At the beginning of March, we took our first major vacation as a family - along with Omi and OpiLu. With the exception of a short trip to Charleston last summer, we haven't traveled anywhere with Max in tow. While I was super-excited to get to the beach, I was also more-than-slightly anxious about how Max would do on an airplane, a one hour bus ride, and sleeping in a new place (and in the same room as Chris and me).
In the months leading up to the trip, I had spent quite a bit of time worrying about how we would contain Max on the airplane while sharing our row with a stranger. Luckily, a few days before the trip Chris was able to get us upgraded to first class (I guess there are some benefits to the weeks of work-related travel he endured over the past year). Your first flight ever and you're flying first class? Not bad, kid!
Oh, and the nice lady at the airport in Charlotte was also able to upgrade Omi and OpiLu.
Things that make for a relatively easy flight:
Friendly flight-attendant
Tons and tons of leg room
Adult to toddler ratio of 4:1
Flight time that coincides with toddler's naptime:
I was feeling pretty good after surviving the flight without majorly angering any other passengers. The airport in Punta Cana was typical Caribbean, with thatched roof, open air buildings, musicians playing, and lots of excited vacationers. Once we wove our way through their extremely lax customs area, we were off to find our ride. Once our friendly driver was located, he informed us that our ride to the resort would be slightly longer than the anticipated hour I was already dreading. 2 hours. In a van with no baby seat for Max on incredibly bumpy roads. Apparently the highway that would make this trip only an hour was not completed yet. I actually enjoyed the ride through small towns and villages until I became carsick and started wishing I had my barf bag from the plane. Max hung in like a champ, though, and before we knew it (actually only about an hour and a half) we were being greeted at our resort with a glass of champagne, which I eagerly accepted since I figured the bubbles might be good for my queasy stomach.
I was definitely impressed with my first glimpses of the Dreams la Romana resort. Yay, vacation!
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| midget lap pool? |
Our room was really nice and big - the only concern being how we were going to get Max to sleep around 7 PM without Chris and me going to bed at 7 PM.
Below is the view from our room. We were on the first floor, with a patio that opened up to a view of the main pool. Nice view and good people-watching. The only issue was the semi-nightly entertainment that took place at the main stage right outside our door, hosted by a very loud entertainment host who made a racket until about 11 PM on those nights. But that was counter-balanced by the convenience of walking over to the pool bar for a fill-up of milk for Max, a soft-serve ice cream, or some pizza.
We concluded the first night with dinner at one of the resort's restaurants. Unfortunately, that was the only meal we ate together with everyone. Max wanted to establish early-on that he would not be a party to a dignified sit-down meal, assuring that all of our future meals would be eaten in shifts, with the non-eater chasing Max around the resort.
The next day we got right down to business and headed for the beach bright and early.
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| Max, practicing his sand-sprints for the "Olimpics" |
What Max would NOT be happy to do all day every day, however, is sit still and play in the sand. I have to admit that I was jealous when I saw some of the kids around Max's same age sitting in the same spot on a lounge chair or in the sand for hours at a time as their unappreciative parents read books or sunbathed to their hearts' content. Here's Max doing his impression of those kids. He was able to hold these poses for approximately 5 seconds each.
The rest of the time he spent running between all of his favorite spots at the resort; the ocean, the pools, the soft-serve ice cream machine, the shuffleboard court, the bocce balls, the pool-side showers and the spigots to wash your feet (a particular favorite because he could reach the knobs to turn them on). I only gained 2 pounds on this all-you-can-eat-and-drink vacation. I'm guessing that's due to the exercise I got chasing Max around for half the day.
Over the weeks that Omi and OpiLu were visiting us, Max's language seemed to explode. He was using new words at a rapid rate. Some of his new words from the beach were pool ("ool") and crab (which sounds pretty similar to his word for Grabber, which is the squeezable fruit pack he loves to eat). He also mastered the use of the straw, which was mighty convenient since he became addicted to this yummy little concoction called banana milk.
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| copious amounts of sunscreen were necessary to keep this guy from burning. |
Sadly, he did not take to sleeping in the Dominican Republic as well as he did to the banana milk. The first night we observed our normal bedtime routine and proceeded to put Max in the pack 'n play beside our bed. Max proceeded to scream as if he was being killed for an unbearable amount of time. I think he finally fell asleep but woke up in the middle of the night shrieking as loudly. In the interest of not waking everyone in the hotel, we put him in our bed, where he slept somewhat soundly for the rest of the night. The next night we tried again with the same result. By mid week we had abandoned any pretense of putting him to sleep in his own bed. While I did sort of enjoy cuddling with Max in the bed, I found him to be an even more selfish bed-sharer than Bailey. I spent most of the nights with either his feet in my face or his head tucked under my chin. Not the easiest way to sleep. Thank heavens that now that we're home, he's (almost) back to normal with his sleeping. I'm thinking he pulled one over on us, though.
Mid-week I made my only off-resort "excursion" with Chris to a cigar factory (aka tourist trap) in the village of Bayahibe. It was Sunday, so only one guy was making cigars. Chris made a small purchase of a few cigars made in the factory...after having a sample, of course.
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| I don't know why my output is so low. Maybe it's because I smoke one cigar for every one I roll.? |
We enjoyed many things about the Dominican Republic. We found the people working at the resort to be extremely friendly and willing to help. And the weather was perfect.
On our last full day at the resort, Chris decided that he and I should take out one of the little catamarans that were available for guest use. I was a little bit nervous, but he assured me that he knew how to sail the thing and that everything would be fine. So, at a little bit before 4 pm we left Max with Omi and Opi and headed off on our adventure. It only took Chris a few minutes to get the hang of things and we had a great time sailing back and forth in front of the resort for about 45 minutes. When it was time to bring the boat in, I was sad to be done.
So Chris guided the boat almost all the way back to shore and then decided to go ahead and jump out and haul it the rest of the way in. The moment he jumped off the boat he announced "Ouch! something stung me!" I thought it might have been a jellyfish because I had read that they sometimes have jelly fish at the resort. After we got out of the water, though, I saw that Chris had a small round puncture wound in his foot that was bleeding. He showed it to the guys in charge of the boats and asked if they have any stingrays around there and they seemed to brush him off and not take it seriously.
Chris went to wash off his wound and when he got back I told him to go over to the towel shed to have it checked out, because I had seen someone else being looked at there earlier in the week. Bad idea. The guys there felt that Chris should go to the medical facility on the resort to have it checked further.
Unfortunately, they could not guarantee that it was NOT a stingray without having a "specialist" look at it....and the closest specialist was apparently 2 hours away at a hospital in Santo Domingo. So, at about 6:15 on the evening before we were due to fly home, Chris took off in an "ambulance" on a 2 hour drive to a hospital. I thought I might never see him again. And even though everyone thinks I'm the most awful wife ever, I did not accompany him to the hospital. I chose to stay with Max, just in case something happened on that drive. I didn't think it would be fun for Max to end the vacation as an orphan. Long story short, it was not a stingray and Chris arrived back at our room around midnight. What a way to end a vacation!
Oh, but it wasn't quite over. There was still the whole "getting home" thing to attend to. But we tried not to think about that the next day as we sauntered around the resort taking photos with our oh-so-cooperative little guy. Most of the pictures looked like this:
But a few times we got lucky.
My personal favorite, though, is the self-portrait we took using my camera timer early in the morning on the beach while the guys raking the sand watched us and laughed:
Then, just a short 1.5 hour ride to the airport, 1.5 hour wait at the airport, 3.5 hour flight that was the longest 3.5 hours of my life, detour through the Homeland Security office due to Chris's radioactivity, 2 hour drive home, and half an hour detour by Mom and Dad's to pick up Bailey later....we were home. Vacation was over, just like that. And while "vacation" with an 18 month old takes on a whole new meaning, I think we will actually have more fun memories from this trip than we would have had if we had spent the entire time lounging and sleeping. (I hope) :)
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