A Cruise

After everything fell apart with going to Nicaragua, we still had to figure out what to do with our vacation. (And to be honest, we still haven’t figured it out and we’re mid-vacation...) We looked into sitting on a Caribbean beach for awhile. We looked into Costa Rica. We looked into a trip to the Bahamas. But somehow nothing felt right. The one of Pat’s friends at work told us about a website to get discount cruise tickets. We looked into and realized that there was a cruise to the Bahamas that fit perfectly into our vacation and our budget, so we decided to go with that.

On Thursday, we had a slower morning than the last few days. I even was able to go down to the fitness room and get in a run. Then when I was .75 miles into it, I got a text from Pat saying that he just realized that we had to turn the car in at 11, so my three mile run turned into a fast mile run...

We got everything packed up, checked out and returned the car, then hopped a ride to the dock to board our cruise ship. We got lunch and then explored the ship while we waited for our rooms to be ready. Once we got our rooms, we all ended up sleeping until we got called to our muster stations for a safety demonstration. Gabe was still asleep, so I just carried him. Apparently that freaked out the staff as they immediately asked me if he was okay and if I needed to talk to special needs people. Um, no. He’s fine. You just woke him up for a mandatory safety speech at 3:00 in the afternoon, which happens to be naptime...

After the safety speech, we decided to go swimming. This was a great plan until the lifeguard told us that Gabe couldn’t swim because he wasn’t potty trained. He was wearing a swim diaper, but apparently that wasn’t good enough. He was disappointed, but I got him an ice cream cone and that made everything better.

Other than that, we had a great first day. The housekeeper even got us a crib, which made putting Gabe to bed so much easier. She was actually mortified that I was going to put him on the floor, which was my new plan after he fell out of the bed in Seattle.

Friday morning I woke up to a knock at the door. I had the baby monitor set up so we could hear Gabe when he woke up in the morning, but apparently he’d whispered to Bella so softly that the monitor didn’t even pick it up.

Friday was a day at sea, so we spent the day playing. Bella didn’t feel well, so she spent a lot of time napping. Gabe got to play in the kids area, which meant that Pat and I had some time just the two of us. We celebrated by me beating him at mini golf.

We picked up Gabe in time to go to a special presentation of Dr Suess’s Horton Hears a Who. As we read it, I realized that I’ve never actually read that one, but I know the famous line that Horton says: A person’s a person no matter how small. The first time that the storyteller said it, I almost burst into tears. That line has been stolen by the preemie community, because it perfectly describes our tiny little babies. A person’s a person no matter how small. Sometimes the reality of everything we went through just hits me at weird times.

After story time, it was naptime. When Gabe finally woke up, we watched A Wrinkle in Time up on deck over the pool.

And because I think it’s adorable: Like Father, like son.