Summer Vacation, Day 5

Oh wow...gosh...where to begin...we've had quite a 24 hours since the last entry. Stella was a complete wreck last night. Without a doubt, our hardest night with her since she started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks. We're not entirely sure what was wrong with her...we're considering everything from congestion, to new tooth, to ear infection...but something set her off and she couldn't fall asleep, and she just got hysterical. We went in and got her up, something we never do and something we probably shouldn't have done, but I just couldn't deal with hearing her cry like that. We sat with her for a bit, then put her down again and that stuck for probably an hour or so. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but Jen tells me that she went in 3 times over the course of the night. Eventually, she managed to settle her down and we had peace and quiet from 2:00 AM or so on (I think that was the time, again, I can't really remember).

Stella slept in, which was great, and she was still out at 8:30 when...the fire alarm in the building went off! Of all mornings for the fire alarm to go off! And it wasn't just a simple alarm, it was a blaring, horrible sounding alarm with someone making an announcement periodically about reports of an "emergency" in the building, and telling everyone to evacuate. Jen and I scrambled to get ourselves together. Amazingly, Stella seemed to sleep through the chaos for the first minute or so, but then she just completely lost her mind. I went into her room and she was bouncing up and down in the pack & play, shaking her head back and forth and going "no no no no no no". I felt so bad for her. We headed out and walked down 8 flights of stairs with lots of other people. Poor Jen probably didn't have this in mind, being 30 weeks pregnant! Stella did great when we got downstairs and was all excited to see the firetruck, saying over and over "oooooh, wattsthat?". I love when she does that! Anyway, all things considered she did great.

After breakfast, we decided to drive out to Assateague Island, a nearby beach with wild horses that wander the beach. Very odd. We didn't last long there though because Stella was fussy and it was so hot and sunny. She we just drove home and put Stella down. She napped for over 3 hours! She woke up in great spirits and her congestion seemed to be gone. We decided to take a try at mini golf, which was interesting. Stella didn't really seem to get the concept, although she did periodically pick up our balls and put them in the holes for us. Thanks Stella! After that we went out for dinner and then home...We just put Stella down about 15 minutes ago and so far, so good. She fussed for less than a minute, but is quiet now. We're hoping we have a more normal night.

In other news, it looks like we're probably going to come home Friday instead of Saturday, as the remnants of Hurricane Hanna will be hitting the area on Saturday and it doesn't sound like good driving weather, to say the last. Anyway, it was a long and trying night/day, but it ended nicely and the trip overall is going very well!