I’m trying to venture into the world of automatic posting, bear with me. If this works, it’ll be quite handy when we’re on the road.
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Our trip to New York is coming up FAST, and I’ve got to get the three of us packed up. I’ve made a packing list so we don’t forget anything in our various hotels we’ll be staying in, because I would hate to leave Elise’s monkey in like, Ohio or something. I hammered it out with St. Patrick’s as to when we’ll be there to visit Archbishop Sheen, and we figured out trains and everything like that. Our biggest challenge is to make it through this trip without incurring some serious debt, or wiping our savings.
But what I’ve been most focused with is getting Elise’s napping under control. Somehow, she managed to get in about 5-6 naps a day, and was spending more time either asleep or eating than playing. Her naps were short, too; so she wasn’t getting well rested. Yesterday I cut her naps back from 5-6 to 2 – and it’s worked WONDERS. I’m not rigid when the naps are (as in, she fell asleep today at 9:20 rather than make her stay up until 10am, which is what I originally thought her first nap would be). Yesterday and today, I’ve laid her down when she started rubbing her eyes, and laid down with her. Five minutes later, she’s out. Before, she would need to be rocked and cuddled and we would have terrible issues when we transferred her from our arms to the mattress. But, now she sleeps longer, is more refreshed, and manages to get through at least 1 sleep cycle. 
She does get a little fussy since she’s going longer between naps, but nothing like a major meltdown or anything like that.
I pray this continues when we travel, but if not; that’s okay. We’ll roll with it.
The best part about these two naps, is that I can lay down with her and relax for a little bit; and I’ve been using those two nap times for some quick prayers. It’s obviously not the Divine Office, but it works for me.
I need some breakfast and to start looking at the media portion of this trip – what books to bring, and which podcasts to put on the computer so I can 1) listen to them on my MP3 player and 2) let the whole car listen to them, thanks to the magic of various gadgets.
