It’s been a little more than a year ago now that we took our last vacation as a family of three. I was pretty pregnant at that point, but we knew things wouldn’t be the same once the new kid showed up, so we thought we’d treat the original kid to some focused parent time while she could still get it. We had found inexpensive flights to Ft Lauderdale, and so we decided to spend a few days tooling around Miami.

Maya, not quite 2 years old

Funny aside: it really doesn’t work to shop for swim suits in September / October. This appears to be doubly true for maternity swim suits. I wound up purchasing the only suit that fit me in the only store I was willing to stop at.

Maya is funny. She and I occasionally play with some seashells she collected while on that vacation, so she hears me refer to Miami all the time. Since we’ve been working on this post, Sean and I have been discussing these photos and the things we did on that vacation. He looked at her recently and asked her if she’d like to go to Miami again. She gave him her best angry face and said she wanted to go to “Mommy’s-ami, not Daddy’s,” presumably because we found seashells at mine.

Maya and Mommy

We learned a lot on that trip. It was really our first time vacationing when our goal wasn’t to see family or mess around on the beach the entire time. We unintentionally fell back to our pre-kid version of trip planning, which involves getting a good jump on the day and packing in lots of activities. We knew we’d need to keep Maya entertained, so we had beach time and a visit to the Miami Seaquarium built in. But our list also included strolls around town, a list of restaurants to try out, and maybe even a boat trip if the weather held.

Yeah, we way, WAY overshot. Generally speaking, we were lucky if we were out of the apartment, breakfasted, and on to wherever we were going before 10a. And Maya was still taking a pretty solid afternoon nap, so our window for activities was pretty narrow.

Maya and Daddy

We had read that Key Biscayne was a good place to stay for families. We found a nice apartment via Homeaway and also rented a crib for Maya to sleep in. It worked out well enough. The drive from Ft Lauderdale was pretty quick. (Seriously, we saved hundreds of dollars by not flying directly into Miami, and it’s less than an hour car trip between the two.)

Our two difficulties were scheduling and meals. Given our slow start with Maya, we were generally having breakfast somewhere in Key Biscayne, and it just didn’t seem like there were too many breakfast options. We’d drive into Miami, putter around a little, have some lunch, putter a little more, and then head back for a nap. Our intention had been to head back into Miami after nap to do a little more sight seeing, but it just never worked out that way. More typically, we’d play on the beach a bit and then try to figure out where we were going to eat. And the places to eat where kinda swanky. We did reasonably well, in that all the food was really fantastic, but we definitely spent more than either of us thought we were going to.

Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne

We also experienced what will forever be known as The Miami Incident. Maya is a really good eater. Even now as a picky almost-three-year-old, she’ll usually try out whatever you’re offering. For instance, on this vacation, she ate a whole plate full of Indian food, a few bites of my grilled octopus, plantain fritters, fish, and who knows what else. She also discovered the wonders of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

We had stopped at a little restaurant by a gas station for breakfast, and each of us ordered orange juice with our food. Sean was holding Maya and letting her nibble on whatever he was eating. Then she got ahold of his juice. It was in a styrofoam cup, so we didn’t really see how much she was drinking, but whatever, it was cute. Of course she liked the wonderful fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was a lovely thing to wash down her breakfast empanada.

Miami

We took the toll road into Miami and were driving along the main drag enjoying how fantastically Miami everything looked. Sean was hunting for good parking, and I was in the back seat with Maya. She spat up a little bit, which is rare, but no big deal. I grabbed a burp cloth to wipe her up (yes, at nearly two years old, I still carried them around; they’re good for spill clean-up). And she just kept vomiting. She looked as startled as I felt. I tried to catch it in the burp cloth, but it was no use. The poor girl was basically sitting in a puddle of regurgitated orange juice.

Sean pulled us into the parking lot of a Walgreens and ran inside to procure cleaning supplies of some kind while I set about giving Maya a wet wipe bath and changing her clothes. He bought a couple jugs of water and some paper towels and did the best he could to de-barf the car seat. This sort of thing was so out of the ordinary for Maya that we actually thought she might be sick, so after all that craziness, we gave up on the day and drove back to our hotel.

Maya loved her beach ball

But wait, there’s more. Maya was crazy about balls, so we bought a package of beach balls to take on our trip. We blew one up, and true to form, she LOVED it. That’s all she wanted to play with. She’d toodle around the apartment rolling it around and laying on it. This very same day, she was playing in the apartment after her nap (yeah, not sick at all), and her ball got the best of her. She accidentally rolled forward on it and cracked her chin on the tile floor. She cut it open and of course it bled profusely. After a trip to the drug store (our second that day!), she was band-aided up and feeling a little better, but I think all of us were a little weary of our “vacation” at this point.

The Miami Seaquarium was neat, but not what we expected. There were some sea creatures in tanks and whatnot like you’d find at a traditional aquarium, but really the draw here seemed to be a series of shows instead. We saw dolphin shows, killer whale shows, sea lion shows. It was really neat, and when Maya was watching it, she seemed interested. Often she was messing around playing in the seats instead. She liked getting splashed because then she could lick delicious salt water off her face. But often, the movement between shows was what she really enjoyed. They had a playground there, and of course we let her play there a bit between shows.

Killer whale

Generally speaking, I remember the vacation fondly, and I think most of it has to do with our very simple time spent together playing on the beach. Also, till I looked through these photos, I didn’t realize just how much Maya has grown up in this past year. She’s leaned out and lengthened a lot. I love, love, love our silly, expressive, independent, almost three-year-old girl, but I do miss the pudgy almost two-year-old she was then. This was still in that sweet spot where she liked to be held, where she rolled with the punches a little better, where she was generally content. She still had her baby face and her baby body, at least a little. She still let Sean take her picture once in a while. These days, she’s much too busy for all that.

In July, we took what is seeming like our annual trip to visit family in Missouri and Alabama. This was the first time we had really traveled with the two kids beyond a quick trip to the Dallas-Ft Worth area. Let me just say, finagling luggage, two small kids, and two car seats is a feat in and of itself. Getting all of us through security was particularly interesting. I hear about single parents traveling like that, and I honestly have no idea how they manage.

Everything was okay in the airport. Maya generally climbed around on the seats or busied herself with the iPad. Ian watched people. Things didn’t get rough till we were on the airplane.

Maya got lots of grins as she walked through the airplane toward our seats, clutching Oddipuddy in one hand and her duck pillow in the other. She and Sean were sitting next to each other in one row, and Ian and I were sitting next to each other directly behind them. Maya was strapped in with a CARES system for the first time, which I think she liked because she felt like a big kid, and Ian was in his car seat.

It wasn’t long before Ian was yelling. As Sean says, Ian doesn’t suffer boredom well. We had just walked down a nice aisle full of people he could grin at, and then I stuffed him into his car seat, where he could barely even see out the window. Also, a reminder: that boy is loud.

My only hope was that takeoff would help soothe him to sleep. Sure enough, he fell asleep, but it didn’t last, and when he woke up, he was really unimpressed. I had packed along a nice bottle of milk for Ian so that he’d have something to help his ears on takeoff and landing. He should have been hungry, so I offered it to him. Nope. And bless his stubborn little heart, he never would take that bottle. He slept a tiny bit later in the flight, but generally, he was just angry and vocal.

Luckily for him, as soon as we landed, we had to get our luggage, take a shuttle to the rental car place, install two car seats into the rental car, and then drive a couple hours to my parents’ house. Poor guy.

Maya, once we were actually at Grammy and Grandpa’s house, quickly found the toys and could stretch her legs and unwind a little bit. Ian just had a really rough, rough bedtime.

Grandpa and Maya feeding fish

I was impressed with how quickly Maya warmed up. The very next day, she was already willing to play with Grandpa and walk to the pond with Grammy. She really loved going to that pond. There were sticks and rocks to mess with, a couple of piers to walk out on, and fish to feed.

Grammy and Ian

Ian, not surprisingly, loved all the undivided attention he received from his grandparents. He was mostly along for the ride when it came to activities, but he got lots of interaction with people, and that makes him a happy guy.

Sparkler!

We dickered around about showing Maya some fireworks last year. She’s particular about loud noises, and we didn’t want it to be one big unpleasant experience for her. This year, we were fortunate to have the ideal set-up. We all hung out on Grammy and Grandpa’s porch and watched as fireworks were launched from the yard below. If we needed to, escape would be as simple as heading inside and being distracted by toys. That wasn’t necessary though. Maya sat on my lap and let me hold my hands over her ears while she watched her first fireworks. She even got to throw some little poppers and hold a sparkler. Ian, of course, slept through the festivities.

Goat!

We also went to Lazy L Safari Park. It’s sort of a little mini-zoo that lets you pet and even feed many of the animals. One of Maya’s favorite activities was feeding the little parakeets from a popsicle stick coated with seeds. We walked into a cage full of birds with our seed-laden sticks and they’d flock to our arms to get to the seeds. She was on the fence about whether she really wanted the birds on her, but she very much enjoyed them being near her.

Our trip to Alabama was mostly uneventful. Ian again was screamy on the airplane and refused the bottle. I had room enough this time to breast feed him partway through the trip, though it really didn’t help much. Maya wound up falling down and busting open her lip on our way through the Birmingham airport. Again, by the time we got to Lolli and Pop’s house, Maya needed some time to unwind and play, and Ian really desperately needed to sleep.

One of the great things about Lolli and Pop’s house is that there are kitties. They have six cats living at their house, and Maya can now name all of them and tell you which ones might bite and which are safe to pet. Even months later, she still runs down the list from time to time. Ian also is a big, big fan of kitty cats. We spend no small amount of energy keeping him from unintentionally damaging them.

Maya the firefighter

One of the highlights of our trip was the McWane Science Center. Ian mostly hung out in the stroller and watched little kids running around, so he was pretty happy. Maya was in heaven. She dressed as a firefighter, played in a kitchen, messed with bubbles, pet a shark and a stingray, and dozens of other things I can’t clearly remember. She was very well occupied and did not want to leave when it was time to go.

Ian’s not too sure about the pool

We also got to visit the Homewood Pool. It’s like no other swimming pool that I’ve ever been to. There’s a shallow area with lots of splash-pad-esque sprinklers and showers and things. And there’s a giant whirlpool type thing that gently urges you along as you drift lazily around and around. Maya was in heaven. This was officially Ian’s first visit to the pool, and he was not immediately a fan. After three quarters of our pool visit was over, he finally relaxed a little. Until then though, it seemed like yet another torment he’d have to endure more so than actual fun.

Maya is SURE she likes the pool

To save a fair amount of cash, we drove the couple hours to Atlanta to catch a flight there back to Austin. Everything was going well enough, except that our flight wound up being several hours delayed. I was really impressed with the fact that Ian basically took his nap while hanging out at the airport instead of in the plane where I had hoped he’d sleep. But sure enough, after another long, loud flight, we finally made it home. Even with the travel drama, we had a great trip. Maya still talks about her visit with both sets of grandparents and the things she did while she was there.