Into the Middle of the Vacation Week

I have never been a heavy sleeper and even less so as I age unless my day has been particularly stressful.  Seems that catching a 4-year-old diving from the pools  edge 500 times in an afternoon is not that stressful, because here it is 3:30 in the morning and I am awake and sitting in the living room of our vacation apartment on my PC.  I woke up for no reason and after a brief trip to the bathroom noticed that granddaughter was sleeping sideways with her feet in grandson's stomach.  I gently straightened her out and feeling wide-awake decided not to return to hubby's side and his gentle snores.

Ten minutes ago as I sat here reading blogs, my 6-year-old grandson stumbled bleary-eyed into the room complaining of a bad dream.  I put the laptop on the table and he crawled into my arms.  His sun-browned body is all boney joints and sharp angles but I cuddled for a brief time before carrying the heavy body back to bed and tucking him in.

It is now 5:30 and I am craving some coffee but hesitate to make it afraid the smell might wake up my daughter who is STILL feeding the 4 month old once or twice at night.  She has tried for three weeks to get him to sleep through until early morning and his crying does not abate.  So she has given up on that effort (she is breast feeding).  He starts on cereal soon, so that might allow her to get more sleep.  She returns to work full time this Monday!  When they were talking about how hard pioneer women had to work, I think about how we haven't really changed that effort.  Less physical but now mothers' days are just as long with more stuff to do.

This week has been fun and well-paced and except for the unbearable heat and humidity, a memorable one.  It is always stressful to cram a family with three children and grandparents into a two-bedroom unit, but we have managed to avoid arguments or stonewalling...except on the part of the 4-year-old who's determined spirit may out do us all.

Two more days of swimming, beaching, mini-golf, shuffleboard, walking, eating, board games and DVDs of Barbie, and then I return to the life of the retired and begin to research how that other group of spirited children (those in D.C.) have begun to destroy my carefully planned and saved for retirement.  I glanced at a headline that indicated Wall Street was not thrilled with debt ceiling compromise and has stamped its foot at least once already.