Hotel Stays with Children

I think that I may still be twitching a tiny bit after having spent two nights in a hotel with my three kids and my husband. I believe that I was unable to post about it yesterday because I may have blocked it out. But remembered abruptly when last night while I was dreaming I sat straight up in bed and yelled at everyone in the family. I don't think that I was screaming obscenities, but pretty sure that Jamie may have gotten a few whacks from my flailing arms.

Hotel stays with children should only be done in a suite where you can lock them in on one side, and relax and watch your finale of "Rock of Love" on the other. Otherwise you are telling them to shhhh, and oh wait put your head under the pillow, I think you shouldn't see this part. (no, really I am just kidding...kind of.)

We stayed all five of us in a hotel on Sunday night when we were on our way to NC. Somehow the thought of this sounded fine...OH yeah, the girls can sleep in one bed and Henry can get a roll away, and we can have the other bed...sounds OK right? Well yes, if you are not cheap like we are.

In our search for the cheapest possible hotel room that would not leave us with bed bug welts and unnamed DNA in our beds, we found a place. It actually was a fairly a decent place; however, because of our cheapness, we had two double beds.

Hmmmm, my husband is 6'4"...let me tell you, he doesn't FIT in a double bed...at least not the way that he should. So he lays down diagonally on the bed, and because of his tiredness and allergies, begins to snore. And we aren't talking just the little snorting now and again, or even the rhythmic big bird type of snore. We are talking b-52 bomber landing on my head snoring. So I am curled up in this little ball in the one corner of the bed that my husband is not inhabiting, trying to drown out the jet engine burning next to me, wondering how in the world the kids are sleeping...but they are, to some extent.

Exhausted, I concentrate on going to sleep...this was not the time that I needed to find out that my 2 year old son...talks in his sleep. Being true to his two years of experience, I was jerked awake periodically in the night to "NO IT IS MINE" and "STOP TAKING THAT FROM ME"

Which really wasn't that bad until the teeth grinder joined with her addition to this hellish concert I was being given... not long after that the lip smacker started her serenade. So imagine the chorus that I was trying to sleep to. It was about 4:30 in the morning when I delivered the final blow to my husbands midsection, that I finally fell asleep.

The four of them awoke clearly refreshed for a day full of activity while I was trying to pry my eyes open with my hands which I couldn't seem to function on such little sleep. I tried to just keep my eyes shut and stay very still so that I would be undetected...like a wild animal trying to avoid the kill. This lasted about two seconds, then the girls started fighting over the TV remote and my two year old jumped on my head.

My husband still is wondering what my "crabby ass problem was." And I am pretty sure that my kids are still flinching when I make quick movements around them!* But I have now learned an important lesson...We created houses with more than one room for lots of reasons, not the least of which is, there are some crazy ass sleepers out there. And I have now decided that I will never again, unless I bring Valium for the kids, a muzzle for my husband, and bourbon and a sledge hammer for me, spend the night all of us in one room.**

So I learned my lesson, and I am hoping that getting it out on paper will prevent me from having further night terrors of my nights in the hotels. But I am still twitching a little!




*No need to file any reports, I did not beat them. I didn't say I didn't think about it, I just didn't do it...see how mature and restrained I am?

**Of course I know that this really is not a promise that I can keep, but I can stand on my mountain today damn it!