This is a long one by my standards… I would have done this blog each day, but didn’t for the obvious reason that we have no idea who really reads our website…
Jay was out of town this week for his first business trip since Leanne was born. It was actually his first business trip since that infamous trip last year when he came home to find out I was pregnant with Leanne, but I digress.

Jay was gone for three whole days and two nights this time. He left at around 5am on Tuesday and returned at 12:30 Friday morning. It was just me and Leanne 24/7 for three days. I was a little nervous about all this alone time. I figured Leanne would grow bored of me by the end of the first day. I figured I was in store for a lot of blank stares and some one off smiles as Leanne is truly a Daddy’s Girl and always saves her best smiles and giggles for Jay.

I am excited to say we had a pretty good few days - just us girls. Not to say we didn’t have our fair share of meltdowns (Leanne, not me). I tried to keep us busy so we weren’t confined to the house. The weather didn’t really cooperate, but we got out nonetheless.

Tuesday (our first full day) Leanne took a great nap in the morning and we spent the afternoon at the mall. I am in the quest for the perfect Christmas Dress for Leanne, so we trecked the mall in search of this. We didn’t find anything, but no worries we still have time. Upon arriving home from our shopping adventure we hung out outside with our neighbor Cindy and her twins Madison and Andrew who are just a few days younger then Leanne. Cindy is always in tune with the neighborhood gossip and filled me in on all the latest in between sharing baby stories. We had another big neighborhood event last Saturday that compares with the murder/arson of 2005, so needless to say there was a fair amount of gossip to be filled in on. After catching up Leanne took another good nap and we went out back to enjoy the weather. Our next door neigbor was out with his dog, so we chatted with him for a while. He and his wife just had a little girl, Emma, (Leanne’s best friend) a few days earlier, so there was a lot of catching up to do there. The rest of the night was pretty quiet. Leanne went to bed with no problems and I had some quiet time. I had my fingers crossed the next two days would go as smoothly.

Wednesday had some glitches. It started out with a short morning nap. The key to Leanne’s happiness (and my sanity) is a long morning nap. Sometimes we can recover from this glitch, sometimes not. Wednesday we never really recovered. After the short nap we headed to the grocery store, then to Gymboree. Had a great time at Gymboree. The babies moved on to another activity this week which consisted of lots of tummy time activities. Leanne enjoyed this. I think her favorite one was the swing. They have this inner-tube suspended and the babies rest their bellies on inside of the tube (you hold them of course) and they swing. This was a big hit and got a lot of big smiles. The rest of Wednesday went okay Leanne never napped for more then an hour, so by 7pm she was quite overtired and getting her to go to sleep was a challenge to say the least. She screamed and screamed and screamed off an on until 8:30 when I decided to give Jay a call to save my sanity. Within two minutes of getting off the phone with him Leanne was out like a light. Jackpot!

Thursday we headed to my dad’s for dinner to break up the day. I had my fingers crossed for a good morning nap, that didn’t happen. I got her to take some one off naps, but nothing significant until the car ride there. She slept for over an hour so I had my fingers crossed that we weren’t in for a night like the previous one. Leanne had a great time visiting with everyone in between her overtired meltdowns and cat naps. We left around 10 pm to come home and she slept until we got home about an hour later. I put her in her car seat in her room to sleep for the night (hopefully). No sooner did I do that and she was up again. I tried soothing her back to sleep, but every single time I would go to put her down she would scream again. I did this for what seemed like 20 times. She would be fast asleep on my shoulder, but as soon as I put her down she would scream bloody murder. Finally within minutes of Jay coming home I finally got her down for the night.

I think we are all a little tired after this business trip. Hopefully tonight will be a better one then last night. I am glad Jay is back home again. It is always nice to have some reinforcement during those tough times and some sanity when we are both losing our minds.