I may be wrong, but I believe Cameo has only ever stayed in a hotel twice. (It’s definitely between one and three times). Marlo had arrived by the time the first one happened, but he didn’t travel with us on either occasion. I know that the first time Cameo came on an excursion like that was just before he turned 2. 2020 slapped down a lot of plans, including the first time Marlo would have been able to do the same, but we recently broke the seal and went on our first overnight trip with all four of us.
Was there a reason? Not really. Was there a plan for when we got there? Not at all. Did we have fun? Hell yeah.
Marlo’s about to turn 3 and Cameo’s nearing school age. Based on the life we believe we have ahead of us, it’s a joke that it’s taken so long for all of us to just head out on an adventure together and stay out. But it happened. Hollie had a thing that required her to drive to London (public transport wasn’t an option). It was quite early in the day, so it meant that she would need to stay over. That being the case, we figured it was a great reason to test the waters and just give it a go.
What I said previously about the Gro Clock fixing Marlo’s sleep, I take back. We haven’t had many great night since I proclaimed the bad times were over and we’re definitely back in the same position. However, we’re getting a lot closer to where we need to be. This hotel stay was the ideal way to see whether they were mature enough to follow our lead and just enjoy sleeping elsewhere for the night.
They both passed with flying colours. Flawless night. Both slept way past their usual wake-up time. No disturbances in the night. No bed wetting. No nothing. They made it.
We definitely cheated, because they went to bed two whole hours later than they would have done, plus they did a week’s worth of walking, but we earned our prize and managed to prove that they could behave themselves far away from home.
The boys love:
- Packing their Trunkis
- Wheeling their Trunkis around London
- Unpacking their Trunkis
- Marking out bedrooms within our room using their personal belongings
- Eating out multiple times a day
- Showering somewhere other than home
- Waking up and going downstairs for a feast of a breakfast
Plus they got to see a few local sights and all that good stuff.
As a result of this trial run, holidays are happening. It’s looking like a shaky year to start all that international family holidaying stuff but next year you better know we’re making full use of all Cameo’s time away from the classroom.