I was rehashing Rick and my trip to Knoxville with a friend when I realized there was a whole section of the trip I forgot to mention yesterday. The part where I left a note with a $20 bill for housekeeping when I checked out of my hotel and how I lifted all cell phone curfews from LilZ’s phone as a payback for being the best son ever.
We only stayed in Knoxville two nights but my brother got us a hotel room adjoining his downtown so he could just get up and run in the morning and me and my kids would have plenty room to spread out. I learned the hard way on my trip to Slidell last month that my son does not seem to like the idea of sleeping in my Pack-n-play in the same room as I am. I slept about 8 hours over three nights on our trip to Louisiana and I knew after about an hour that Knoxville wasn’t going to be much better.
Then LilZ asked to give it a try.
NikkiZ and I stayed in my brother’s room while LilZ spent some time getting AndyZ to sleep. After about 20 minutes he came into the room we were in with a look of accomplishment on his face. He had gotten LilZ to sleep and put him back in the pack-n-play successfully…score 10 for the teenage baby whisperer!
After LilZ and NikkiZ and I went to bed that night, only an hour had passed when AndyZ woke up screaming again. As I spent a while struggling trying to get him back to sleep, LilZ kept offering his assistance. My high-school aged son stayed up just as late as I did trying to get my youngest child to sleep. Not because he couldn’t sleep due to the crying, but because he was helping? I am officially the luckiest parent alive.
I found the trick that worked for AndyZ (walking him up and down the hallway outside the room) and used that trick to get him back to sleep successfully twice that night. Allowing me (and LilZ) to get a decent night’s sleep when it was all said and done.
Fast-forward to the next night. AndyZ woke up about midnight and I was attempting the trick from the night before. I got back into bed with a slightly sleepy AndyZ and NikkiZ said, “I think I’m going to throw up.” I just blew her off because I wanted her to stay asleep so I offered her a drink of water. A few seconds later I hear the sound of her puking all over the bed. I panicked and woke up LilZ to take his brother and carried NikkiZ to the bathroom. Although it was too late…she had emptied the contents of her stomach all over the bed.
I felt AWFUL. What was I supposed to do? I made her a pallet on the floor with some spare blankets and I went downstairs with AndyZ and got some more blankets and a laundry bag. I came back up, stripped the bed, put the bedding in the bag and spent the next 3 hours with NikkiZ and AndyZ BOTH AWAKE. It was exhausting. NikkiZ finally crashed about 3:30am and AndyZ passed out about 5am. We left the hotel about 7:30 the next morning and I left a note apologizing profusely to housekeeping, explaining that everything in the laundry bag was contaminated, and left the $20 bill from my wallet as some sort of consolation prize. I would have loved to have left more…I hope the note, the money and the efforts I made to clean up – helped to make the situation not as horrible for them as it could have been. Because cleaning up someone else’s vomit on Christmas Eve? Has got to be the suckiest thing in the world.
So… moral of the story? When your child says they’re going to throw up? Believe them. And also? Reward an awesome teenager. I’ve always had a 10pm curfew on LilZ’s phone so he doesn’t text or talk all night. I took the curfew off until school starts back up because if the housekeeping deserved a note and $20? LilZ deserved a million dollars and a new car.
Feeling much better!