Stroller of Sleeping +8

Ooh, lucky 101st post! Who would have believed we could waste quite so much time :)

Stroller of Sleeping +8

So at the weekend we went to Grant's cousin Anthony's ("oh wait, I mean Alex" - celebrant) wedding in Sydney, which was an exciting occasion but involved a two-hour car trip each way, a late night wedding reception, an overnight stay at a hotel, and a long yum cha the next day, all of which would have been frankly inconceivable adventures with Beth a month ago. So I was slightly anxious about the whole shebang.

But I needn't have worried. Post-babywrangler Beth is a whole different baby. She slept half of the trip down and all of the trip back, waking up only when we drove in the driveway; she slept through the wedding itself in her stroller and more amazingly still slept for almost three hours in a really, really noisy reception, waking only after the dessert course to say hello to the family members present and be a bit weirded out by the noise volume of the Brazilian dancers. It was lovely. All of the people who are usually giving us veiled advice about baby sleeping were instead admiring the Most Awesome Sleeping Baby Ever. I was kind of smug about this because Beth was outsleeping the crap out of the other baby present, who was a Strict Routine child. EAT THAT STRICT ROUTINES! Anyway, this epic snooze was also in her stroller. She then went on to sleep in it for two hours the next day during yum cha, waking at the end of proceedings just in time to smile endearingly at all present.

Clearly the stroller has magical powers, so I am thinking of either buying three more strollers of the same kind (see above for actual real stroller of sleeping) just in case or possibly having this one bronzed in memory of the occasion. I am so so glad Grant's sister encouraged me to give the stroller sleep a whirl weeks ago, because it is FREEDOM, BABY, YEAH!

The only glitch in the whole thing really was the hotel sleep. Beth was reluctant to sleep in the portacot and made this clear. It probably would have been fine within a few minutes, but we didn't want to wake anyone so caved and let her sleep in our bed. Fortunately our bed was HUUUUUUUUGE and she was pretty happy once she got her mummy and daddy cuddles.

She really was an absolute champ all weekend. She couldn't have done much better if she had set out to help my recovery from the Horrific Sydney Trip of March 2008, which included unexplained screaming, nappy blowouts, puking on a train and a few emotional breakdowns at my end, and put me off travelling any further than Charlestown for months. In fact I was so impressed with her terrific attitude all weekend that I felt the need to buy every toy in IKEA for her. She now has sufficient toys to require a box for same. And some of them aren't even improving wooden toys. Some of them are PLASTIC.

In short: awesome weekend. We saw family, we saw friends, and Beth made all and sundry fall in love with her. As they should. No photos - we were too busy having a great time!