We have just returned from our Bahamas trip! And boy was it was exhausting!
To
celebrate Sy's father's belated 70th birthday, we took a big family
trip to the Bahamas - an all-inclusive resort for me, sy, emily; sy's
sister's family, and his parents. Overall, it was a great trip - but
note that I used the word "trip" and not "vacation." This was the most
exhausting trip I've ever done - more than our Arizona trip where we
hiked and walked all day! Traveling with 3 kids is no joke - and pretty
tiring!
Emily was pretty good during the plane ride. And
though she didn't sleep, she didn't scream or yell, so we were pretty
thankful. Emily, as usual, loved the pool. She constantly asked
"pool?" every time she saw any body of water and wanted to go swimming.
She mostly just enjoyed jumping off the steps of the pool and into me
or sy's arms. we did that OVER and over. can you imagine our delight?
As
expected, emily did not love the sand. i even tried putting the sand
shoes i had bought for her to help her not feel the sand on her feet.
But alas, it did not work. She refused to walk on the sand. We were
lucky to have gotten a few steps out of her, but that was it. The good
news is that she learned to enjoy sand play! Sy's mom brought a bucket,
shovel, and some sand toys, and Emily loved shoveling sand into her
bucket. It was really cute to see her sit still and just keep
shoveling.
Going into the ocean was another big hurdle
to overcome. At first, Emily was scared to be in the ocean. Perhaps
the uncontrollable waves made her feel uneasy. But after several
attempts, we finally got her to like the ocean. She really enjoyed
sitting on the flotation mat, while we held her as we floated
ourselves. She also enjoyed being in our arms in the ocean water as
well! After she finally came around to it, it was hard to get her out!
In general, taking Emily into the ocean is a bit of a scary thing to
do. When the waves were a little strong, I didn't feel safe holding
Emily and had Sy hold her instead. I'm short - waves can overwhelm me
pretty easily and I just didn't want the water to accidentally hit her
in the face, or God forbid, I get knocked over by a wave, and we both
end up in the water. And when I was holding Emily as she sat on the
flotation mat, it gave me major Castaway vibes and conjured up thoughts
of what it would be like if I were to be shipwrecked with Emily and had
to survive on the ocean alone with her. How would we survive? I
couldn't ever not hold her, but how would we get food or water to
drink? What if there was a storm? It was the most terrifying thing to
think about - ever.
Overall, the kids had a lot
of fun on this beach vacation. Adam, who is now 6, was basically a fish
and was constantly swimming in every pool, beach, and water activity he
could find. For the parents, beach vacations are super annoying!
First, you have to go through the long process of changing into
swimsuits, sunblocking everyone, packing up all your snacks and toys.
And then after the pool, the process of washing up is even longer! You
have to bathe the kids super well to get all the sand, chlorine and
sunblock off. And then you gotta lotion them up. And then all the
parents have to shower and wash up. And you also have to rinse out the
swim suits so that they can be worn again the next day. It was such a
long process that it took most of the day! I'm so glad that we don't
have to wear sunblock again for a long time!
Food-wise,
the trip was a little tricky. For breakfasts, Emily surprisingly did
not want to eat things like pancakes, waffles, or french toast (even
though she eats it fine at home). She only wanted to eat peanut
butter. It was so strange! And yet - breakfast was the easiest meal of
the day! Lunch was tough bc we usually were on the beach for lunch
time. None of the toddlers wanted burgers or hot dogs. One time, I ran
into the buffet line and brought back pasta for the girls. And other
times, we just packed PBJ and bread to eat at the beach. But bc the
kids just didn't eat a ton at lunch, by dinner time, they were starving -
and often hangry. emily ate pretty well for dinner. once, she ate
lamb meatballs and conch fritters and i was like wow, i'm surprised she
ate that! I was pretty worried about emily getting constipated on this
trip, and I was constantly trying to get fruit and vegetables in her.
But it definitely wasn't easy since we weren't at home to chop things up
finely to hide it in her food. In general, she ate SO much PBJ on this
trip, and also SO MUCH JUICE. She really got spoiled with having juice
at every meal. smh.
Sleep-wise, that was hilarious,
in hindsight. We had to share our small hotel room with Emily's crib.
So at night, we'd put Emily down, and then head into bathroom where I
had set up a pseudo-hangout room for us. We put pillows on the floor to
feel "comfortable" as we just looked at our phones waiting for her to
fall asleep. I had thought we would need a lot of entertainment in
there, but it turned out that we were so exhausted from the day that we
just wanted to go to sleep early ourselves. The first night, we did
phone stuff for 40 min, and then went to sleep by 10pm. The 2nd night,
we did the same thing. The 3rd night, we were a little more ambitious
and watched half an episode on Netflix, and ate some of Emily's snacks.
The 4th night, I was so exhausted that I fell asleep on the bathroom
floor. We never made it past 10:30pm at the latest. I think sun
activities are more tiring than regular activities. Couple that with
the fact that we got pretty much no breaks from Emily during the day, it
really drains all your energy. Some days, Emily didn't nap during the
day. That means 13 hours of continuous watching Emily - that's a lot of
work! During the 2 days that we did nap Emily, sy and i
actually left the room and watched her on the baby monitor and tried to
enjoy our free time. The first time, we lounged on some beach chairs
and when we heard her wake up, we ran for our lives to get to the room
as fast as we could. I shake my head at myself in hindsight now.
The
plane ride home, Emily fell asleep in Sy's arms. It was pretty sweet
to see. She was so exhausted from not getting to nap and she quietly
just closed her eyes and fell asleep. It was a nice 40 min of peace.
Again, I basically watched movies with just closed captions and no
headphones. Emily just doesn't allow me to wear headphones. haha, that
girl. She was pretty good again after she woke up. Mostly watched tv
and ate snacks and didn't make too much of a fuss.
We
have returned from this trip more exhausted than ever despite getting
9-10 hours of sleep per night - which is WAY more than we get on a
normal night. The memories were priceless. Seeing Emily and Carol
interact all weekend was so fun. I'm glad we did this trip despite all
the weariness it comes with.
From a developmental
update, Emily is talking more in sentence-attempts! She's learning to
pair words together - especially possessives - like Emmy's car, umma's
jacket, appa's bag. She is also sort of learning to narrate a little -
she has been trying to say things like duck go bus, duck go train. She's
learned how to say "umma mugguh" which means "umma eat it." It's
pretty amazing to see her learning how to speak more.
She's
also learning to sing more. At night, when I put her to sleep, she
sings "God is so good" with me as I sing it to her. She now sings baby
shark a little better too - baby shark shoo doo doo doo doo. Baa baa
black sheep has gotten better, and her W, X, Y and Z is pretty good
too.
Emily is a coloring monster. She wants to color
non-stop. I've had to tape craft paper onto her table bc she just gets
crayon everywhere. We had to pack crayons and a coloring book for the
trip! She also really likes paintbrushes too. I'm deathly scared to
let her actually paint though. She always gets crayons on her clothes
and on the table and sometimes the furniture. I'm so afraid to get
paint on everything. Markers are still off the table for her. She is
not to be trusted.
Emily is also a running monster.
All she ever wants to do is just run. She loves long, open spaces for
her to just run with no obstruction. It's a great way to kill time with
her. I have no idea how we're going to survive the winter without
parks to go and run in or swings or slides to ride.
Food-wise,
she's still fairly picky. She's still not loving rice dishes, but
loves red sauce pastas and korean soups with rice. Even her snack
preferences have changed. She hates animal crackers, but loves all
cheesy, puffed snacks. She still hates pouches, and is 50/50 on korean
rice snacks. Sometimes she likes them, sometimes she doesn't. And
sometimes she just gets sick of her own snacks if she eats them more
than once in a row. Man, what a little diva!
Diaper
change is super annoying bc she hates it, fights it, noodles her body to
try to escape. And so has teeth brushing! She went from hating it, to
loving it, to now hating it again. The good news is that she's finally
getting better at learning how to spit water out. And us cheering her
on has made that more fun for her.
Overall, Emily has
entered the terrible 2s. She entered it early, and it's hard. The
tantrums are definitely patience-testing. When she doesn't want to do
something, she screams (mildly), she whines, she says no, she crosses
her arms, she noodles her body, she turns her body away, she runs away,
and it is HARD. It makes me want to yell at her and just manhandle it.
It's hard to remember that she's a toddler and doesn't necessarily
understand the reasoning behind everything. But man, I wish it hadn't
started early. I do hope the terrible 2s will end earlier too then.
Sometimes I think about how this could stretch on for a year - and the
thought of going through a year of this very annoying behavior is
daunting. She's lucky that she's cute and that I often forget my
frustrations with her. But man, toddler life is tough.
Even
the way she plays now is so different as a toddler. She wants so much
to jump off things and that is a big test of patience as well. She's
really been enjoying trains, cars, and trucks. Watching her zoom her
cars is so fascinating to me bc it's so different from her baby days.
She likes cutting her play fruit, still crazy about bubbles, and using
her flashlight.
Hopefully, I can keep updating at a
faster pace so that each entry doesn't have to be a novel! The holidays
are coming soon. I can't wait for her to experience it again as a
toddler!
No comments:
Post a Comment