The Portugal Saga, Part II: Vacation?
Originally published at Welcome To The Dollhouse. You can comment here or there.
K, so we left off on the drive to Club Med. Let's continue.
It took us 40 minutes to drive from the airport in Faro to Albufeira. While Zara slept peacefully, (finally), a couple in the backseat of the transport bus had an infant who cried the entire ride. Clearly they did not believe in pacifiers. Luckily for us, by this point, we were immune to infant crying. I think we were immune to everything short of the end of the world, as long as we were on our way to a place that had a bed.
We arrived at the resort and I was so relieved when our zillion bags were put in the hands of the bellman to take to our room. But then I tensed. Before leaving, I had read a recent travel nightmare story from a family who traveled from China to Da Balaia. They reported that upon their arrival the room that they had booked was not available and they were forced to split the family up into two smaller rooms. When they told the staff that this was unacceptable, no one tried to help them and the staff were quite unconcerned. They ended up leaving and staying in another resort. Of course, knowing how I expect the worst from everything and everybody, I waited for that to happen to us.
I waited for naught. The lovely G.O. (gentils organisateur) arrived bearing fruit drinks for the three of us and inquired about our travels. She checked us in and explained how this village worked. She then escorted us to our room on the third floor of the tower building. She opened the door and our jaws dropped at the lovely view. The suite was perfect, not too opulent, but just enough room for Jubby to run around. There were also three bathrooms, two with toilets, one with a bidet, and one that had a sink and shower. And the balcony spanned both the bedroom and living room. AdoringHusband was happy to have plasma screen TVs in both rooms (though most of the programming was in French).
And when Club Med promised a Baby Med Welcome Package they did not disappoint. In the bedroom, there was a large would-be crib, that looked somewhat like a larger, more sturdy, pack and play. It was made up with sheets already and also contained a wearable blanket in a size large enough for Zara. There was also a changing pad with towels on our bed so we were ready to go. In the bathroom there was a baby tub, a baby bath mat, and products that could be used for bathing her. And on the way to the room, our G.O. had pointed out the baby room on the first floor where you could obtain baby food, milk, juice, and fruit at any time of day and night. We were set.
Our first thought was to do something about the incredible stink that covered the three of us from our long journey. While AH was in the shower, Jubby and I went out on the balcony and looked at the ocean as well as the pool and the people below us. She was in heaven pointing and waving, “hi” to the tiny people below her. She had a fun bath and opted to run through the room naked rather than have me put on her diaper. Finally captured, dressed, and the three of us destenchified as a family, we ventured out to the restaurant for dinner.
The main restaurant was in a word: huge. There were sections both inside and outside, along with many buffet areas. Yet that first night as we were learning the lay of the land, we chose to sit in the area where the children’s buffet was set up. We chose a large empty table and one of the waitstaff appeared instantly with a high chair for Jubby. We got situated and then realized that we had to have a strategy. And this is where we faced the tricky part of the vacation.
All meals were served buffet style. Clearly there was no leaving Zara at the table while we went in search of grub, so this meant that AH and I had to eat in shifts. First, just like that initial meal, we would choose the table and AdoringHusband would sit with Zara. I, then, would leave the table and visit the kid’s buffet. My hope was to find food that she would eat. The problem, I soon discovered, is that food Zara ate at home became food that she would not eat in Portugal. In fact, I soon found that there was almost no food that she would eat in Portugal. Sometimes, I get a few bits of chicken nuggets or meatballs in her, but not long after would come the pronouncement, “No.” (And this pronouncement began during our trip!) After that, any other attempts would be met with chewing and extrusion, smacking (when did my kid become such a hitter?) or flingage. And despite my pediatric knowledge that no child will allow him or herself to starve in the presence of food (one of my anorexic patients notwithstanding), I developed major anxiety about getting her to eat. I could almost see how the moms of my anorexic patients feel. Lunch and dinner became almost panicky events for me because of how little she would eat. Breakfast was better because she would eat cereal and milk. But lunch was often a few bites of something and then yogurt and dinner would follow similar suit. It was maddening.
But back to the ritual. When I brought back food to the table, I began to feed her and then AdoringHusband would go and get his dinner. By the time he would return with his dinner, Zara generally was starting to lose it and would be extruding her food or attempting to fling her plate on the floor. At which point he would then try to eat his dinner and entertain her while I would go in search of food for myself. Thus my dinner would end up being the fastest meal consumed because generally Zara would have had enough and would be having a meltdown by that point. The one thing that seemed to get her to calm down was ice. The kid was jonesin’ for ice. And when you put this together with her cat litter and gravel eating, I’m concerned about a pica caused by iron deficiency anemia, as she did show anemia during her one year check up. We are repeating labs next month. Anyway, the good thing was that the place was so child friendly that people didn’t really care. So the kids cried or made a mess…that’s what kids do. Yet there was no USA-level of misbehaving children. They didn’t run around between the tables or bother other diners. Parents did a great job of managing their children…it was wonderful and heartening to see.
We made it through dinner that first night with all of us being so exhausted that we nearly fell asleep in our food. We met two nice French ladies who sat down at the table with us, despite Zara’s sleepy food destruction. We had some wine, chatted about the weather and began to think that perhaps that now that we were here and had some food in us, the worst was now behind us. We contentedly pushed Zara back to our room in her stroller and passed by the front desk. There our G.O. wanted to warn us that there would be a fireworks celebration that night, since Saturday is the last night for many of the vacationers. The fireworks would start at 11:30 PM. No problem for us, we thought, because we would be asleep. We were all more than exhausted. Would the fireworks wake Jubby? Well she sleeps through some very loud movies playing in DVD surround sound at home, but even if she did wake up, she’d be so tired that she’d go right back to sleep. We concluded that we’d be okay.
We. Were. Not. Okay.
It took us about 45 minutes to get her to sleep once we got back to the room. I was trying to figure out how this kid who had stayed up all the night before on the plane was managing to fight sleep so well. You put her down and she popped back up crying. She had Rae Rae, Puppy and Hermione keeping her company. She would not sleep. Finally I had to resort to singing, yes singing, something I am not at all known for, to get her to fall asleep. After 5 repetitions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star she was finally out. AdoringHusband and I then did some more unpacking and crept into bed as quietly as humanly possible perhaps two hours later. Ahhh…bed, I smiled.
And then, as promised, there were fireworks. And with fireworks, was one awake Jubby. Despite the fact that the fireworks did not last for very long, the child would not go back to sleep. I rocked her. I read The Going To Sleep Book to her about 17 times. AH decided (as usual) that she must be hungry, so he got her yogurt from the baby room. She ate it but still wouldn’t go to sleep. We tried logic (clear evidence of how tired we really were) thinking that if she were in her crib and we were in our bed in the same room with the lights off, she would get the message and go to sleep. She didn’t. She wailed and wailed and wailed. I waited for the neighbors to knock on the door inquiring how we awful Americans were torturing our child. We brought her into the bed with us, something that has never been successful at home and was truly a desperate measure here. This only encouraged her to stand up and try to climb on the bed to poke at the wall hanging behind the headboard (as I had visions of her falling and cracking her head open) or to try to poke us in the eyes and ears as we tried to sleep.
Remember how I mentioned that the night before on the airplane felt like being on call? Well this was now turning into a really bad night on call…one of those nights where you have a black cloud and all hell breaks loose. All I wanted to do was to sleep. My kid was just getting in the way. I was inching very close to the end of my rope. I took her out on the balcony to look at the stars. We sang her favorite song, “row row row your boat,” too many times for me to count. We also sang, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” many many many many many times. Yet she continued to tease me. She’d say, “night, night” and put her head down as if she was going to sleep and then 15 seconds later pick it back up again laughing and smiling (and smacking me in the face). After an hour I just went back inside and put her back into her crib. Immediately we had more wailing and cries of “Up!”
By now it was about 4 in the morning and I had, in fact, reached the end of my rope. I turned to AdoringHusband and began crying, “What was I thinking? What would make me think that I should take a 16-month-old out of the country all the way to Portugal for a vacation? This was a bad idea! This was such a bad idea!” I sobbed and sobbed along with Zara crying to be allowed to run loose all over the room at 4 AM. He attempted to soothe me, but the fact was that I had lost my natural mind. Zara had caused me to lose my natural mind.
I took her out of the crib once again and brought her into the bed between us. She poked and climbed and acted as if sleep was something she had never heard of. I came within a fraction of an inch of giving her unnecessary Benadryl just get her to go to sleep. That is how ragged I felt. I think AH wanted me to go through with it when I mentioned it to him. We were just so spent. But somewhere around 5 AM, all three of us passed out. I woke up around 8 AM and found her head nestled dangerously near AdoringHusband’s butt as he slept on his side. I picked her up and put her back into the crib and slipped back into unconsciousness. An hour later, found her standing in her crib looking over the side at us cutely saying, “Hi.” I pretended to be deaf. She continued to say “Hi” several more times without signs of life from either parent. She then moved on to calling for daddoo. I nudged him in the ribs and said, “Your daughter is calling you.” That was one of the few times that I was thankful that she learned “dada” before “mama.”
I growled at urged AH to take Zara to breakfast while I tried to compensate for 2 nights without sleep. By noon I felt halfway human enough to wake up and look outside: blue skies, gentle breezes…OK, I can do this. I got dressed as AH returned with Zara. After a diaper change and bathroom break we decided to stroll around the resort. We showed Zizi the sights and groaned when her biggest interest was eating the gravel on the path around the perimeter. Hamburger and mashed potatoes no, but gravel yes?! The kid is a mystery. We made it through lunch in one piece, then visited the closed on Sunday Baby Club Med/Petit Club Med daycare center (looking at it so longingly). The remainder of the evening was pretty uneventful, though as tired as we were, there might have been a visitation by Monster Zero and we would not have remembered. After dinner, bath time and putting Zara to bed (finally she slept), AH and I stayed up too late fighting over my iPhone and playing Trism.
The next morning, our greeter didn’t pop up in her crib until 9:30. Unfortunately we all overslept the morning check in session for Baby Club Med which happens from 9 until 10 AM. And there was no way we could get up, get her dressed and ready in 30 minutes, especially as we were still halfway comatose. But after a good breakfast and challenging lunch, Zizi was off to Baby Club Med with Mlle Cecile. I almost did the happy dance!
We got some sun, drinks (caiparinhas) and relaxed. OK, so now we were ready for our vacation to get going. Yeah!
We collected Zara at 5:30 and hung out in the bar/pool area with her while we discussed American politics with the French people who came to sit with us. During dinner, Zara was being especially difficult, but I was determined to move through it since OUR VACATION HAD FINALLY STARTED and we were going to have a good time, dammit. So after a couple of glasses of wine, when Zara got fussy, I picked her up and started singing the Mommy Song. She was laughing, AH went to get some dessert. The weather was perfect. And then she threw up on me....and again....and again....
CRAP!
Stay tuned for part III