Bottle 5

Carignan Vin De Pays De L'aude 2007

I just opened this bottle because I needed a drink. I drink wine because I like the taste. I often have it with dinner because I like the way wine pairings elevate the food and the wine. Rarely have I opened a new bottle of wine because I just really need a drink, but after just spending the last hour and a half listening and watching my 3yr sob herelf to sleep, I need a drink.

It all started a few months ago when the monsters came to our old house. She was scared, genuinely scared so Adam agreed to sit with her to help her go to sleep. What a Pandora's box we opened. Soon she was waking twice a night and coming into our room asking one of us to sit with her in the middle of the night. Somewhere in the past 2 months the fear seemed to go away, but we were left with a bad habit. We let it go on because we knew if we didn't a massive meltdown would occur and we had a new baby in a small house so the tantrum would affect everyone. After consulting many parents and even Penny's doctor, we were told to just wait until we moved because that would be a whole new transition and why put ourselves through weaning her twice.

It has been getting pretty bad. Bedtime seems to take forever. And not only do we have a 5 month old who is waking 2 times a night to eat- we have Penny stumbling into our room asking (quite politely) if one of us will sit with her. I admit- it is much, much easier to do it then to deal with the tantrum (especially in the middle of the night when she falls back to sleep within 3 min). And- Penny wakes up at 5:30, she always has. So these days I do not look forward to nighttime.

I really, truly hoped that once we moved into "the big, new house" as Penny calls it, that she would be so excited about her pink and purple room with princess decals on the wall and the princess sheets and the princess book ends and the princess coat rack and the princess hangers that she would want to go to sleep in her nirvana of a room all by herself and we wouldn't have to go through "toughing it out". (I also wished that the new twin bed would be soooo much more comfortable than the toddler bed that she would all of a sudden sleep until 8am) I even had a home inspector tell her that he was installing "monster traps" outside the house and she repeated to me on many occasions that there were no monsters in the new house. Silvermist (one of Tinkerbell's friends, for those of you who are not moms to a girl under the age of 6) even sent her a package of pixie dust (by way of my mother) to help ward off all things scary. None of it seemed to work.

So we find ourselves having to deal with an hour and a half of tantrums until she finally, exhausted and puffy eyed, gives in to sleep.

I have to say, I have been drinking this wine as I write and it is quite tasty. It is a red wine and on the label it says "VERY OLD VINES" so I guess that means something. It is a good everyday wine. Nothing fancy, just tastes like a nice red wine.

And one last side note- after dealing with Penny for so long while I didn't let Adam help out (he gives in too easily). I was deciding, out loud, whether I should open a bottle of wine and have a drink or have my super yummy tres leches cake from Portos (best bakery in LA) and Adam said, "Why can't you have both"- good answer.