A merry, sleep-deprived Christmas

When we ran the numbers for this year's Christmas trip, it looked like driving to Chicago came out well over $1200 ahead of flying: figure saving the cost of three plane tickets, baggage fees, and a week of car rental, plus the less-quantifiable but still significant benefits of avoiding multiple shuttles, car rental facilities/parking lots, security lines, and O'Hare, and having our own strollers, car seats, etc.  So, even though it was going to take two days to drive, we geared up for our first major family road trip.  It went pretty well, considering!  We made it to St. Edward, MO on the first day, having stopped about four times to stretch legs, eat, and change diapers/get gas.  Neither boy was thrilled with being in the car so long, but Michael liked his new toys and we managed to save breaking out the DVD player until late afternoon.  Fortunately, the driving was smooth all day.  That night was rough, though, because Michael flipped out about sleeping in the pack-n-play at the hotel -- major meltdown.  It was not very restful trying to sleep with him!

Day 2 was more challenging.  We were lucky there wasn't much traffic on the roads, even driving through St. Louis, and we stopped for a nice lunch at Cracker Barrel.  Michael sat in the kid-sized rocking chair, arranged some checkers carefully around the outside of a checker board, and tried to make snowballs outside.  We should have made it to Chicago by 4:30, even with snow, but for at least 100 miles in southern Illinois, there appeared to be no snow plows.  You'd think these might be important to have, but apparently not.  We were delayed at least two hours because of having to crawl through the snow single-file at 40 miles an hour for what felt like forever.  We finally made it to Bolingbrook and enjoyed a few hours of time with Grandpa.  ("Tah-pah" is what Michael calls him ... we could not figure out what in the world he was doing, as he kept touching his forehead and saying this half the trip, until finally we realized, when he saw Mr. Lawler and did the same thing, that he was trying to do the sign for grandpa.  Sweet :)  Mike and I loved Mr. Lawler's chili and ice cream with fudge for dessert, and Michael just had fun spinning in circles and running back and forth between the couches.  Free at last!

....Which brings us to Night 2, Christmas Eve, in which we got no sleep again.  Poor Michael, who eats pretty much everything we do with no problems, reacted badly to the chili.  We were up with him a few hours in the middle of the night as all that came back up.  (Yuck.)  He was so tired he didn't wake up early like normal, and Mike's alarm didn't go off for some reason, so getting to Mass was a hectic affair!  We were late but everything went really nicely (even though I personally was even *more* late because Malcolm needed another diaper change as soon as we arrived) -- a beautiful, quiet Mass that I was very grateful for.  Back at home we opened Christmas presents and had a wonderful time.  Dan and Kelly announced that they were engaged!  Everyone was surprised to hear the news, and more surprised that they had managed to keep it quiet all morning long!  :)  We are very happy for them.

Later in the day we headed to South Bend for more Lawler family time.  It was great to see everyone and meet some of the newest second cousins.  All of the great-grandchildren on this side are girls except for Michael and Malcolm, and four of the little girls were born this year, so there were lots of babies around!  Michael again had a great time with his cousins, although he was still having a lot of tummy problems.  So Night 3 turned out to also be tough because he was really hot and feeling sick all night.  (Notice I haven't said anything about Malcolm sleep issues?  He sleeps like a champ ... I don't even count waking up with him multiple times a night to eat because I pretty much sleep through those myself :)  I kept waking up to check on him when he would cry a little :(  Nothing was open, so we had to wait until after Mass today to get him some Tylenol.  (This morning we went to Mass at Ss. Peter and Paul in Naperville, which we really like; this morning I appreciated a great reflection on the Holy Family relating to today's readings.)  Fortunately, after three challenging nights, Michael seems to be back to himself .... which is why I should get some sleep!!  Good night, and Merry Christmas!

ETA: So much for that.  Malcolm and I are now sick.  Ugh.