Over-Stimulation

Today was a whirl of a day, and poor Wendi had enough! The morning began quite normally, but the O'Rourkes were here at 10:00 and we played for about an hour. Both girls had a blast with their cousins, but its always a whirlwind with two extra kids in this little place. Then our two families decided to hit up Ikea...can you say crazy? I don't know what we were thinking going there on a Saturday, you can barely walk through the crowds! The kids handled it quite well, but all were hungry and cranky by the time we left. We went to Champs for dinner (a nice loud restaurant where crabby kids are covered up by sports announcers) and although lunch went well, there were a few post-lunch melt downs. Soph knocked her head on the sidewalk in an attempt to thwart daddy from tying a balloon to her wrist, and the other two began to sob because Hanna lost her balloon to the skies :(

After that, one would think we would have gone home to rest...but instead we drove 2 hours north to a First Birthday Party for Johnny. It was fun, but Wendi had had enough! After about five people trying to hold her (which never lasts longer than two minutes because she just doesn't know what strangers are or what they intend) she melted. She screamed and screamed just at gift opening time (fine timing--I don't really enjoy the gift opening part of parties, except when its my gift their opening, and for this party we hadn't had time to even wrap our gift--it was from Ikea this morning--so ours wasn't in the pile). So we hid in a back bedroom for 20 minutes pacing, nursing, and shushing until she finally passed out in the crib...luckily the house was big enough that no one was too disturbed--Joe said he didn't even know she was crying!

Anyway, she slept the rest of the party, Sophie had a blast playing with Grandma Jeannie, and we all got home safely at the end of the day. I think we better take it easier tomorrow. Although we do have semi-tentative plans to drive into the city and push off naptime for a Packer Game!