B.A.B.E. Week 12: Pros and Cons of the First Get Away

 This past week, Wilson and I took Elle on her first “getaway.”  This past Saturday morning, we hopped on a small shuttle plane to the Bimini islands.  The Bimini islands are small islands 53 miles due east from Miami.  In fact, we could see the lights of Miami on the beach just outside of our room.    Thus, there are a lot of boaters who come from Florida primarily for sport fishing.  Ernest Hemingway even came to Bimini for the fishing and ended up living here from 1935-1937. 

Neither Wilson nor I are big fishermen but we decided to see Bimini from Saturday morning to Sunday evening.  The quick trip went pretty well and I thought I would share my list of pros and cons from our getaway with an infant.  I suspect that many of the below pros and cons will apply to future planned travel as well.

PROS

Scratching the traveling itch

Even though our getaway was only 2 days and 1 night away, it felt like 3 or 4 days because we were removed from everyday life (and chores).  It felt so foreign and different.  Part of the reason that I love to explore is that feeling of being somewhere foreign and different and this satisfied that foreign feeling craving.

 

Expose Elle to diverse circumstances and experiences

Even though Elle is not yet 3 months old, I think the more experiences we can calmly give her to stimulate her neurons and synapses the better.  I also feel that exposing her to a fair amount of stimulation now may prevent her from being easily overwhelmed later.

Test-drive traveling

This week, I will fly to NYC alone (Wilson comes a day after me) and so I need to understand how to handle it.  Traveling with an infant is complicated with all the stuff that they require and the logistics of carrying the baby.  It is a lot – baby and stuff.  So it was good to figure out how our stroller system will work through the airport and what stuff I can get rid of (or send with Wilson the following day) in order to lighten my load.

Experience more locations in the Bahamas

There are 700 islands in the Bahamas and most of them are only easily accessible by plane. With most islands only accessible with our jobs, etc. via air,  we have to hop on planes to actually see more of the country where we live.   And Bimini felt very different from our island (Nassau, New Providence), more quaint, charming houses with no high security gates around them, colorful fish visible from our hotel walkway, and very slow moving.

CONS

Getting in over our heads…

Even though we did take it easy (see Con #4 below),  we toured a shark research center as a storm was about to hit.   For the tour of the shark research center, you have to wade out to the shark pens (which we didn’t know).  I was wearing Elle in the Beco.   We contemplated switching Elle to Wilson but the guide said that the water was only knee deep.   It ended up coming up to my waist and being a very uneven sandy bottom where I would be knee level and then suddenly upper thigh level.  It was very disconcerting especially as the wind was hammering the umbrella that I use to protect Elle from the sun.  Meanwhile, the dark storm clouds really rolled in and we were out at these shark pens.  Wilson and I left soon after we reached the pens because we didn’t want to get caught in the rain with a now broken umbrella.   Getting caught in the rain with an infant and a broken umbrella does not feel like an option.  Luckily, we made it safely inside before the rain hit…

Chores and caring for Elle in a foreign environment

The most important part of this con is that it is hard to adequately care for an infant outside your home “ecosystem” of playmats and other tools.  And you still have to do the normal “chores” that you do at home – changing diapers, cleaning up spit up etc. without the tools you have at home.  The hardest part about this was Elle’s diaper rash.  At home, I can let her happily stay in free time for hours – on our “getaway” this was much more tricky.  It also led me to staying in our room much more than I normally would have.   This leads us to the next con – on a getaway with a baby, you have to slow it down.

Can’t see as much

On this getaway, I didn’t see much outside of the airport, the shark research center, the resort where we stayed, restaurants affiliated with the resort, and a run throughout the south island.  We had planned to take a water taxi and spend Sunday on the north island but the weather and rain prevented us from going there as a family.  (Wilson actually still went).   Not going to the north island meant more free time for Elle so it wasn’t too painful a con.

 

$$$ and a significant burn rate increase

When we were jobless and traveling for 20 months (sabbaticating), we tracked and scrutinized our spending intensely.  We also figured out a “burn rate”.   The burn rate occurred naturally and was just an average of how much money we spent each day, re-calculated on a per day basis each week.  But since we were tracking our spending to the last dollar, we knew how much on average we spent per day and it notified us of the crucial fact of when we would NEED to get jobs.  It also helped us applaud ourselves when we were doing well in comparison to our burn rate and rein it in when we weren’t doing so well. 

Traveling with an infant has significantly decreased and in some cases eliminated my tolerance for discomfort.  Discomfort in walking down hot dusty roads or waiting  for and riding on dirty crowded buses is no longer an option.  Well at least not an option while Elle is so young….this intolerance for discomfort means that we have to pay to avoid it.  And it is shocking how much that discomfort was saving us…if we compare this 2 day getaway to our sabbaticating, our daily burn rate was more than 4X the daily burn rate or our travel. 

Even with the cons, the getaway was a success and we did the getaway the middle of a shift into high gear of Elle’s development.  Now she is a solid active little person with opinions about when she should be fed and a seeming enjoyment (or at least calm) of stimulating environments like noisy restaurants (or even her first happy hour.)   Physically, she is pushing up during tummy time for minutes at a time.  She is also starting to move herself on her back all over her playmat.  Emotionally, her cuddling has also upped a notch.  As a consistently cuddly baby, she now favors cuddling her blanket, super soft toys, or a comfort mini blankie.  She is so cute with them – trying to stick them in her mouth and moving them all around when napping.   Night time is a different story because you aren’t allowed to have anything in their cribs… but her nighttime sleeping continues to be good.  We put her to sleep anytime from 8:45-10:30 and she wakes up for a feed anytime from 3:30 to 5:30.  The 5:30 wake up times are still rare but so happy when they occur.