Our new life begins.....

So, our new life as New Jerseyans (not New Jerseyers as I thought....) has begun.
After a few hectic days we finally hit the road around 9 pm on Wednesday, September 5th. It was our intention of driving through the night with the hope that the boys would sleep most of the way. Based on their history, we didn't have high hopes. Actually, I doubted their sleep performance so much that I drugged them. Seriously. I slipped half a tablet of Dramamine in a spoonful of icecream.

James and I were quite anxious to cross the border. We had already spent a total of 5.5 hours in customs getting our VISAs in order. Apparently that time paid off because the customs officer looked at our passports, asked where we were headed, what line of work James was in and he told us to have a safe trip. Easy as that. We were ecstatic. Now it was 9:30.
By 10/10:30 both boys were asleep. As always Stellan was the first to conk out. Jameson, bored by the fact that his little buddy had fallen asleep, decided to give into dreamland as well. James and I were so pleased. We hoped they'd be out for about 9 hours. Yeah right...

We pulled over at 3 am to get gas. Both boys woke up and were as chipper as if they had slept through the night. Sheesh! I wanted to be upset and wish them back to sleep but they were just so happy to be awake when it was dark. So much so that they decided to enjoy it until 5 am. The joy wore off and the sleepiness took over. They became quite cranky and finally dozed off again by 5:30. I was quite tired by this point (James too, he was doing all the driving). The three of us (not including James, obviously) had a bit of a nap. We were all awake again by 7 am as we were nearing our final destination, the Residence Inn. We pulled in at 7:30.

We checked in, got into our room, complained about the room, got into the next room and then grabbed some breakfast. (My biggest complaint, very legit I must say, was that the safety lock at the top of the door was broken. That lock is the only one that my boys cannot reach therefore it is the only lock that keeps them in the room. See...very legit!) After breakfast we all went to bed. We decided against putting the boys in the same room for this nap since they play rather than sleep when they are together. I slept with Stellan and James slept with Jameson. Poor James, Jameson just didn't want to sleep. We were all awake (willingly or otherwise) by noon.

We made it through the day but we were all quite grumpy. Not a very good combination. The boys were in bed by 7. They were sharing a room so that means they weren't asleep until after 8. In that hour that it took them to fall asleep, Stellan learned how to get out of his playpen. Thankfully Jameson is a tattle taler (is that a word?) still and quickly informed me of Stellan's escapade. I found Stellan on the bed with Jameson, smiling from ear to ear. I promptly put him back to bed with harsh words to go to sleep. A short while later Stellan opened the bedroom door, stuck his head out, smiled and said, "Hi mommy". Little stinker. If he wasn't so cute it would be a lot easier to get upset. I just wanted to laugh. More warnings were issued and he was sent back to bed. He wasn't in the mood to heed those warnings so within minutes he was out again and turning the lights on and off. Lights have been his lifelong obsession so he is quite thrilled that there is a switch within his reach. This was irritating Jameson so he tattled again. At this point I returned Stellan to bed and stayed in the room for a bit. Stellan pretended to be a sleep and Jameson promised to "sleep well" because he knew he's lose his train whistle if he didn't. As soon as I left the party started again. Finally James has to lie in bed with Jameson in order to get the boys to sleep. Jameson was quite upset this morning when he realized he didn't get his whistle. I think it was a sacrifice he was willing to make though.

We all woke up in much better spirits and started our day. That's for the next blog...