We chose Austin because Jacob lives there now, and Mike had never seen Jacob's apartment, and it would be cheap because we could stay at his apartment instead of a hotel (don't forget, we're on a budget, what with Mike starting his new pest control company and all . . . I hate budgets.)
Sunday's drive was just absolutely delightful, minus Shortstack throwing up her oatmeal without warning, unless you count, "my tummy hurts" coming from the backseat like twenty times. (Seriously though, don't judge me. I thought she had to poop!) Turns out she doesn't really process oatmeal and twists and turns and Pop's driving so well. Note to self, "my tummy hurts" means "I'm going to projectile vomit. Be warned."
Once we had pulled over and changed clothes and cleaned up throw-up out of the car seat and let the girls walk around on some entrance to a random ranch, we got back in the car and headed to Austin (without incident I am happy to say.)
We swam and played in the pool at Jacob's apartment (more cheap/free entertainment!) The girls loved it! Shortstack was a little intimidated, but she usually is of everything at first. Nitro, on the other hand, was fearless (as she usually is!) She kept doing this thing I started calling the "death roll" (because it reminded me a lot of what an alligator does when it has chomped its prey and is rolling over and over in the water while it drowns its victim.) I also called it the death roll because it nearly scared me to death everytime she did it without warning. (Did I mention she can't swim?) She's been practicing this move in the bathtub, but it's a lot less scary when she does it in 6 inches of water!
Then Jacob got home from work and we ate burritos and went for a long walk in search of dinosaurs (toddlers are easily manipulated, and we were tired of saying, "don't run in the house, the neighbors downstairs can hear you!") Desparate times call for creative thinking! After they were sufficiently worn out, we gave up our dinosaur search (though we did see some tracks!) and went home to go to bed.
Our napless toddlers, our very grouchy napless toddlers fell asleep at 7:50 p.m. BLISS!
Jacob was gracious and gave us his bed and bedroom for the night, while he slept on the floor in his living room. We put the girls in two pack-n-plays in the bedroom with us.
Two problems with our thinking here.
1. They have grown considerably since they last slept in those, and easily crawled right out of them.
2. Nitro bangs her head all night while sleeping. All night. In the same room with us. On my side of the bed.
I almost lost my mind! At one point, when Nitro finally stopped banging her head, I was just about to doze off and Mike started snoring. OMG!
Finally, I moved Nitro into the bathroom and turned on the bathroom fan (I hear the judgment in your head right now). (PS - Pack-N-Plays don't fit through doors so I had to completely disassemble the stupid thing, in the dark, with a sleeping baby and a half-awake husband who was receiving the brunt of my sleepless frustration!)
Day one of our budget friendly vacation. Over.
Let me give you a couple tips on Budget Friendly Vacations.
1. Stay with a family member
2. Eat their food (note to self: bachelors don't usually have a lot of food)
3. Do free stuff, like swim and go on dinosaur hunts.
4. Rent a movie at the "Green box" (it was green. it was still $1.00!)
Total cost of the day: $30 including gas and a few groceries we had to buy.
All that to say, even though it sounds like a good idea to let your toddlers skip their nap so they'll be really, really sleepy and go right to bed in the strange new place and you won't have to battle them at bedtime, don't fall for it! It's a bad, bad idea! But we still had a fun day. Here's a couple pics! (I forgot my camera so our entire vacation is on my iphone camera! Awesome.)
Nitro exploring the bottom of her shoe while sitting in timeout for jumping in the pool without warning and also without her floaties! Did I mention she is fearless? Jacob was EXACTLY like this! LOL.
Shortstack having some fun times with her Pops.
Dude...Z is the same way...fearless and full of his ability to swim...scary
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