Falling

I am typing this from the hotel lobby at 10:45 in the morning. Julie is in the room, convinced that she can do what I failed to do an hour ago: get Lyla down for her morning nap. It seems to be a theme with the last couple posts, that the key to maintaining sanity while vacationing with an infant is making sure she sleeps.

If we're home, I'm a pro. I put Lyla in her crib, give her a high-five and a kiss, remind her that Daddy loves her, and leave. Away from home, I can only get her about 80% of the way to sleep, which anyone knows is the worst possible state for an infant to remain in for long. For some reason, I can't close the deal.

Julie can. She rocks Lyla as only a mother can. She sings to her from her tiny repertoire of songs. (My favorite Julie quote from two days ago: "Man! I sang Silent Night, Joy to the World, and Fifty Nifty United States, and she finally fell asleep.")

I'm afraid we're undoing the months we spent establishing Lyla's sleep routine. We put her to bed at the cabin just after dinner, then wake her up and bring her back to the hotel and put her to bed again. We struggle to get her to nap on the beach. I guess you could argue that we're effectively preparing Lyla to one day survive with an obnoxious college roommate. Or you could argue that we don't know what the hell we're doing.

Well, it's now 11:07, and I have no idea what's going on upstairs in our room. The cabin and the beach and the family await us, but we won't leave until Lyla gets her morning nap. Hopefully Julie is working her Jedi magic. I guess I'll just sit here in the lobby and wait for her to text me. A maid is vacuuming around me. In a minute I suspect she'll ask me to lift my feet.

A little later:


She did it. Amazing.