We Survived Our First Big Family Vacation!

Whew...it's over! Now I need a vacation to recover from my vacation. My husband and I have decided no more trips with our son till he turns 10...or at least 5!

It was as difficult as I had imagined. Don't get me wrong. We had a great trip visiting my husband's friends and family members in Puerto Rico. But it was no vacation.

The problems started with the plane ride from Atlanta to San Juan, PR. For some insane reason, I didn't know it was almost 4 hours until we were already in the air. I realized Cruz wasn't going to make it that long without a melt down. Well, he didn't even make it an hour. We sat in the three seats in front of my sister and brother-in-law and their 10 year old daughter. So between passing him back and forth and letting him go through all our bags and purses he seemed restless but ok for a while. Then he decided he wanted to walk up and down the aisle waving to all passengers....cute but impossible since attendants are constantly going up and down handing out drinks, etc. But he insisted, so we made about 10 passes and people were starting to get annoyed. So I finally said "that's it, we have to sit in our seats now." And he said, "aaaaagggggghhhhhhhh!" Repeatedly and loudly for about 30 minutes. When the woman in front of me rudely let me know she couldn't take anymore, my husband and I took turns standing in the back of the plane (where the food and beverages are stored) letting him scream. The curtain and lavatories in between us seemed to somewhat muffle the crying and screaming. Amazingly the flight attendants didn't seem to mind too much even though we were clearly in their way. Anyway, about 10 minutes before the plane landed he FINALLY fell asleep. So I tiptoed back to my seat and slowly sat down, not to awaken him. I didn't even try to buckle up for the landing in fear that any movement would bring him screaming out of his slumber.

He made it through the landing, then awoke when I put him in his stroller just outside the gate. The two and a half hour car trip from Sn Juan to Mayaguez was no better. Obviously he had been cooped up for hours and wanted to run. But instead we put him back into a confined area...his car seat in a rented van. Needless to say he was not happy.

I was soooooo looking forward to getting to where we were going, to an enclosed location where he could just be free. We went to my husband's cousin's home. Well in case you didn't know this, in Puerto Rico few people have air conditioning, so they leave their doors open, they also had a beautiful, relatively high deck with no gates to block the stairs. And, they have a pool in the middle of their living room. That's right, it's a pool and it's in the middle of their beautiful home. It's beautiful, complete with a huge rock waterfall. But nonetheless, it's a pool. Now I must try to corrall my 17 month old to keep him from going out the doors, off the deck and into the pool.

When we finally make it to the resort, we are all exhausted. We have a suite we are sharing with my husband's sister and her family. It's three seperate guest rooms with their own seperate entrances conntected with a foyer and one main door. I think, "this is it! I can put him down and he can just go where ever!" And he does. But he's tired. So very soon it's time for a bath and bed. I run a bath only to find out there is no hot water! No way! I end up giving Cruz a cold and quick bath (not really condusive to getting him settled down for bed). The hotel has supplied the port a crib. It's an actual crib, not as big as a standard crib, but as high as one. We put the crib in our bedroom, put Cruz in the crib, shut the door and went into the living room. We had brought our baby monitor and I could hear him crying. That's typical for him, and I knew he might cry even more than normal being in a new place and a different bed. But all the sudden it sounded as if he was crying in surround sound. I ran out into the foyer and there he was about to get out the front door! That door, by the way, leads to a walkway and rail on the 6th floor and the elevators! He has somehow climbed (or fallen) out of the crib, the side rail of which is at least 4 feet off the hard tile floor, gotten out of two doors and almost made it out the third! And he's screaming crying as if he thinks we've all abandoned him in this strange place.

Of course I scooped him up, comforted him and cried a little myself. I swore I'd never put him in one of those horrible things again and let him stay up for another hour or so. When it was waaaayyy past both of our bedtimes, I took him in our bedroom and tried to figure out how I'd get him to sleep in a bed with me. He hadn't done that since he was only a few months old in a co-sleeper attached to my bed. I turned the tv on all kinds of "kid friendly" programming and nothing seemed to work. He didn't seem to mind staying on the bed, but he didn't want to lay down. I finally got so tired myself I just turned everything off. That was apparently the key. As soon as there was nothing else to do, he laid his head on my shoulder and fell asleep. It was adorable! Not so cute that I wanted to repeat it every night of our vacation though. So the next day we tracked down a K-Mart and bought a $60 playpen. As if we needed another one of those, but either way we now have 4!

The rest of the trip passed by quickly. My husband and I took shifts chasing Cruz around, so we never really got to do much together. We had also schlepped all our diving gear with us thinking we'd get to do some diving. HA! That never happened. We went through the rest of the week scheduling dinners and family get togethers around nap and bed times. It was fine, but the whole week I'm stressing about the 4 hour plane ride home.

By the time we got ready for the flight home, my sister-in-law had purchased a bottle of children's benadryl. She bought it because I couldn't bring myself to do it. We also decided to make him sit in the car seat the whole flight since letting him out only seemed to make him want to be out more. Only 10 minutes into the flight I caved and gave him a half dose of the benadryl. (Parents please don't think less of me, I don't think I'll ever do this again, but then again he ain't flying again for several years) He was alseep within 30 minutes and slept peacefully the ENTIRE flight! He actually woke up when the landing gear came down. Of course, I didn't get any rest because I was constantly checking his breathing.

We made it home safely, thank God and with the newly acquired experience that will keep us home for many years to come!