The Vacation that Wasn't

Imagine you're on a tropical beach. The sun is shining and warm, the white sand is the consistency of flour, the palm trees are rustling in the breeze, you've found the perfect lounge chairs under a palapa and unlimited drinks are being served to you as you read. Sounds pretty amazing, right?

Now add to this a three year old with a bad cold - the fever, sneezing, coughing, and vomiting kind - and a teething six month old who screams to nurse every two hours day and night. The three year old refuses to eat anything except for Mexican-brand frosted flakes and whines incessantly. When he is awake the six month old wants to be held and bounced. Now imagine doing this for seven straight days, this was the reality of our vacation.

Last week Chris and I took the kids to Cancun for a week to a beautiful resort on a beautiful beach. We saved up, planned our trip carefully and looked forward to our first holiday as a family of four. Our plan was to spend our days at the beach or poolside, head in around 4pm for the kids' baths and dinner. We'd put them into their jammies and pack them into the (new double) stroller with milk, then walk to one of the six restaurants where Chris and I would enjoy dinner while Eloise and Spencer slept. This plan worked exactly twice. 

For most of the week Eloise wouldn't eat anything - except of course Zucaritas. The options were basically unlimited and at any given time there were easily five meals she would have devoured at home. She would not even eat quesadillas, which I make for lunch at least twice a week, and apart from a few tomatoes she ate precisely no fruits or veggies for an entire week. Everything was "gross". I'm pretty sure she was messing with us on purpose.

Don't let that smile fool you. The Zucaritas were her 'meal' for the day.

I will admit it was bold of me to think that taking two young kids on holiday was going to be easy and even with the challenges of sickness and teething it wasn't all bad. Once Eloise recovered from her cold we were able to send her to the resort's Kids Club, which was a godsend. We dropped her off at 9:30 and checked in on her several times throughout the day, expecting her to be desperate to see us. Not in the slightest. Every time we poked our heads in she firmly said, "Please just go, Kids Club is not over yet". On the two days she was well enough to be at Kids Club (yup, just two) she was there until nearly five o'clock. We even managed to spend an awesome day at the mind blowingly, incredible Fairmont Mayakoba with my friend Robyn who was there on her honeymoon (she wanted us to come!). These were the good days. Spencer took his naps dutifully on lounge chairs in the shade while Chris and I basked in the sun. We both read a book. We got just a little bit of a tan. Chris went sailing. Eloise started eating again and the whining subsided. Everything was looking up, and then it started to rain.

At least the booze was unlimited.