first-world whining

I'm watching Zach and Donovan play outside through the window at my in-laws' house right now.  These trips are always filled with such great highs-- watching Donovan play with his family, getting to "show off" the cute things he does, etc.  For example yesterday a whole bunch of us walked down to the tennis courts at the end of my parents' street and let D ride around on his cousin's old bike, and he was cruising around on that bike (with training wheels) looking like such a grown-up kid and it was just killing me with cuteness and pride in him.

And I guess with all the highs, have to come some lows, too.  I hate to complain, because I love to be here and share this time with loved ones, and it's always so much fun.  But somehow even though we have all this help taking care of D, at the end of the day I still end up feeling even more tired than when we're at home.  Everything is a production, and things always go missing as we shuffle from one house to another.  D has a cold or allergies or something that's been making him miserable a lot of the time this past week (I'm starting to wonder if we should get his ears checked out again), and guess who's the only person in the entire world apparently who can make it better (and thus stop the incessant screaming for "MAMA! MAMAAAAAA!!!")?  Me. It doesn't help that after being spoiled by a good year or more of D going to sleep easily for naps and bedtime, in the past weeks he's started resisting again and I don't really know how to deal with it.  He's been so, so tired since we got here (and thus, very cranky), with all the extra activity all day long, but he's taking shorter naps and resisting them more and it's really starting to wear me out.

I feel like such a spoiled brat for whining.  Here I am, with a beautiful son and a supportive husband, not to mention a huge family that adore Donovan and do so much for him and for all of us.  It feels so good to be here, and so wonderful to watch everyone play with D and see him recognize everyone and start saying their names, etc.  It's just that it's also a lot of work, and I guess this is part of why people complain about the stress of the holidays.

On Tuesday Zach and I leave for San Antonio for a couple of nights, while D stays with the grandparents.  I'm nervous about how it will go, how he'll do without us around for that long.  But, the person who takes a very close 3rd place for D (after his parents), is Papaw so I think he'll be ok, and know he'll be in great hands.  And I think the break will do wonders for me and for Zach.