Charleston Day 1: Thursday

On Thursday, we did a blitzkrieg preparation to go on vacation to Charleston, South Carolina, one day earlier than planned. Normally I pack up the family in a well-organized two-day process, but this time did it in about two hours! I had no idea that this historic city is fewer than four hours from our home, so the drive was pretty easy except for some short stretches of Margaret crying.

After dinner at a funkypizza joint--great pizza with olive oil base, golden beets, feta cheese, and bacon!--it was time to get the children to bed.

Except that they couldn't fall asleep.

And thus began a two-hour process, which should have been much shorter based on how tired they were. Our lovely top-floor hotel room had a "park view," which meant that it was overlooking a historic park. The only problem with that view on Thursday night was the event involving a Jumbotron, raucous music, loud movies, and crowds of people drinking beer. The noise transmitted well through the historic glass windows (not exactly modern double-pane jobbers!). The kids were awake. The baby was awake. 

That was when I began feeling that even an Embassy Suites, with its bedroom separate from living room, is getting tight at three kids. I don't see how this will continue to work with a fourth baby. As it was, finally the two kids fell asleep in the bedroom and the baby fell asleep in the living room, but then I could not move a muscle, nor make any noise. So, the two adults sat in the dark silently. 

Now I realize why our various friends have mentioned how nice it is to rent a small, inexpensive house or condo off the beaten path for vacations. Buy grocery food, eat at home, avoid melt-downs of over-exhausted children in a restaurant. Have bedrooms in which children can nap, parents actually get to stay up past 9:00 and talk out loud or have the lights on. Let's just say that now I get it. And after getting one or two hours of sleep that night as well as the toddler being woken countless times, I really, really got it!