Conversation the next morning:
Me: Foosa, why did you turn your light on at 4:30AM?
Foosa (looks at me like I am the world's biggest idiot): Because it was dark, mama!
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Well, duh!
Woke up at 4:30 and discovered Foosa had turned the light on his room and was playing happily in the crib.
Monday, April 27, 2015
It happened...
I can't spell certain things around Foosa anymore.
Me (to G2): We were talking before his nap, and your son was wondering if we could visit the P-A-R-K tonight.
Foosa: Ooh, yes, let's go to park! I go on swing. Or down slide!
Now we need a code word...
(And yes, we are taking him to the park.)
Monday, February 16, 2015
Foosa's 6th Cruise
Back to bad habits. I didn't take any notes this cruise. (That's the bad habit, the non-note taking - not the cruising. I don't think.) So before I forget, here are the highlights. {Comments by G2}
We actually start on a lowlight. Everything was going great at the airport. G3 got a kick out of riding the moving walkway in the stroller by himself. (There was no one around.) {It was pretty funny. I put him on the walkway and started walking next to him. He did a double take but then had a huge grin.} But then boarding time arrived. Midway has a pair of crazy nowhere near anything gates called A4a and A4b, which is where we discovered our flight was leaving from. This ended up being very bad, because apparently nowhere near anything somehow also equals no air conditioning. So when boarding time came, G3 was already getting tired, and the teeny tiny no air circulation hallway where they line passengers up to board was an oven. BIGGEST TANTRUM EVER. Then boarding was delayed, (probably by about five minutes, it felt like hours) after we were all lined up. And he screamed. Oh, he screamed. One of those 'I can parent your child better than you can nosy women' standing near us told us we should let him run around. Yes lady, that sounds like a great idea. Let me put down my two year old in a tiny hallway packed with 60 plus people and their carryons. When we will be boarding at any moment. Sounds like a great idea. Mercifully, we did board soon after. The flight wasn't pleasant. Not the worst, but not the best from a behavior standpoint. But we survived and made it to the hotel and to the ship the next day in one piece. {And I didn't get puked on!}
Having been on many a ship, I have become a bit of a snob as to what I expect, and this one fell way, way short of my expectations. The service was subpar at best, and the buffet was a disaster. {Yeah, this ranked at the bottom of my experiences so far in terms of service, too. Just very meh.} So I'm not really going to talk about the ship, except to mention that we had the pleasure of meeting a couple G2's aunt and uncle had met/cruised with back in November. Delightful folks.
After sailaway, we had two days at sea to relax. First port was Aruba, where we had been before, so T1 got it in her head it would be a great idea to rent a jeep and go out and explore some not as commonly visited places. Started out okay. Renting the jeep was easy, and our first stop was going to be the Natural Pool. However, we got halfway there, saw how much further away it was, and gave up. When they say you need a 4WD vehicle to get there, they mean it. It was rough. Not really road, just boulders and holes. {It didn't help that I didn't turn on AWD until we headed back. Still, AWD just made the ride smoother more than anything.} (Upon returning the Jeep we encountered a group that had ventured on. They hit a loose rock and broke the windshield of their Jeep. They were still in a heated argument with the rental company when we left about how many hundreds of dollars cash they needed to pay for the damage.) So we turned around and drove through the national park instead. Lots of cactus. Upon exiting the park is when our troubles started. A simple right turn should have put us on the main road. No such thing outside of the capital apparently. We got lost. As lost as anyone could possibly ever get on an island so small. We finally managed to make it back to a paved road, returned to the capital, and started over. By this point we had decided to scrap the two attractions we were going to have to pay a set fee for, and just visit the donation based Donkey Sanctuary. Which it turns out IS THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE PLACE TO FIND EVER. {Apparently they don't believe in street signs in Aruba.} We must have asked a dozen different people for directions. All the directions ended with, 'and there will be a sign.' If one more person would have used that line... Eventually we did find it, and yes, there was a ridiculous little sign that was only visible from one direction, but it took forever. Worth it in the end, because G3 really liked the donkeys. So he was happy, and that's what counts. Later, while G2 was filling up the tank before returning the jeep, G3 stole T1's sunglasses of her face and within two seconds broke them into five pieces. A quick stop at a cute little store right next to the jeep return fixed that problem - and G3 got his own sunglasses as well. And so ended our day in Aruba.
Next day we went snorkeling in Bonaire. A new port for us. Best snorkel company ever. Woodwind Bonaire. They were prepared for everything. Wetsuits, lightweight fins, snorkel masks available in every imaginable size, prescription if you needed it. Flotation belts, noodles, whatever you needed, they had. They personally fit all of our gear. Defogged everyone's mask too. And were fully prepared to handle a two year old. We had brought his life vest. Didn't need it. They had them, We had brought his flotation disk. Didn't need it. They had plenty. And a turtle toy to keep him occupied. Water time! They put G3 in the floatie, anchored him to the guide, and away we went. Drift snorkeled a fabulous reef. Returned to the boat, moved to a second spot, more excellent snorkeling. Saw turtles! {And a moray eel and a barracuda!} Back to the boat. Yummy lunch and beverages aplenty. They even let G3 'drive' the boat. A fabulous day!
Grenada was the next stop. Also new to us. Booked an island tour in advance. Ended up getting outsourced to another driver, but that was okay because we ended up with a private tour. Which was excellent, because fussing. Lots of fussing. The only way to stop the fussing? The iphone. With headphones. But the hitch was that we required G3 to be good before getting the phone as a reward. That took some time. But we got there, as evidenced by the headphones in just about every picture of the child for the rest of the trip. Grenada was great. We bought a bunch of spices for next to no money. Including saffron. No way it's the real thing, because we spent less for a basket of spices than a tiny bottle of saffron would cost in the States. But whatever. {It's turmeric aka Grenadian Saffron.} We almost spent less on spices than we did on random tips, every place we visited had someone doing something interesting for money. A guy at the waterfall that played the guitar and made up songs about you (he sang G3 looked just like his daddy, among other things), guys that jumped off the waterfall, guys playing steel drums, etc. G3 got to put the money in the boxes. He liked that. He also enjoyed the beach stop at the end of the trip. Our next trip might just have to be a 'we go to beaches only' cruise, because that was always the highlight for him. {Though he isn't much a fan of walking on sand. He may need to get over that because he is getting seriously heavy.}
Next day, Barbados! We'd been twice before, and were again looking for something different to do. G2 (who never has an opinion on anything) had said he wanted to do a rum distillery tour, which T1 was determined to make happen. Being a Sunday, Malibu and Mount Gay were both closed, but Four Square was open. So we booked an excursion that would take us there (rum tasting included), as well as a plantation house featuring more rum tasting and a mahogany carving demonstration. A lovely day. {It was a good time. Rum wasn't bad, either.}
On to St. Lucia. We did an island tour and our first stop was at a banana plantation to eat them right off the tree. (We had done this before...it was just as yummy this time.) The highlight of our tour here was a trip to the mudbaths. We got there just before the crowds. G3 decided he didn't want to play in the mud, so the tour guide's helper watched him while we went in. She pretty much became our baby sitter for the day...she watched him during all the activities, like when we went swimming under a waterfall. It was a nice unexpected perk having her along. After all of our activities, we had a private buffet lunch at cute little restaurant with a fabulous view. St. Lucia is T1's favorite island from a scenery standpoint.
Our final port was Antigua, where we had technically been before - but we had just done a party boat/pirate ship booze cruise type thing, so we hadn't really seen the island. So we did another island tour here. Truthfully, there wasn't a lot to see. The beach stop at the end of the day was fantastic though - and that was just at one of the 365 beaches they have on the island. {G3 had a nice time floating in his floatie. And getting launched into the air and splashing back down.}
Overall, the ports were fantastic. Weather was just about perfect too. G3 was unimpressed by everything, but what's new? {He learned how to delete videos from the iPhone. That was new. Good thing I brought a tablet to restore the files. It would have been a disaster if all his videos disappeared.}
We actually start on a lowlight. Everything was going great at the airport. G3 got a kick out of riding the moving walkway in the stroller by himself. (There was no one around.) {It was pretty funny. I put him on the walkway and started walking next to him. He did a double take but then had a huge grin.} But then boarding time arrived. Midway has a pair of crazy nowhere near anything gates called A4a and A4b, which is where we discovered our flight was leaving from. This ended up being very bad, because apparently nowhere near anything somehow also equals no air conditioning. So when boarding time came, G3 was already getting tired, and the teeny tiny no air circulation hallway where they line passengers up to board was an oven. BIGGEST TANTRUM EVER. Then boarding was delayed, (probably by about five minutes, it felt like hours) after we were all lined up. And he screamed. Oh, he screamed. One of those 'I can parent your child better than you can nosy women' standing near us told us we should let him run around. Yes lady, that sounds like a great idea. Let me put down my two year old in a tiny hallway packed with 60 plus people and their carryons. When we will be boarding at any moment. Sounds like a great idea. Mercifully, we did board soon after. The flight wasn't pleasant. Not the worst, but not the best from a behavior standpoint. But we survived and made it to the hotel and to the ship the next day in one piece. {And I didn't get puked on!}
Having been on many a ship, I have become a bit of a snob as to what I expect, and this one fell way, way short of my expectations. The service was subpar at best, and the buffet was a disaster. {Yeah, this ranked at the bottom of my experiences so far in terms of service, too. Just very meh.} So I'm not really going to talk about the ship, except to mention that we had the pleasure of meeting a couple G2's aunt and uncle had met/cruised with back in November. Delightful folks.
After sailaway, we had two days at sea to relax. First port was Aruba, where we had been before, so T1 got it in her head it would be a great idea to rent a jeep and go out and explore some not as commonly visited places. Started out okay. Renting the jeep was easy, and our first stop was going to be the Natural Pool. However, we got halfway there, saw how much further away it was, and gave up. When they say you need a 4WD vehicle to get there, they mean it. It was rough. Not really road, just boulders and holes. {It didn't help that I didn't turn on AWD until we headed back. Still, AWD just made the ride smoother more than anything.} (Upon returning the Jeep we encountered a group that had ventured on. They hit a loose rock and broke the windshield of their Jeep. They were still in a heated argument with the rental company when we left about how many hundreds of dollars cash they needed to pay for the damage.) So we turned around and drove through the national park instead. Lots of cactus. Upon exiting the park is when our troubles started. A simple right turn should have put us on the main road. No such thing outside of the capital apparently. We got lost. As lost as anyone could possibly ever get on an island so small. We finally managed to make it back to a paved road, returned to the capital, and started over. By this point we had decided to scrap the two attractions we were going to have to pay a set fee for, and just visit the donation based Donkey Sanctuary. Which it turns out IS THE MOST IMPOSSIBLE PLACE TO FIND EVER. {Apparently they don't believe in street signs in Aruba.} We must have asked a dozen different people for directions. All the directions ended with, 'and there will be a sign.' If one more person would have used that line... Eventually we did find it, and yes, there was a ridiculous little sign that was only visible from one direction, but it took forever. Worth it in the end, because G3 really liked the donkeys. So he was happy, and that's what counts. Later, while G2 was filling up the tank before returning the jeep, G3 stole T1's sunglasses of her face and within two seconds broke them into five pieces. A quick stop at a cute little store right next to the jeep return fixed that problem - and G3 got his own sunglasses as well. And so ended our day in Aruba.
Next day we went snorkeling in Bonaire. A new port for us. Best snorkel company ever. Woodwind Bonaire. They were prepared for everything. Wetsuits, lightweight fins, snorkel masks available in every imaginable size, prescription if you needed it. Flotation belts, noodles, whatever you needed, they had. They personally fit all of our gear. Defogged everyone's mask too. And were fully prepared to handle a two year old. We had brought his life vest. Didn't need it. They had them, We had brought his flotation disk. Didn't need it. They had plenty. And a turtle toy to keep him occupied. Water time! They put G3 in the floatie, anchored him to the guide, and away we went. Drift snorkeled a fabulous reef. Returned to the boat, moved to a second spot, more excellent snorkeling. Saw turtles! {And a moray eel and a barracuda!} Back to the boat. Yummy lunch and beverages aplenty. They even let G3 'drive' the boat. A fabulous day!
Grenada was the next stop. Also new to us. Booked an island tour in advance. Ended up getting outsourced to another driver, but that was okay because we ended up with a private tour. Which was excellent, because fussing. Lots of fussing. The only way to stop the fussing? The iphone. With headphones. But the hitch was that we required G3 to be good before getting the phone as a reward. That took some time. But we got there, as evidenced by the headphones in just about every picture of the child for the rest of the trip. Grenada was great. We bought a bunch of spices for next to no money. Including saffron. No way it's the real thing, because we spent less for a basket of spices than a tiny bottle of saffron would cost in the States. But whatever. {It's turmeric aka Grenadian Saffron.} We almost spent less on spices than we did on random tips, every place we visited had someone doing something interesting for money. A guy at the waterfall that played the guitar and made up songs about you (he sang G3 looked just like his daddy, among other things), guys that jumped off the waterfall, guys playing steel drums, etc. G3 got to put the money in the boxes. He liked that. He also enjoyed the beach stop at the end of the trip. Our next trip might just have to be a 'we go to beaches only' cruise, because that was always the highlight for him. {Though he isn't much a fan of walking on sand. He may need to get over that because he is getting seriously heavy.}
Next day, Barbados! We'd been twice before, and were again looking for something different to do. G2 (who never has an opinion on anything) had said he wanted to do a rum distillery tour, which T1 was determined to make happen. Being a Sunday, Malibu and Mount Gay were both closed, but Four Square was open. So we booked an excursion that would take us there (rum tasting included), as well as a plantation house featuring more rum tasting and a mahogany carving demonstration. A lovely day. {It was a good time. Rum wasn't bad, either.}
On to St. Lucia. We did an island tour and our first stop was at a banana plantation to eat them right off the tree. (We had done this before...it was just as yummy this time.) The highlight of our tour here was a trip to the mudbaths. We got there just before the crowds. G3 decided he didn't want to play in the mud, so the tour guide's helper watched him while we went in. She pretty much became our baby sitter for the day...she watched him during all the activities, like when we went swimming under a waterfall. It was a nice unexpected perk having her along. After all of our activities, we had a private buffet lunch at cute little restaurant with a fabulous view. St. Lucia is T1's favorite island from a scenery standpoint.
Our final port was Antigua, where we had technically been before - but we had just done a party boat/pirate ship booze cruise type thing, so we hadn't really seen the island. So we did another island tour here. Truthfully, there wasn't a lot to see. The beach stop at the end of the day was fantastic though - and that was just at one of the 365 beaches they have on the island. {G3 had a nice time floating in his floatie. And getting launched into the air and splashing back down.}
Overall, the ports were fantastic. Weather was just about perfect too. G3 was unimpressed by everything, but what's new? {He learned how to delete videos from the iPhone. That was new. Good thing I brought a tablet to restore the files. It would have been a disaster if all his videos disappeared.}
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Foosa the Escape Artist
Sigh. I was Team 'Crib Forever.' The confines of that thing are wonderful. Used very effectively for time outs. (No one start with me on the 'never use the sleeping area for time outs, negative associations, blah,blah,blah.' For Foosa, it has been great.) And if he would stir from a nap or in the morning and not have anywhere to go, 99 times out of 100 he would go back to sleep within a few minutes and remain there until an appropriate waking time. And then it happened. On day 10 of Foosa's 6th cruise (narrative pending), he discovered how to get out of the pack and play the cruise line provided. This really didn't bother me, it was right next to the bed so he could just flip over to the mattress instead of taking the long journey to the floor. The next morning when he woke up (far too early) he climbed out of the crib, onto the bed, then on to the floor, located a Thomas book, and crawled back into the bed, wedged himself between his father and me, and exclaimed, 'Read the book!' It was adorable, but he was cranky the rest of the day due to inadequate sleep and refused to nap, prefer to climb out with greater and greater proficiency each time we put him in it. However the pack and play is much shorter than his crib at home, so I wasn't worried yet. Yesterday was an exhausting day of travel home, so he went to bed when we got in without complaint, and didn't get up until the stupid cat starting wailing for his breakfast. (Cat, you have an automatic feeder. Wait for it to turn on instead of bothering us about it.) And then...<insert dramatic music here>
Ill behavior in the early afternoon resulted in him being sent to time out. It was about 60 seconds before we heard a thud and then gleeful laughter. And back to the sun room he came running, very pleased with himself.
27 months old today and Foosa can climb out of the crib. Sniff. My baby is growing up. And life as we know it will never be the same.
Ill behavior in the early afternoon resulted in him being sent to time out. It was about 60 seconds before we heard a thud and then gleeful laughter. And back to the sun room he came running, very pleased with himself.
27 months old today and Foosa can climb out of the crib. Sniff. My baby is growing up. And life as we know it will never be the same.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)