Cabin Success

So, our annual Memorial Day trip up to our family’s cabin was a success, to the amazement of everyone present. For the first time ever, my two girls elected to sleep (not nap at all, but you can’t have everything). They seemed to have a better sense of where they were at night, so the strange mountain noises and pine tree shadows didn’t scare them so much. I armed each of them with one of those keychain flashlights, the small push-button kind (shaped like pigs, for their amusement), so any time they felt scared of a shadow or unsure of where they were, they could light up their surroundings and put their little minds at ease. So, aside from the mild distraction of mini flashlights blinking randomly throughout the night, it was fairly peaceful on our side of the loft. Well, on hubby’s and the girls’ side of the loft, as he graciously offered to let me sleep on the twin bed downstairs, away from the girls. That ancient, slab-hard bed gave me the best night’s sleep I’ve had up there in a long time.

Also amazing was how well my new niece, just eight weeks old, did. She really is a very good baby. In three and a half days together, I think I heard her cry, a real full-lung capacity wail, maybe four times, and she was quickly appeased each time. I remember eight weeks marking the pinnacle of fussiness with both of my girls, the point where they’d scream for a good three hours each night no matter what I did to soothe them. This kid has nothing on them.

We took several nice hikes in mild weather (some with the girls, some, blissfully, without), enjoyed bonfire-side chats each night (vacating the cabin for a couple of hours so the girls could fall asleep), we got to watch the girls fawn over their cousin with more adoration than you’d think such self-absorbed creatures could muster, and I even got a little quiet time here and there to read. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve come home from a vacation without needing a vacation to recover. I sure could’ve used the help of a laundress after our return, but that’s beyond wishful thinking.