crossrhodes

We’re stumped on what to do for our family vacation this year. Where would you go with an 18-year old and a 1-month old child? And a venue that won’t be a working vacation for mom?

We thought we’d go on a cruise again, departing from a local port to avoid flying. But infants under 6 months are ineligible to travel on such cruise lines. The baby will be able to travel on The Disney Cruise by mid-summer (their infant policy is 3 months and older) but we’d have to fly and we’re not so sure how keen the teenager would be on a Disney cruise. It’s too bad because most cruise ships offer baby sitting so mommy and daddy can do dinner and a show every night uninterrupted.

For the same convenience of cruising, I looked into all-inclusive family resorts with child care. Our domestic choices are limited, however, since we don’t want to take the baby overseas yet until all her shots are done. The Club Med Sandpiper in Florida seemed like a great idea, until I saw what it would cost us before the price of air fare. I suppose it’s reasonable compared to the average amount American families spend on vacations: upwards of $8,000 annually. I forgot where I read that recently… Money magazine or CNN? I wonder how accurate that statistic is coz it seems pretty high. We’ve cruised 3 times, gone to Disney World, and visited the west coast twice for less than half of that each year. Then again, we were a small family of 3. For $8k, we can vacation to the Philippines and live like kings for a month! Do any of you spend that much on a family vacation in one year? I’m really curious now.

I did find an all-inclusive “family camp” type of resort on a lake, in the mountains, with a water park and everything. It would’ve been perfect! They have the best child care program, all meals, activities, and entertainment are included, no tipping allowed, just a half-day’s drive away, and the cost is reasonable. It reminds me of the location in Dirty Dancing, the movie. It’s a place where families return year after year for weeks at a time (Saturday to Saturday stays only). But of course, they’re already booked solid thru Labor Day weekend!

So, we’re back to square one. Where do you go on vacation with a teenager, a newborn, and where a mom can actually vacate her domestic duties?

Guess who’s one month old today? *sigh* She’s already growing up too fast for me. I miss our first days together, from the burst of emotions when I heard the doctor say, “It’s a girl!” to the intoxicating newborn scent of her hair and skin. Now she just smells like either Johnson & Johnson baby wash or puke. LOL!!!

You’ll see her with this rabbit and in this outfit again. (Thanks for the rabbit, Tita Linda!) The idea is to scrapbook a picture of her every month for the first 12 months in the same setting to see how much she grows… and grows into the 12-month Onesie she’s wearing here. As you can see, she’s almost filled it in already with 11 more months to go. By month 12, she will look like a medium-rare sausage with an unbuttoned fly =)

I try not to read the news but a headline caught my attention this afternoon on my Yahoo! Mail tab. Steven Curtis Chapman’s 5 year old daughter died tragically in their home.

I was just listening to his new release, Cinderella, while putting Layla to sleep. It’s on mommy’s lullaby playlist. It’s a beautiful song. Listen to it and say a prayer for the Chapmans as they grieve the loss of their Cinderella.

Layla with my OB

I just reviewed our recent health insurance claims. Holy cow!!! Almost $4k for the obstetrician and surgery alone. We have no out-of-pocket cost (except for premiums) but still… that’s a lot of money for an hour’s procedure. For that much, I would’ve expected a Dr. McDreamy for an OB and dramatic spot lighting in the OR to complement my skin tone. Hmmm… I feel jipped… or have watched too many Grey’s Anatomy episodes. BTW, the OR during my C-section is nothing like the ORs on TV. It was bright, cold, the machines were noisy, and the staff chit-chatted over me like it was happy hour =)

The hospital bill was another $4k for room and board. It would probably be half that if not for all the tubes I was strapped to, some of which was unnecessary, in my humble opinion. i.e. The happy juice they gave me on the first night. It was awesome, but still unnecessary. Seriously (again, too much Grey’s), a thousand bucks a night? It was hardly a Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons experience.

I wonder how much it costs to give birth in a birthing center or even at home with a midwife, or what the bill would’ve been if I’d given birth vaginally instead of via C-section.

Oh, my Lord! I was clipping Layla’s nails while she was sleeping yesterday and went a little too far on her right thumb. I heard her scream, saw the blood, and that was it… I WAS FREAKING OUT!!! My heart was racing, my tears came running! I wasn’t reacting to the sight of blood but that I hurt her. I have never felt such instantaneous and overwhelming GUILT before that I caused pain on my own child!

My FIL was here. We’d just come back from breakfast. He looked at Layla’s wound, assured me it was no big deal, and asked sarcastically if he should call an ambulance. I said, yes, but not for Layla… for me… coz I seemed to be having a panic attack. I nursed her wound immediately, held her tight, rocked her, and cried “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” over and over and over!

After dinner, she’d managed to pull the bandage off herself and her thumb looked fine like nothing even happened. Go figure!

This begs the question: How do some mothers manage to deliberately abandon, abuse, and even murder their own children? There is a local mom who drowned and left her baby in a water tank recently and another who left her newborn on a stranger’s front lawn. I hear news like that too often.

I personally know a kid whose mother pretty much abandoned him for nearly a decade and only now that he’s graduating high school is she suddenly showing interest in his prom, graduation, and college. (Yah, you know who you are. I know you read my blog.) I never understood how a mother could stomach to distance herself from her own flesh and blood. And now that I know the kind of love my mother had for me, I’m even more baffled! The only conclusion I can come to is that such a mother was either abandoned herself as a child or has a defective neuron in her brain for which medical treatment has yet to be discovered. There is no reasonable explanation (or excuse) otherwise.