Cozumel April 25th, 2009 - Day 8

Today marked the last day we had at the resort.  Well, the last night anyway.  We still have the flight home which isn't until 2:45 PM on Sunday so we've got a bit of the day around here still, unfortunately.  Anyway, we started the day just after 7AM and found it was quite windy outside.  Haylie had a pretty good night, considering the resort had thrown a beach party that we could hear pumping crap disco music in our room until the wee hours of the morning.

We went down for breakfast and decided that our best option was to just eat quickly, feed Haylie what she'd eat and get out quickly.  We still had to cope with some screaming and a couple of times we rotated taking her to a quiet spot hoping to calm her down.  She's even managing some drinking from a real glass, though she still tends to turn her sippy cups or bottles upside down if we give them to her so self feeding is still limited to the finger foods she can pick up.

As we were leaving, we decided we'd try one more dip in the family pool with her while she still seemed alert and relatively happy.  So, we hurried back to the room, got changed, and then quickly down to the pool.  The water was cold and the breeze made it feel even colder, but Haylie definitely loves pool time.  She giggles and coos and splashes the water.  Her little legs kick like there's no tomorrow and her two tooth grin says she's in heaven.  I know it sends me there anyway.  She can melt my heart with just a smile and I'm convinced she already knows that.

We got her back to the room for her nap and then started our prep for the last afternoon we'd spend on the resort.  We hired a second sitter but this time it was for noon until 4PM to allow us some adult only time at the pool, on the ocean, and to enjoy a meal together where so many this vacation had not been enjoyable or even together.  The breeze of course made me realize why the beach was so deserted or at least partially.  The sand was whipping us pretty badly.  We had lunch at the grill and the Mexican definition of pizza there left much to be desired.  It was basically some sort of soft flat bread that had been warmed on one side while allowing white cheese, marinara and pepperoni to melt on the top side.  Not quite pizza, but at the same time I didn't really mind.  I just wanted to have a snack really.

We headed back to the beach and I had decided we'd take part of this time together to rent a wave runner and get out onto the water.  It would seat three, so we didn't have to rent one for each of us, and Colleen at first was more than willing to let me drive.  The ocean was even colder.  I really let it go out there though and we had a blast!  I know I scared the pants off of Colleen more than once, and I also bounced us hard enough a couple of times to remind me that I couldn't let her fall off the back (as well as let me know that shrinkage doesn't impact the feeling of them getting bounced off the seat!)  Still, we really had a good time and after the 30 minutes we'd paid for, give or take, we headed back in and made the decision to go sit at the swim up bar in the adult only pool.

I had a couple of drinks they call a dirty monkey.  It is a Pina Colada with a half a banana and an extra added Kahlua.  It was pretty good.  There's just something about being in the tropics that demands you drink frozen really stupid named drinks.  Besides, that way it hides the fact that it is really well rum, well coffee liqueur and I don't have to tell myself to ignore that horrible bourbon taste of the well whiskey they have here.  It will remain my only complaint.  For what I pay to this resort and what we paid for the right to call ourselves owners, we should have the option to get some premium alcohol.  Eh, no worries.  Once we'd decided sitting in the breeze, in the shade in the water was making us colder than it should, we opted to go and lay out next to the pool.  I finally managed to get sunburned!  Of course, I could have avoided it and slathered on the SPF 50 I normally wear, but given that we'd spent less than 5 hours near a body of water, I really wanted to get a little burnt.

We decided to go back to the room a little early and despite our instructions and request to put her down for a nap about 2:30 or so, Haylie was wide awake and playing on the bed.  OH BOY!  That will shift dinner plans for sure.  Still, I paid 500 pesos for the sitter, which was close enough to the 4 hour cost plus the cost of her lunch, which the hotel estimates at 10 USD.  I figured it was worth it, even if her inability to understand enough English to follow our instructions now meant our dinner and evening plans would have to radically shift.

The resort has turned over guests, for the most part.  Seriously, we're like the only couple that started this week at the resort, and I didn't realize it would happen.  I think most of the more experienced owners set up their time to start and end on a week day instead of the weekend, as it has become obvious that if I did the same, we'd possibly have been able to add at least one more day here.  Not that at this point I would have wanted it, so I suppose it is serendipitous that I had no clue how to work the system when I booked this vacation.  

They don't start serving dinner until 6PM.  I find it funny to hear myself say it that way, but in all honesty that's late for Haylie.  She's typically in bed between 7 and 8 and dinner at 6 becomes the witching hour for her.  Add in the notion that she'd missed a nap and there was no chance we'd be able to get through dinner together.  So, to kill some time and hopefully get her a bit beyond the witching hour, we took a couple of laps in the stroller around the grounds.  It is an unusual resort.  There are many ramp accessible paths around the resort, but they tend to be discontinuous.  This means that a couple of times, we had no choice but to navigate stairs with the stroller.  She seemed to like the little bumps and we made a game of it as best we could.  We even tried to stop at the playground, but the swings aren't made for anyone under 7 by my estimation (at least based on the swings in our subdivision at home) and the sand under it had ants everywhere we could see.  Given that Colleen and I have likely 20 bites between us from ants, sand fleas, and mosquitos, we did not want to even risk Haylie having something to cause her more consternation.

So, tonight's dinner was Spanish night.  That was interesting to say the least.  They had actually roasted two whole piglets and left the head on them.  Now, I've been to a pig pit roast, and a pig pickin' before, so I knew that wasn't out of the ordinary, but I had to make sure to warn Colleen to steer clear of it when she went down for her shift.  Yes, you heard it right.  I had to agree to do dinner in shifts.  Well, had to isn't the right way to say it.  She and I learned from experience that this missed nap during the afternoon would all but assure a melt down and as we were talking about who would go first, she started head butting Colleen in the chest.  That's her sign that she's exhausted and mommy better do something or suffer the consequences.  She will do it to me as well, but typically her move to let me know is a slap across the face anytime I get mine close to hers.  Dinner was pretty good, though I hate having to eat without Colleen.  At least the dining room was predominately empty so I didn't feel too blue about sitting there by myself.

Back to the room to tag in Colleen.  She went to get food and I watched the last bit of Blood Diamond on Cinemax.  At least it is the English versions of the Movie channels, though since parts of this were in an African dialect, the Spanish subtitles had to creep up to almost half of the screen to allow the original American translation of those dialog components.  I will say that I like DiCaprio as an actor.  He chooses roles well and manages passable performances when it comes to appropriate accents.

Haylie went down deeply and without a fight, thankfully.  Our only concern now is that it is far too early and she'll wake up wide awake at 4AM or some nonsense.  Add in that tomorrow starts right about her usual nap time (first leg is at 2:45PM) and we don't get in to Raliegh until the wee hours of Monday morning and it could be a most savage flight home.  We both agreed to stop drinking when we stopped our afternoon together.  We don't need to be hung over and try to compensate for her needs on what should be an arduous experience getting home.

On a side note, I've mostly stopped beating myself up for this vacation.  I do still believe I hold a large part of the blame, due to the social more that says I am the head of the house so reward and blame are mine to own most often.  Yet, at the same time, I do not believe this vacation a complete failure.  I got to see my baby crawl and she's become quite adept at it.  I've watched her smile at me so genuinely it warms my heart to the core.  I got to do many of the things I wanted us to do while we were here, if not in the quantity, and it is that quality of experience that I will take away from this vacation.  It wasn't relaxing in most senses.  It wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination.  But, we managed to survive and still be a family.  Many times growing up, I can remember family vacations that seemed to work that way as well.  Maybe it is just something I needed to understand better.

Cheers!