Which, in a sense, is true.
all of Jack’s favorite things and flew 4 hours to Aruba. Where he ate, napped,
didn’t sleep well and in between vacationed.
of us were sharing a room but, Jack seemed to be sleeping well. Then he started waking up earlier and earlier each day.
didn’t mind, we knew we wouldn’t be sleeping in. And it was nice to get an early start and walk to the bagel place for fresh
fruit and bagels.
finally 3:30. And he didn’t want to go back to bed, he wanted to get up and
play.
the crib. After 2 hours of babbling to himself he fell back to sleep at 6 am.
baby pool. Though, it took Jack a couple of days to adjust to being on the
beach everyday, rather than being at home with his toys.
Also Jack was not used to having his Daddy around all the time. Usually John goes to work in the am and Jack spends all day with me. So Jack became inseparable from John. Every time John walked away Jack would cry. If John tried to read on his Kindle, Jack would cry.
It started to become unbearable. And I started to feel slighted because my little boy wanted nothing to do with his mama.
learn to look at vacation differently. To realize that, once again, it was not
about us. There wasn’t as much lounging on the beach as we would have liked
and we spent way more time in the baby pool than the Caribbean.
just wander the beach for hours and we had to choose between sitting on the
beach till sunset or going to dinner as a family. Most days we choose the beach
and Jack feasted on happy hour snacks.
And there were moments along the way when I wondered if this trip had been a bad idea.
Especially when John and I were trying to get ready for dinner at Madame Jeanette’s (the best restaurant on the island) and my Dad and Mom were hoping to take Jack to dinner.
Everyone was trying to get ready and Jack was over tired. (I knew he should just go to bed and skip the night out. But my Dad was insistent that if we kept him up he would sleep better and I was exhausted and didn’t feel like arguing.)
Jack followed his Daddy from the deck to the living room and got tripped up on his own feet and hit his head on the entertainment center. Jack was screaming and I was upset and everyone was rushing around for ice.
When we finally got Jack settled and in bed my nerves were shot but my mom insisted that we stick with our dinner plans and I was really glad we did.
ride or the crying or the sleepless nights.
just the two of us. We ate lots of amazing meals out together and we
went on an off-road ATV tour, which was out of my comfort zone. And I got to ride a horse, how cool is that!
loves his Daddy, while overwhelming at times, can bring tears to my eyes.
dinner at Azzuro for Formaggio. He loved the cheese covered pasta so much and
his face was priceless. There was something wonderful about sharing my favorite
meal with him.
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Wow! You are brave souls. I'm glad your folks were along on the vacation so you and the hubby could get some much needed down time. Looks like it all turned out pretty well! Great pictures!
Thanks for stopping at my blog! 🙂
I don't know if I would call us brave or completely naive to how hard it would be.
Traveling with children does take some getting used to. Sometimes it seems easier to just stay home (and cheaper), but I really think if you can it is so important to travel with your children. My children are 5, 10, and 12 now and I love how they navigate an airport, airplane, and hotel so easily.
So happy you were able to find a little relaxing time!
I agree it is important to travel with your kids. That is so wonderful that your kids are great travelers, I hope we get there some day.
That is so wonderful that your parents went too. My neighbors took me to Hawaii when I was 12 to nanny their two kids so they could take walks, go out to eat, etc. Miss a week of school to go to Hawaii, YES!!!
I am so glad you had a ton of fun, even with a "crabby but cute" baby. The boy enjoys his food, love it.
I think even at 30 if someone wanted to take me to Hawaii to be a nanny for a week I would say yes, lol.
Trips like this always have their ups and downs. Sounds like more ups for sure though. Glad you all had a great vacation together. 🙂
You are right there were definitely ups and downs.
I absolutely LOVE your vacay recap. It's so real & refreshing. You are right, it's SO not easy to take kids on vacation with you. We took both of our girls to the beach for a week last summer {at the time they were 2 years & 6 months} and it was an insane amount of work…but it was also an amazing trip. The tougher parts have all faded into the, "oh that was ridiculous, wasn't it?" category and I'm left with incredibly happy vacay memories.
However, I'll NEVER forget feeling like I needed a vacay all to myself once we finally got home! 🙂 Great post!
So glad that you enjoyed the post. I have to say I felt the same way when I got home, like I needed a vacation from the family vacation, lol.