Vive la toddler.

As anyone might have guessed by the eerie silence and cobwebs collecting on my blog, yes we did make it to Southern France. It's true, there are times where I believed you might be hearing from me sooner as we had many conversations about cutting out early, but I'm glad we stayed and now we can tick it off the Captain's "you never take me anywhere" list. He even has a new t-shirt to prove it.

I suppose I should back up a minute, however. By the day we left, I was aching and miserable and the Captain had broken out in a full body rash. The road trip, which began at noon and ended at around 7pm, was pretty much what we expected. Dad grumpily driving the whole trip because I never developed the love for the standard transmission, the Captain only conking out for about a 50 minute nap, Mediocre Mama whaling out choruses of "William Wants a Doll" and "Doe a Deer." Probably about 2 hours of serious whining total. We actually felt lucky.

We arrive at the domaine and it is exactly as explained, a beautiful 9th century domaine with former monastery and all the death traps you could desire for your toddler. You can check out the vitals here with photos. The Dad and I were given a cozy little room with single beds we shoved together with blankets in between for the inevitable hopping into bed the young Captain would be doing. Of all the travel missteps, sleeping fell #1 on the list.

As a rule, the Dad and I do not let Captain Kid sleep in our bed. We've seen the pitfalls and though we know many who swear by it, it's just not our style. The one and only exception to said rule is during travel, mostly because he ALWAYS wakes up in the middle of the night and enjoys the novelty of going, "Hey, isn't that Mediocre Mama and Deviant Dad lying there? Perhaps I'll scream my head off and they will feel embarrassed enough by the noise to let me into bed." And so, we felt doubly embarrassed when he did it in the middle of the night with our gracious hosts next door, so he slept with us for much of the trip. All of which wouldn't matter so much, except his sleep habits are looking more and more like the WWF these days, complete with jumping on top of us, lunging off the bed, and full on kicking that I'm not even sure he's awake for. Thus, I ended the trip with bruises up my rib cage and on my chin.

What's worse, of course, is that his usual 11-12 hours of sleep a night was looking more like 6 or 7 in his strange environs, making him crabby and more surly than usual. Which wouldn't be a problem, but for the fact that the word "no" sent him into perpetual tantrums, a little bit more dangerous in a 9th century domaine with lots of stone floors and rough edges. One morning we declared it was breakfast time, cooked for him, and he decreed that he wanted to go "out side" (more on that in tomorrow's exciting post). So we obliged, went outside for his breakfast when he re-affirmed "out side" and pointed to the grass and pool." We said, "No, breakfast first." And so began the hour and a half long temper tantrum that only ended when we shoved him back into bed and he passed out for the next 3 hours. As it turns out, other locations in a 9th century domaine that, as a rule, are not good for toddler tantrums include treacherous staircases with a sundial strategically placed at the bottom of the staircase, sort of acting like a spear if you had a really bad fall, next to a pool with no fence, on the ledge overlooking the vineyards with about a 10 foot drop off, and generally in close proximity to gracious friends who are attempting to relax on vacation.

Sigh. Que sera.