I'm not sure what happened to Megan the first night. She was very much unlike herself and refused to go to sleep. And what made it even worse was that she decided to scream like crazy to keep herself awake.
My parents were in the room next door and Andrew was bunking with them. I was thankful because we didn't need two kids to go without any sleep. We finally decided around midnight to take her for a ride, hoping that would put her to sleep. We drove forever, but she did finally fall asleep. But when we carried her in, she popped right up ready to start screaming again. And she did. We tried everything to make her happy and nothing was working. William even went to Walmart and bought a DVD player and Barney DVD (her favorite!) but even Barney couldn't calm her down. If we put her in her play yard, she screamed. If we held her, she screamed. If she climbed into her play yard on her own, she screamed. It was so frustrating.
My mom knocked on our door around 3 am to see if she could help. She tried most everything we had already tried, but the screaming would not stop. Finally, around 4:30 am or so, she screamed herself to sleep. Thankfully, we didn't have any neighbors on the other side of us and I'm guessing since we didn't get kicked out, there must not have been anyone across the hall, either.
I'm also guessing this all stems from the fact that both of our kids are creatures of habit, and since I can't even remember the last time Megan slept somewhere other than her own bed, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised she was a little (a lot!) out of sorts.
The next day, we were all kind of dragging our feet. And the weather was cold, wet, and dreary. We decided to do a little shopping and wait to see if there was more rain to come (as predicted). We then decided to go to the park at 3 pm. If you go in after 3 pm, you get to go the next day at no charge (not a big deal for our little family as we all have season passes, but this way my mom and dad could go back in the next day, too).
Andrew had a great time. He decided he wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel, which quickly became his ride of choice this visit. The bumper cars are usually his favorite. Megan enjoyed the kiddie rides she was big enough to ride, too.
After we left the park, we went to dinner and then settled in for the night. And thankfully, that night went MUCH better. Megan laid right down, watched Barney, and went to sleep.
Thursday was my sweet boy's 5th birthday. And we spent it at Dollywood. He was so excited and had a really good time - complete with a birthday funnel cake! The weather was much nicer. Wednesday, we dressed in layers, complete with sweat shirts. And Thursday, Megan wore a tank top! Crazy.
Most of the pictures I took were blurry. I hate my camera. So, I depended on my mom to get some good pictures. I'm sure she did, I just haven't secured a copy of them yet. And that's been holding up this blog entry entirely too long. So, here are a few pictures that turned out okay. Maybe I'll be able to add a few more later. :)
