In Need of Doors

EDIT: I realized I never put a picture of the hotel with the Weekend Intelligence. That's the hotel we're at. The virtual tour on that site rocks, and yes, the place really is as nice as it looks.

The construction workers started the task of ripping out drywall in the kitchen on Monday. They removed the kitchen cabinets and crown molding, and the service contractors moved everything out of the house in the affected rooms. By the time I got there in the afternoon, the place had a very eerie echo to it. Poor Suzie had been in the kennel the whole time while strangers traipsed through the house. I let her out and played with her a little bit before Colin and the gang arrived. Once everyone had arrived at the house, we gathered up a few things and went back to the room.

I feel a sense of exile. I miss my house, and the freedom I had with it. I miss my castle. D and I can't really do anything after the kids are in bed, since they sleep in the living room of the suite. That's the same room that has the XBox, Wii, our computers and the door to the outside world. Everytime I even make noise by that door, Clara startles and wakes up and gets pissed that we won't come take her out of the pack-n-play.

Not that she can't get out - she's learned how to scale over the top of the playpen turned crib, and does so regularly. But when it's bedtime, she knows that if I catch her out (or if Colin tattles on her) that I'll come out, pop her on the butt and set her back in her crib. You can tell she's pretty anxious lately. There's just so much going on that's not the typical routine, and she's been very unruly and much more emotional than she usually is.

And poor Colin. He shares the living room with his sister. Several nights now, she's been up at 11 o'clock and later because she's just so wound up with all the noises and such from the room above and from the hallway. So she spends this time squealing and trying to escape her crib and generally making it hard for him to get enough rest. But sleeping arrangements aside, she's been the only other kid available for him to play with for a week now, and he's starting to get a little impatient with her.

Thankfully, some of our neighbors who have been very helpful in letting Suzie out while we were gone last weekend invited us to dinner at their house. After eating quick frozen meals or restaurant food for the past week, a home-cooked meal was so nice. Clara got to play around a different house, eat in a high chair and watch TV on a couch while Colin got to play with some of the neighborhood boys.

We're all on edge, really. Sometimes a family just needs some doors to keep the peace...