Lessons from our Cruise

1. It is unwise to go on a cruise with two under the age of three unless you are certain they will both sleep through the night. Nadia had trouble the first couple of nights (she'd be awake from say 2-4:00am having coughing fits), but then she slept until 6-6:30am (which would be 7-7:30 EST) every morning after that. Ian only slept in the pack n' play one of the eight nights we were in a hotel or on the cruise ship. The other seven nights he was in bed with us. He also would not sleep through the night. I was often walking him around the ship at 4am. I fed him when he awoke throughout the night since letting him cry would mean all four of us would be awake. If I fed him or walked him then at least Paul and Nadia could sleep. I am willing to average 4 hours of sleep a night with a newborn, but I don't view going on vacation as a worthy reason to endure sleep deprivation. I asked Paul at one point what he thought of the cruise, and he said "it's been brutal." And he got more sleep than I did. The night shift cleaning crew (who work until 8am) knew me well.

2. I am the most prone to seasickness in our family. The first night the sea was rather turbulent. Paul got me a pill from the doctor on board on Monday morning, and that helped quite a bit. Thankfully my stomach was fine the rest of the trip.

3. Last night (our first night at home) I felt like my bed was rocking during the night. My brain apparently thinks we're still at sea. It caught me by surprise. I am curious how long this will last.

4. Similarly, I am walking around our house this morning like I am walking on a boat. Cracks me up that my brain is convinced we're still at sea. LOL!

5. It's possible to go to the Caribbean and never step foot on a beach. I can't believe that happened. We planned to spend time on the beach on the islands of Roatan and Cozumel. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate either day. The previous days when we were touring Mayan sites it was 86 degrees. Cloudy and 72 degrees would have been perfect for our activitities those days. We actually never exited the ship the day we were docked at Cozumel. We had planned to spend the day at a Chankanaab National Park (beach, sea lion show, snorkeling, etc.).

6. The transition to a big girl bed was much easier than I thought for Miss Nadia! I had reserved two cribs for our hotel stay and cruise. When we checked in at the hotel they said there were two cribs already in our room. They must have been delivered to the wrong room as there weren't any cribs in our room. Paul went back to the front desk, and they only had one more. We gave that to Ian although in hindsight we could have given it to Nadia as Ian slept with us. Nadia used a sofa bed. It was her first time sleeping anywhere other than a crib or pack n play, and she did great! On the cruise ship she also slept on a sofa bed as there was only one pack n play in the room. Again in hindsight we should have put her in the pack n play so that either Paul or I could sleep on the sofa bed (since Ian was in bed with us). Today we set up her bed at home, and she took her nap in it without any problems. This transition is going very smoothly although it's a bit tough on me emotionally to admit she's growing up so fast!

7. At this point, Ian's interest in animals is much greater than Nadia's. We learned this during our trip to the zoo earlier this month, and it was confirmed in Belize and Roatan.

8. At times, Ian is more friendly than Nadia. She sometimes acts shy, which at times actually seems rude; it's surprising given she's been such a social butterfly in the past. Ian has started initiating waving hi to strangers which is so cute!

9. I was able to go 8 days without being on the internet or phone. I received about 300 emails during that time. It would have been more than that but #1 the spring semester doesn't start until tomorrow and #2 I had recently unsubscribed from a whole bunch of devotionals I used to receive by email every day. Paul checked his email once. It cracked me up that he checked his (at the cost of about $8), and I didn't.

10. When we were going on vacations in the past, Paul and I would try to maximize our time away. Since Southwest only has 2 nonstop flights to BWI from New Orleans on Sundays, I picked the 4:40pm flight since 8:25 was too early given the soonest we could disembark from the plane was 8:00am. I thought we'd leave our luggage at the dock and do some sightseeing since of the six of us I'm the only one who has ever been to New Orleans before,

11. Ian is a cuddler. If I would move in the bed, he would move closer to me. He had to be touching me. If I gave up and slept on the floor (because I couldn't sleep with him kicking me all night long), he'd then migrate across to Paul's side of the bed.

12. I need to think of bcp's strictly as a means of delaying AF - not preventing pregnancy. I toyed with taking them while we were away to make sure AF didn't show up while we were on the cruise. I never know exactly when it will start these days. The last two cycles were 42 days long. AF showed up on Tuesday morning, which meant the last cycle was 36 days long. I was kicking myself for not having taken the bcps. I had filled the Rx for them a few months ago but never taken any. I still find it hard to take something that's intended to prevent pregnancy, even though I have no hope of conceiving without ivf. The next time we have a beach vacation, I hope I can get over that hangup as bcps could come in handy in making sure AF doesn't show on vacation.

13. Because we didn't have a refrigerator on the cruise, we started making only 4 ounces of formula at a time. This is a practice I plan to continue because if he sucks air at the end of 4 ounces he doesn't cry whereas when we remove the bottle when there's still milk in it, he usually screams (which then causes him to chuck). I wish I had thought of this months ago! Better late than never. He did pretty well with chucking on the trip. I thought it was the medication doing it's job, but today he's been throwing up ALL day long so I guess it's not a miracle cure after all. Maybe he's just allergic to our house, lol? Of course he did chuck ever day on the cruise, but it was to a much lesser degree. Today it has been nonstop. I am sure more has come up today than has gone down.

 14. Nadia loves to go to the bathroom on the airplane. She would have spent half of our flight on the toilet if I had let her, lol. Thankfully she has just started to want her privacy. I say thankfully because it would have been a tight squeeze for me to stand in there with her since airplane bathrooms are so small!

15. Sharing a room and nursing don't mix. Ian was weaned a couple of days before he turned 13 months old. I had been nursing him in bed, but since he was getting up so much earlier than Nadia, and since he can't nurse in the dark, I had to give it up. It was hard for me to do so, but I needed to let Nadia sleep. When I feel sad that our days of nursing are over, I am trying to remind myself to be grateful for the 20 months I did nurse the kids (7 months for Nadia and 13 for Ian).

16. I am willing to pay $13 for a nice picture of Paul and I. They were taking pictures throughout the cruise. If they had got a good one of the 6 of us, I would have bought that one also. They got a cute one of Nadia, but I didn't buy it because I have lots of cute pictures of her. Since I'm usually the one taking pictures, it's very rare to get one just of Paul & I. We liked it so we paid $13 for a 6x8 photo taken while we had dinner on Thursday night. I'll scan it and post it in the future so you can seen.  Thank goodness Sears doesn't charge so much for one photo!

17. Although NCL says you can't wear shorts to dinner, they don't enforce that rule. We don't ever plan to go on another cruise, but if we did I wouldn't pack so many clothes. We only wore our dinner clothes for about an hour each day so we didn't need a different skirt/dress for every night (although I packed enough to do that). We usually went to bed right after eating dinner.

18. The cruise would have been a lot more relaxing for Paul & I without the kids, but even so we decided cruises really aren't our thing. We had planned to go on one in 2005, but the adoption agency advised us against that in case we had a last minute match with a birthmother. We prefer to stay at a resort where we have easy access to the pools, beach, etc. I felt like I had a bit of cabin fever spending so much time in a floating hotel. Live and learn! I know many people love cruises, but Paul and I are not ever planning to go on another one. Thankfully we are in 100% agreement on this!

19. Although Nadia has her moments of not being well behaved for us, she continues to be well behaved in other settings (such as at church). We put her in the child care center a few times. It was complimentary when we were at sea (not when we were at a port). On the last day of the cruise she spent the most time there (9-11am and 3-5pm). One of the childcare workers told us she was one of the very best behaved children in their program (for ages 2-12). They said she always did whatever they asked her to do. We were very proud of her! Now if she'd always be that well behaved for Mommy and Daddy, lol!

Well it's 8:15pm, and I'm exhausted. I'm heading to bed. We arrived home at midnight last night. Thankfully Ian slept until 6:40. I hadn't slept 6 hours straight in over a week so even though I went to bed at 12:10am, it felt like I had slept a really long time when he woke me up at 6:40am. I'm hoping and praying that I get 8 hours of sleep tonight as between the sleep deprivation for the previous 9 nights plus a really busy day today (did 3 large loads of laundry, unpacked, went to the grocery store, put away a load of dishes, etc.), I'm totally pooped! I'll share more pictures and details about our trip later this week. :-)