So for those following my tweet feed this weekend, you’re aware that we managed to take in Surfers Healing again in New Jersey, at the Autism Beach Bash held by Autism Family Services of New Jersey.  Given that he drew the first possible surf time (9 AM), this therefore entailed an overnight stay.

And, for the second straight trip, our ‘backup plan’ failed us.

Now, we do give the kids melatonin when we’re traveling to help them settle down and sleep more quickly and easily.  R is easily gotten into a mode where he’s not ready to settle when we get to the hotel, and the Monster can get wound up quickly as well… and so a bit of melatonin’s been proven to work with them.

On the other hand… well, I’ll ‘fess up to the fact that we do give them benadryl when we’re in a hotel, to try to knock them out more fully.  The problem is, apparently the Monster’s decided that he doesn’t like the taste of it.  He’s been refusing to drink anything that has it.

So as a result, at 1 in the morning on Sunday, he popped up from his slumber and was ready to ‘play’.  I managed to keep him quiet until 2:30 AM, but at that point, he started getting louder and giggly, and I made the decision to transfer him outside to the minivan before he either woke the rest of the family, or someone in an adjoining room.  And so, therefore, I clearly did not get any sleep myself.

This is the primary reason we’ve not taken a major vacation with the kids, and why we’re not going to Disney with my SiL and her family in October – because I don’t want to spend all that money, even knowing that the DAS may or may not make it sufficiently ‘okay’ for him to want to go riding things, and risk the idea of my being too tired to enjoy it.  As it was, caffeine helped get me through the day on Sunday, and we got home safely from the beach, but this is not a way for us to be taking vacations.

I think perhaps we either need to figure out what it is that he doesn’t like about the taste, or find a tasteless alternative.  At some point on one of these trips, I really need to be able to get to the point where I’m not asking the desk at check-in about what in the area is open 24 hours…