Alone in a Hotel Room... With Lou
/If you you've ever had to nap a toddler at a hotel or in a strange place before, this blog is for you.
For Lou and I on the afternoon of December 30th, that strange place was a Holiday Inn express in Pittsburg, Kansas. Not that Pittsburg is strange, though the lack of an H is a tad off-putting. Nor is a Holiday Inn Express strange. In fact, this one was rather nice.
But it was different for Lou. Different from his normal routine, which is his toddler bed in the bedroom he shares with Tess on the second floor of our home in Kansas City, Missouri.
Instead, he and I were laying in one of the queen beds in one of two adjoining rooms we had for the long weekend. Tighe had taken Nate/Sam/Tess bowling, and so, with the blackout curtains drawn and the noisemaker on, it was dark and quiet and still in that room.
Save for Lou’s talking.
His incessant talking.
His incessant, borderline schizophrenic talking.
Non-stop.
Erratic.
Nervous.
Persistent.
He likes that one-on-one time and he was definitely tired, but he also sensed he was missing something exciting. He was determined to avoid a nap that afternoon.
But we still had to get through the wedding rehearsal. And the rehearsal dinner. And the actual wedding the next night. Not to mention the New Year’s Eve celebration.
So he had to sleep.
I had to outlast him.
“Mom, firefighters need to sleep.”
I had told him this a million times. They’re his heroes. Which is why he walks around with a spray bottle, “putting out fires” with squirts of water.
“Mom, I wake up and I probly go to Florida.”
“Mom, I love you so much.”
“Mom, you so fat.”
“Mom, you so dummy.”
I tried my best to stay quiet and ignore him, but the sudden kisses on the lips were too much.
"Mom, you want more kisses?”
“Lou, close your eyes.”
“Otay.”
“Mom, my eyes closed.”
“Mom, open your eyes so you see my eyes closed.”
“Lou, stop talking.”
“Otay.”
“Mom, you otay?”
“Mom, my arm still hurt.”
“Mom, I need to talk to people now,” he was reaching for the phone on the nightstand, something we’d strictly forbidden since the time in Philadelphia he inadvertently stayed on the line with the front desk for over an hour before we realized the phone was off the hook.
“Mom, I need to be on da phone.”
"No, you don't!"
"But I need tell people we go to the pool."
“We’re not going to the pool, you need to take a nap!”
“Mom, I pew the bad guys!”
He aimed his index fingers, like tiny guns, towards the windows and in a high-pitched voice, made the sound of bullets or lasers or nerf darts: “Pew, pew, pew!”
How all boys seem to be born with that shooting instinct is beyond me. Very Freudian, I suspect.
“Lou! Go to sleep!”
“Otay. Mom, I rub your back?”
He started patting my shoulder with his clumsy little hand and tried to sing soothing words, but whether he was trying to soothe me or himself, I don’t know.
“Down my butt, down my butt, dowwwn my buttttttt…”
The words didn’t make sense, but his next set of lyrics made even less sense.
“Who dat Tess? Who dat Tess? Who dat Tess??”
Is he a Saints fan? Or just a Tess fan? Again, I don't know. But I do know that his words started to get further and further apart. And quieter.
Until it became a very faint whisper: “who.... dat... Tess?”
And then silence.
Obviously, like any non-idiot, I laid perfectly still, scarcely breathing even, for a few extra minutes. I took inventory of all my limbs and extremities to determine just to how to best extricate myself from his tiny body.
I moved first my right shoulder and paused.
Did he stir?
No.
OK, now the left foot.
He was still unconscious. I did some weird back flip maneuver off the side of the bed that was probably a lot less graceful that I intended and paused again.
No movement from the bed.
I crept out of the room, through the adjoining double doors, grabbing some pants from Nate/Sam's suitcase that they would need later.
Safely in the haven of our second hotel room, room #304, I sighed with relief and texted Tighe.
"I have never worked so hard to get a child to nap and if anyone wakes him, I will pew them!"
