talked alot about this lately and we are both on the same page here and we feel like we are shooting ourselves in the foot for even taking her anywhere overnight.
2. If I feel the urging of wanting another child before Caylen turns the said age of 3, I will attempt to take her somewhere overnight and remind myself of how impossible it would be to have anything more than just her.

Caylen does terribly, horribly bad on vacations. Not just at nighttime either! She screamed her way all through Walmart when we first got here-- I was thoroughly embarrassed at her behavior. We had to scarf our food down at Cracker Barrel whilst picking various objects off the floor that she would throw down while trying to keep her quiet enough as not to cause massive heartburn for anyone and everyone within a 10 mile radius. So, I have concluded that we have been terribly foolish even thinking of vacationing with her.

My parenting style, Attachment parenting, which I try to follow in the way I think is best for our family and for Caylen, talks about how each baby is different and how you can't treat any 2 babies the same. I am a big believer in this, and even though I know most people with a baby Caylen's age do travel, I know that we can't. It's not fair to her for us to put unrealistic expectations on her to act a certain way that she can't handle yet. I can't be too rigid with her, she is just a baby! So, I am just going to have to get realistic here and go with the flow.  Going with the flow is sometimes hard for me because I want things to be predictable and follow a routine, but really I am the one going against the routine and predictability. Experience has shown that 100% of the time Caylen will not sleep while we are on vacation, she will act out 300% more, and she will get sick. So why am I acting like the odds are in favor of her sleeping or otherwise? I tell you why: I like to think that every night she gets a new 'chance' if that makes sense. Tonight could be different and I want to go into it without feeling jaded. However, that really is just blindness! I am blinding myself to the fact that she never sleeps on vacations, so why would she sleep now?

Well, I guess I am done rambling. I just had to sort all this out I guess and restructure my thinking!