I took a nine-month old baby on a week-long cruise and lived
to tell about it… barely. There are two versions of the story of Jackson’s
first cruise – one told from the perspective of Brian, and one told from the
perspective of Kate. Although we pretty much spent every waking moment of the
trip together, it’s interesting to see how dramatically different our stories
of the trip are.
On every other vacation I’ve ever been on, there has been
one singular focus – have as much fun as possible. Long in advance of the trip,
I’d be reading on every possible detail of the location, planning every minute
of every day in an effort to maximize fun. I’ve always been of the mindset that
there are two types of vacations: ones that you go on with a goal to see and do
as much as possible (such as trips to Europe or Disney World), and ones that
you go on with a goal to do absolutely nothing – with the exception of maybe
gaining as much weight as possible (such as trips to all-inclusive Mexican
resorts). But on this trip, I learned there was a third type of vacation – a vacation
with a baby, or what I’ll call a “Survival Vacation.” There is only one goal on
a Survival Vacation – make it through the day alive, and live to fight another
day.
Traveling. Let’s start with the physical act of taking your
baby from your home to your vacation spot. Since we are Americans, there are
really only two options here – traveling by car or traveling by plane. Having
now completed each with Jackson, I can say that there are pros and cons to
each.
When traveling by car, you can pack as much crap as you need
into the trunk and back seat without concern for weight restrictions or having
to face the possibility of needing to carry ALL of it at one point in time. It’s
also relatively cheap, comparatively speaking. On the other hand, Jackson absolutely
hates his car seat and after about a half hour starts crying nonstop unless he’s
being fed or constantly entertained (in his defense, I’m the same way on car
rides).
When traveling by plane, this isn’t an issue. Apparently
airplane travel is so much safer than car travel that babies don’t even have to
be in car seats – or even have a seat at all! They are the equivalent of your
laptop, you can just carry them on and hold on to them, or tuck them under the
seat if you get bored with them. It’s great, especially when you have multiple
people on the plane to pass the baby around to – like a hot potato, if the potato
could erupt in tears at any moment. This freedom makes Jackson infinitely
happier, and he gladly walked across our row, one lap to the next throughout
the flight. He also enjoyed making eyes with the ladies in the row behind us by
peeking up over the seat.
On the other hand, you spend the whole flight on full
defensive alert for the first sign of unhappiness, ready to spring into action
with a handful of Cheerios or shake-ball to keep him from screaming bloody
murder and costing me the hundreds of dollars it would take to buy “I’m sorry”
beers for everyone on the plane. Again, all pre-baby flights were just like
pre-baby vacations. I was primarily concerned with how I was going to keep
myself entertained for the duration of the flight. This time, my only concern
was keeping Jackson happy.
Then there’s the actual act of getting onto the plane.
Again, one of the nice perks is that you get to be one of the first people to
board the plane (in your face “medallion members!”) and have all the overhead
compartment space you could want. Unfortunately, you need approximately 20% of
the total space on the plane for all of the things you need to carry on. I
boarded the plane with a huge backpack on my back, a small backpack on my
front, a rolling carry-on bag in one hand, and a stroller in the other. Note
that this is in addition to the two 48 pound bags we checked for our week-long
vacation in a warm weather client… and Jackson’s clothes fold into two-inch by
two-inch squares, weighing almost nothing! It defies the laws of science.
How did the Monkey do?
Before we boarded the plane, he started crying when Kate attempted to put him down for a nap in her Maya Wrap (PS – have I ever discussed this thing on here before? Greatest invention ever for creating a pseudo-womb wherever you go which puts babies to sleep in no time… and you look like a hippie when you wear it). He cried for a solid ten minutes at first while Kate paced all over the terminal. Even among the loud hustle and bustle of the airport, I could hear his screams ten gates away (and say “Ugh – someone needs to get their child in line” out loud as much as possible). But once he fell asleep, he stayed that way until just before takeoff. On the whole, he was fine on the flight – aside from a few tense minutes of loud crying where I felt the angry stares of everyone on the plane (now I know how Muslims felt when they boarded planes post-9/11), he was his normal self – all over the place and needing constant entertainment, but relatively happy. As we walked off the plane, I breathed a sigh of relief – the first hurdle had been crossed… but we weren’t out of the woods yet.
As we arrived at the location of our shuttle to the airport
(along with 50 of our closest friends, each with multiple bags jockeying for space on a narrow
sidewalk), standing in the beating sun (leading to reminders to “keep him out
of the sun!” every 20 seconds from my lovely bride), Jackson decided he was
tired of waiting, tired of being held, tired of everything. There was only one
thing he wanted to do – sit on the ground and eat the rocks out of the flower
bed next to us. After about 15 minutes of waiting, with him crying and doing
his best fish out of water impression to try and squirm out of our hands, we
gave up and plopped him down on the dirty ground. I’m pretty sure we kept
swatting rocks away from his mouth right before he could eat them, but I can’t
really be sure. All I know is that he was quiet, and rocks are “nature’s candy”,
right?
But this really illustrated one of the big pitfalls of
flying with a baby – there are so many variables involved – getting through
security, keeping the baby’s ears okay during takeoff and landing, waiting in
long lines, carrying a closet on your back – that any one thing could go wrong
and lead to twenty minutes of pure misery not only for you – but for everyone within
earshot. It’s risky.
But at the end of the day, we had survived the first leg of
our journey relatively unscathed. It was time to board the ship.
Cruisin’. Once we finally boarded the ship (with our 250
pounds of gear), I had high hopes that things would be more under our control.
We had a solid home base, fully equipped with toys and blankets for Jackson and
two liters worth of booze sitting our cabin fridge for me. We also had hundreds
of people sleeping within about thirty feet of us – but Jackson was a happy
baby. We assumed worst case scenario, his laughter might wake some people up
early in the morning (at which point they would smile and make some comment
about “there’s nothing more pure than the laughter of a child”). Little did we
know, Jackson was about to cry more in one week than he had in the previous
three months of his life.
Why?
It’s hard to say. It was probably some combination of
teething, being in a totally foreign environment, getting off his normal nap schedule,
and constantly being put in scenarios and places where he couldn’t crawl
around, do whatever he wanted, and put everything he found in his mouth (like
he gets to do at school every day). It probably also didn’t help that his first
day to the beach involved getting knocked over by a wave and getting sunscreen
in his eyes. But Jackson went from a baby who slept from 7:00 pm to 7:00 am
every night to a baby that woke up every two hours crying.
Don’t get me wrong – I think it would be possible to take a
cruise with a baby, but only if you operate under the assumption that you are
going on a Survival Vacation, not a normal one. In hindsight, we were probably
over-ambitious to think that a 9 month old baby would happily sit at a two hour
formal dinner every night cheerfully eating Cheerios while everyone else
enjoyed polite dinner conversation. We probably shouldn’t have planned 8 hour
excursions at every port and assumed that “he’ll just sleep in our arms when he’s
tired”. But we were young, ambitious, and foolish.
Did we have fun on the trip? Absolutely – but it’s pretty
funny when you look at when we had the most fun. It fell into one of two
categories:
1. When we were not with our child (such as when we
went Snuba diving and left him with Grandma).
2. When we were with our child inside our cabin,
playing on the ground like we would at home.
Looking back on it, I realize that the fundamental problem
was that we attempted to bring two very different worlds together as one, and
assumed everything would work out. When the two worlds were kept separate, as
mentioned above, things were great. When we were on a traditional vacation, we
had fun. When we were acting like we had a baby, we had fun. When we tried to
do both at the same time, not so much fun. In fact, I think I came back from
this vacation more tired than I’ve ever been in my life.
But live and learn. Ever since we’ve been back, I’ve said
that I’m not taking Jackson on another vacation for a very long time. But this
isn’t me being selfish – this is for him as well. The happiest I have ever seen
my child in his entire 10 months of existence was the moment we got back home.
He was crawling all over the place smiling, laughing, beside himself with
happiness at getting back to his old stomping grounds. He was like Dorothy at
the end of “Wizard of Oz” or George Bailey towards the end of “It’s a Wonderful
Life” hugging his toys and kissing the floor with an unbridled joy that only
comes from someone who has thought that everything in the world that they knew
was lost, only to have it found again.
Note: if you ask Kate, she’ll tell you all sorts of stories
about how great Jackson traveled, how much fun we all had, and how I am over-exaggerating
the stories above. Each one of us will swear that our version of the story is
the one that is most accurate. Who is right? Well, they say that history is
written by the victors… but it’s also written by the Bloggers J
Or, in the words of Homer Simpson:
Christmas.
The other big news this month? It’s Jackson’s first Christmas season. Unlike
any other time of year, this is where traditions are made, so it’s pretty
exciting to start creating these traditions for him. Jackson has already
experience d his first St. Nick, where he received a stocking filled with an
avocado – his favorite! This was quickly followed by his listening of the debate
between Mommy and Daddy about the rules and relationship between St. Nick and
Santa Claus (which will surely become an annual tradition). He also had his first
encounter with a Christmas Tree, where shockingly, he did not apply Baby Chaos
Theory and tear it down, but rather gently touched it, since the needles on the
tree are just like grass, which he hates. Somehow, against all odds, we have
two cats and a baby in our house and our Christmas tree has never been toppled.
I seriously would have bet money against that five years ago.
A while back, I heard the expression that a baby’s first
Christmas is for the parents, but the second Christmas is for the baby – and having
lived through half of the Christmas season, I can say that this is 100%
accurate. We’re building the traditions and taking the pictures to prove it,
but Jackson would be just as happy pushing the boxes that the Christmas decorations
came out of as looking at them. He has no concept of what’s really going on –
and frankly, will probably be traumatized by his first encounter with Santa
Claus. But it’s not about him – it’s about us this year. It’s about finally
having an excuse to be a kid again, to have an excuse to participate in all the
activities that would seem a little weird if it was just two adults doing it.
We’re going to have our first real Christmas morning in our
house. There are going to be presents* under the tree and we’re going to setup
the video camera to capture him opening them. These are the videos and memories
that are going to last for our entire lifetimes. It’s all very exciting. It’s
the most wonderful time of the year.
* and by “presents”, I mean random things around the house
we’re wrapping up. Clothes Jackson already had, toys he’s already played with,
food items from the pantry. I fully anticipate this kid being spoiled by others
this first Christmas, so we see no need to add to the pile. Also, it’s going to
be hilarious twenty years from now when he’s watching the video of his first
Christmas morning and he turns to us and says “wait a minute – you got me a box
of Cheerios for Christmas?!?”
