Travels & Schedules

Ok, we're home from Thanksgiving. It was nice to see my family, a good time was had by all. My Mom is amazing. She cooked our delicious meal all by herself. She worked her butt off, and kept a smile on her face the whole time. Plus she thinks Zachary is as cool as I do. Here's my Mom playing the "pee-dano" with Zachary. My little brother's girlfriend, Tey, is in the background. She's a great singer and sang the first Christmas carol of the season. It's a family tradition to sit in the living room after our big meal and listen to my Mom play the piano.

During the long drive to my parent's house and back, some thoughts occurred to me. Zachary is a "schedule" child. That means he eats, naps, and goes to bed around the same time every day. I learned this philosophy from my friend Michele. She has triplets that are 6 months younger than Zachary and a singleton that is a year younger. Her children are on a schedule for her sanity. She is not one of those haggard, stressed out mothers you'll see in wrinkled clothes and dirty hair. She's happy, well rested, and fun to be around. Just like her children. Plus she always looks smashing! But I digress, my thoughts about travelling and a scheduled child came to mind after a discussion on Michele's blog. One detractor of "the schedule" mentioned that the real problem with having a child on a schedule is when you travel the child just falls apart. That certainly isn't the case with Zachary.

Our driving trip to Grandma's was centered around naptime. Halfway there we stopped for lunch. After lunch Zachary usually naps (around 12:30). We were back on the road at 12:20, and this picture was taken at 12:37.

He slept for 2 hours, not his usual three, but enough that he was in good spirits when we arrived. I put him to bed 1/2 hour earlier Wednesday night and he awoke at his usual time Thursday morning. He never did "fall apart" because the only thing different was our location. He doesn't sleep as well away from home as he does at home, but who does? Whenever we travel, and this little guy has travelled a lot in his short lifetime, I maintain our normal schedule and he is just fine. He may miss a nap when we fly, but I compensate by putting him to bed earlier and by the next day he's ready to be back on his schedule. It takes discipline on my part, but having a happy, well rested (& usually well behaved) child is worth the sacrifice.

Enough of that soap box!

We start decorating the house for Christmas tomorrow. I am psyched! There are three houses in the neighborhood that already have lights up, it's crazy! I just love Christmas, on every level. I love the true meaning, of course, but I love all the other merriment that comes this time of year. I LOVE decorating the house. I am a bit eccentric in this area - we normally have 5 trees, but this year I'm adding a mini tree for Zachary's room. That may be a terrible idea, but I won't know until we try it. Zachary has a June birthday, so he's always been the perfect age that I didn't have to worry about ornaments and trees getting pulled down. I do put the more valuable ornaments at the top of the trees, just as a precaution. It usually takes almost a week to get the house completely decorated, but I'll post pictures of my progress. I think Zachary will really get into the spirit this year. Oh, so much fun to be had in the next month! I'm just giddy thinking about it.