Meeting Erin

This past weekend, Albert and Erin came out to California. Erin was coming out to meet our parents, so we all got together on Saturday for lunch. We brought with us the superyard, the set of foam interlocking letters that we use on the floor, and a bag of toys. While we were eating, the girls were in my parents’ family room on the letters, playing with their toys, and fenced in. They did okay for quite some time, but towards the end of lunch, they started calling for us.

We all played with them for a little bit. Miranda seemed to especially like Erin’s curly hair.

A little later, when Eleanor started getting tired, we put her into a Pack n Play that we also brought with us (there’s a reason we bought a minivan…). Miranda wasn’t tired because she slept on our drive. Eleanor didn’t want to sleep though–she just sat up and cried. And cried and cried. Normally, when we put Eleanor down for a nap, she cries for a bit, but we ignore her and she goes to sleep. She didn’t this time. She got all drenched in sweat and everyone sat around looking at Agnes and me a little uncomfortably. We went to get Eleanor and we pretty much packed up everything and left soon after that. We have two theories on why Eleanor didn’t sleep:

• The Pack n Play is unfamiliar to Eleanor as a place to take a nap. The girls haven’t stayed with Agnes’ parents overnight for quite some time and so she hasn’t been in the Pack n Play for a while
• The Pack n Play was set up in a spot where she could still see some of us. Our guess is that if she can see someone, she will keep on trying to get that person to come over to pick her up, instead of going to sleep. We’ve seen this happen when we put her in her crib and then stand around where she can see us.

The second theory is most likely correct. We just hope we didn’t come across as mean to our kids for letting Eleanor cry so long.

Erin and Albert came to stay with us on Monday night so they could catch an early flight out of LAX. Unfortunately, we also had a friend flying in from Singapore and we met up with him for dinner. By the time we got home, it was past our girls’ bedtime, so Erin and Albert had only a little bit of time with the girls before they were ready for bed.

We enjoyed meeting Erin, but we had so little time to spend with the two of them. Hopefully we’ll see more of the two of them soon.