In which my head explodes...

After a much anticipated and more-exhausting-than-expected weekend, I'm battling back a two-day-long headache. A couple dozen different brands of pain killers later, it has finally dulled to a manageable level of pain.

This weekend, we went to an out-of-town wedding, spent the night in a hotel, and then went to my niece's fifth birthday party.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. But I always underestimate the complete horror that is sharing a hotel room with Olivia. She hates hotels. I always think it will get better with age, but it only seems to get worse.

Our first mistake was trying to get her to sleep in the hotel-provided crib instead of hauling our pack-n-play out of the car. Olivia is a sleep roller who prefers to curl up next to the crib bumper for her stationary sleep stages. This doesn't work so well in a crib with metal slats and no bumper. It completely freaked her out. By the time I figured out why she was so hysterical with sobs of exhaustion, it was past midnight. I finally remedied the situation with the pack-n-play, and she slept much better after that.

Despite the sleep deprivation, Olivia did well at the birthday party on Sunday afternoon.

As long as she is fed and/or entertained, she can endure a good long stretch without a nap. But her sleep deprivation was evident when we finally hit the road and she was asleep less than a minute after we left my brother's driveway.

Poor baby.

She has slept nearly 12 hours straight each of the past two nights, and is napping like a champ. So far, she hasn't shown any signs of getting a cold or anything, so we are crossing our fingers and hoping that the combination of exposure to lots of small children and lack of sleep won't lead to illness this time around.

I'm also in recovery mode, although I think my headaches are due to some sort of external factor and just exacerbated by the lack of sleep. It may be the air pressure. We've had some storms come through, and as much as we are (finally) enjoying the rain, I think the change in air pressure gets to me. My husband thinks I have migraines. I'm starting to think he's right.

We acquired three more bags of hand-me-downs from the cousins this weekend. Mostly 2T and 3T, but as we all know, these kids grow faster than we think. Olivia and I sorted and boxed them by size this morning. She absolutely loves when I sort hand-me-downs or laundry because I just dump everything in a pile on the floor and then start sorting it into piles. She likes climbing on top of the piles and inspecting certain items that catch her eye. It keeps her occupied for a good long while.

I'm off to finish some of the laundry before the princess wakes from her royal beauty sleep. I have to get SOMETHING done today, other than napping and feeding the baby.