postponed bedtime success

We were invited for supper at Andy's boss's house at 7 pm on Saturday evening. Since Carsten's bathtime/bedtime sequence usually starts around that time, we were a bit nervous to agree to an evening function, but we thought we would give it a try. We fed him his dinner at 5:15 pm (45 min earlier than usual),  gave him a bath, dressed him in pj's, and brushed his gums. We then stuck him in his car seat, which I think he was a bit confused by, but he just went with the flow which was nice. We had rented a community car for the evening to cut our transportation time by half, so instead of a 1.5 hr trip one way by train, we only had a 45 min drive. Andy once again, was a trooper and drove manual. One added benefit to riding in a car again is that if he cries, he's only bothering us instead of the entire train. So we packed up Carsten and all of our other gear (why is it that you always feel like you are moving in when you go someplace?), and got on our way about 6:15 pm.

We made it to the house just after 7 pm after the GPS tried to lead us down what looked to a pedestrian only street in their downtown area. Once we got there Carsten enjoyed being passed around and looked quite cute :). He stole the show! We sat down for dinner a little before 8 pm, and Andy just held Carsten on his lap while I ate so that when the time came, I could put Carsten to bed. The hosts suggested that we let Carsten crawl around, and this turned out to be a bad idea. Within about a minute of being on the floor he bonked his head on their fireplace, which gained him a nice bruise on his forehead. He didn't cry too much (what a guy!), and about 10 minutes later we decided that it was time to put him to bed. We had brought our pop-up travel bed (which everyone was impressed with!) so we put him to bed in one of the bedrooms. He cried for a few minutes, but then fell asleep. Andy and I enjoyed the rest of the dinner, and in fact, didn't even notice the time until about 10:00 pm. We had brats, steak, fish, meat on a stick with yogurt sauce, potatoes, white and green asparagus, and bread on a stick for supper (so yummy!). For dessert Andy had made lemon bars which everyone seemed to like, and our hosts provided quark, which is sort of a sour cream (but not really) dessert with strawberries added in. Everything was delicious, and we even stayed longer than we were intending to, which meant that we had to extend our car reservation.

When it came time to leave (~11 pm) we transfered Carsten to the carseat without waking him (yay!), and then followed Andy's coworker back to the highway since our GPS battery was low. Once on the highway, we almost immediately got stuck on stopped traffic due to construction on a tunnel. Andy was amazing and drove the manual in stop and go traffic like a champ! Because of this 15+ min delay we had to extend our reservation by another 30 minutes, but since Carsten was still sleeping, we didn't mind too much. Once we arrived in Egg, Andy dropped Carsten and I off at the house and then returned the car and walked home. We then transferred Carsten back to his bed, and here's the best part: he didn't wake up! In fact, he snored while we transferred him. What a kid! He slept until 4 am and then fell back asleep until 7:30 am after eating, which is a later wake up time than usual. For our part we had a ton of fun and were impressed by Carsten's ability to adapt and keep sleeping. We also discovered that a 12:30ish bedtime completely wipes us out. Apparently we are not as young as we used to be :). We spent most of Sunday trying to catch a couple of naps. So all in all, we know that every once in a while we can have Carsten out, and things will likely go well. And in the end, we feel lucky that we have such a great baby!