Stop Wishing it Away

Listen, I am just as guilty as the next guy. I find myself either saying or thinking, "Man I can't wait until..." Until what really? What exactly am I waiting for? More time to spend alone? Each stage comes with its highs and lows and I don't foresee the next phases of my daughter's life getting much easier. I look back at her as a baby and think "wow, why did I think that was so hard?" She literally laid there, ate and drank. But it was. Sometimes I look at her and think to myself "who are you?" We are in what everyone refers to as the "Toddler Stage" and I don't get it. She doesn't toddle around, she is a raging ball of energy that consumes every ounce of my daily sanity. I have in fact re-named this stage to the "Trying to keep her alive" stage :). If you are a mother of a child around this age, then you totally know what I am talking about. I could make a million excuses why I have not blogged in forever but it is because when I do get a minute to myself I would rather watch some stupid mindless TV or shove my face full of food then to try to prompt my brain to work. Over the past few weeks I have had 2 working moms tell me they have no idea how I stay home with her because they are going crazy during the Summer. Yes, I do have my crazy days and I like to think I am getting good at crazy! Like my previous blog post, I have so much respect for working moms as I don't know how YOU all do it. But we are women and we always figure it out :). I don't want anyone to think that I complaining, because I am not at all! I am just sharing one mother's stories to share a laugh with that one mother who can relate. This is real life. Back to the stage I call "Trying to keep her alive". Seriously, the second I turn around she is into something she shouldn't be and she knows it! Making an extra mess on top of the one I am currently cleaning up. Then when I turn around to start on that mess, she has mastered the door handles and helped herself into the garage and has started learing how to use the power tools. It is quite comedic to see a 25 pound child carry a leaf blower, I guess I should just be thankful she can't start the mower. I don't know what I will do next when she learns how to unlock the doors....A few weeks ago I was calling her name because she was quiet and we all know that is NEVER a good thing, no response. So I kept calling and getting more anxious with each yell. I heard a few squeaks and laughs from her only to eventually find her in the dryer.....yes you heard me right. Happy as a clam making the dryer spin by crawling in it.

I am seriously thankful each night that she is alive and well after the day's end because with each day it gets more and more risky! If I told everyone everything my sweet child has done, I would expect DHS to show up at my door step. I swear that is why play dates were invented. A mother's vent session on how we suck as parents, but hey it could be worse, right?! Like I said though, why do I keep wishing it away? With all of the stress and work that comes with raising a child, these are the memories I will always cherish and the stories I can't wait to share with her. Still when people ask me about having another baby, I kindly state that when God gives you perfection the first time, you just stop :) Haha. I don't tell them that in reality I would be in the loony bin with another child like the one I have. Her energy and spunk succeeds mine ten fold....and I AM young....or at least I tell myself that.

I have heard of the "why" stage but we are in a whole other stage that is taking the cake. Everything right now is followed by two words. They may sound simple to you but when you live them daily, I am lucky I still have hair. She says "touch it" after EVERYTHING. Almost to the point where my husband I am actually looked it up on good ol' Google making sure she didn't have some disorder. I am not kidding. She is so inquisitive which is great, but does she really need to touch everything? At Target for instance, those stupid big red balls outside scream to children "TOUCH ME". So I am that parent taking her over to the ball to touch it to avoid a melt down. Or for instancec, we can be at home and she will say "fan" then I will say "yes, that is a fan. Good job." And with that comes a "touch it." WHY? Why in the world do I have to reason with my child in every department store as to why I cannot reach the lights on the 20 foot ceiling and that she really can't touch everything? So after another trusty Google search, I ran across an article that made me stop and think. She is learning, her brain is telling her body to explore and to touch what she is saying. Go ahead and laugh, yes I already know she is learning but to hear someone put it down in less harmful words changed my thinking a little. Like as if the article was like "which idiot googles with concerns of her child learning?". Really though, why do I let it bother me so much? What is a couple more seconds out of my day to allow her to explore? Well a lot actually. I have this plan and agenda for the day of how it should go and I did not put in pit stops for touches! Sounds so stupid when I type it out how I actually think. What could really be that important? I doubt if I don't let her touch somethings she will end up in a slow learning class because of it and no I don't remember if my mother let me touch and explore as much as the next person, but I am a very hands on visual learner and I have a feeling she is the same. I have to learn to let go of some of the control. It is a slow process but taking that step back is good for your body. I am not kidding. Being able to laugh about somethings and skip other things is kind of freeing. It's like the Island people. You go on vacation and they have no clue what time it is, no schedule and seem to have no worries. She has a way of knowing just what I need in life. I needed that small reminder to slow down and just enjoy this ride. It doesn't last forever. I want to be that Grandma walking into Target someday smirking at the sweet mommy and daughter touching that big red ball and remembering how I used to do that and how simple it seems.

Finally what really inspired me to finally sit down and write a small post was at dinner last night. My husband works a lot of long hours and 95% of the time I cook dinner at home. It is much easier and I like to do it. Of course the other reason is that I have a 20 month old. Now you get it. So there is this new Mexican restaurant literally 1 mile from our house and they are usually not formal quiet places to eat so I thought perfect place to grab a bite. I made the mistake of telling the gentleman that we did not need a high chair if we had a booth. For the first 3 minutes she sat down then proceeded to spill the chips, knock over her water, and get the refried beans all over the seat. Nothing to harmful, just stressful when you are trying to eat and not piss other customers off in the process. I know I shouldn't care what they think or say but if I am honest, I do. I get anxious thinking that I am a bad parent and I can't get my child to behave. I could be like that woman in the paper who fed her child a margarita in her sippy cup and claimed she didn't know it had alcohol in it, but then I would be lying. EVERY mother knows what has alcohol in it :)

My husband was sitting across from me, not helping the situation of course and I found myself getting mad, like almost snapping at her. She was climbing all over me, standing behind me on the booth pushing me forward, playing with my hair, and hands around my neck in a hug like form. I  snarled and told her that I am with her all day long, you would think she would be sick of me by now. But as soon as I said that I don't know what came over me but I simply told my husband that I should just cherish it because in a few short years she won't even be eating dinner with us and she may not want to love on me like that. My mind was screaming at her but my heart was full of grace. I turned to her with my teeth still clenched together and smushed both of her cheeks with my palms and gave her nose kisses and told her that I loved her, like I try to do multiple times each day when I really just want to scream or cry. She let out a giggle and put her baby arms around my neck and said "ahh mama, lub you." My heart is hers forever. She has no idea the stress and angst she can cause me to feel but somehow she can simply make everything bad go away in an instant. Those blonde curls and gapped front teeth are the most precious thing I could wish for and here I am thinking it would just hurry up, grow up, and then all would be well. Again, just writing this out is hard because I can not think of anything worse that could happen, is her growing up and not needing me anymore and I just wished it away. So for now, stop the wishing away and start living in the present. You are needed.

Travel Costa Rica-Libera-Guanacaste

I have a long list of places that I want to travel to and this was near the top. Visions of a tropical rainforest, turquoise blue waters, and a variety of animals you only find in a zoo. Who wouldn't want to see that? I am slowly but surely checking off destinations but since having a baby I have become the bigger baby about leaving her. I have said it before and I will say it again as I am not ashamed...I am a control freak and when things are out of my control my anxiety goes through the roof. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me "oh she will be fine" I would be rich....and still anxiety ridden. Listen, I know she will be taken very well care of and I knew she would have a blast with Nana, but that is not the point. Well I had to get over it because the plane was leaving no matter what. Thank God for iMessage and Facetime. This is my baby giving me kisses, how could you not miss that face?

Needless to say we both survived the 8 days away from each other and I have already made it clear to my hubby that the next vacation I am not leaving her for that long...at least not this year :)

After a 5 hour flight from Chicago we finally landed in Liberia, Costa Rica. The airport was built brand new only 2 years ago and it was really clean and nice. Make sure you have a taxi or shuttle scheduled because they charge you $80 for 2 people to get to your hotel when the hotel only charges $55 for 2 people in a private taxi or $25 per couple on a shuttle. Upon landing and while driving to our resort, the visions I had of this country was not what I was looking at. It was brown, dry, hot, and looked just like Mexico. I was a little bummed I am not going to lie. We decided to stay at the RIU Palace as it was an old standby that we knew what to expect having stayed at 3 other RIU resorts. And also...1.) Because I was so out of sorts leaving my child I didn't need any more stress of researching and picking a new place and it being a disaster like Barbados :) (See Travel Barbados blog post for a good laugh). 2.) We were going to stay at the Westin but when I went to book it the price went up $1,500 per person and I am a cheap. 3.) We are old and all we want to do is lay around, soak up some sun and maybe hit up a few touristy things. Done with the excuses. We love the RIU Palace in Puerto Vallarta but this RIU was probably our least favorite. Yes, I read the reviews and searched through Trip Advisor, but I am convinced that the people who write glowing reviews never get to travel and the poor reviews are people who think they are going to have the best food of their life and best accommodations at a at best 4 Star property. Forgo the expectations and just enjoy the ride, it is much better that way!

The decor is very modern and the colors do not seem to fit the location but the view looking out was all I needed. We spend majority of our time outside trying to un-thaw from winter, probably why the hotel was packed with New Yorker's and Canadians! Haha

We would enjoy a glass of wine here each evening overlooking this view. Not to shabby eh?

We did walk over to the RIU Guanacaste property which is right next door and if you stay at the Palace you have the option to hang out there if you would like, no charge. The decor and vibe were much more Costa Rican if you ask me with lush landscaping and more earth toned palate.

For what we did the RIU accommodated my butt just fine. There was an empty chair pool side every day waiting for us, a seat at a their several restaurants and buffets, and more importantly friendly staff waiting to assist you with whatever you could possible need. And they win the award for best dirty monkey drink! Who doesn"t love chocolate and bananas??

The weather is warm and toasty, and was a whopping 98 degrees Thursday of our trip. I would say that is hot especially when the humidity is 60-70 percent too. The locals say that their summer goes from September until May and after May it rains almost every day along the coast for 1-2 hours each day then stops and more like every day all day in the rainforest. We had all sunny days, even at the volcano. The best part was spending 8 whole days uninterrupted with my hubby. We have such a great time together and this trip was nothing short of that.

I think that walking the beach each morning is the best way to get out and explore the raw culture of a country, no matter where you may be. Each morning brought something new for us and it just kept getting better! First off my husband discovered that our beach had jelly fish :)

No he wasn't hurt and no I did not have to pee on him. Nasty. But we saw plenty and depending on the day we saw hundreds or none. After a lot of Google searches we discovered the bottom photo is a Blue Button jelly fish. We encountered monkeys in their natural habitat almost every day and while I am terrified of spiders...I didn't see a one!! Yippee. Lots of lizards, frogs, and birds but all very harmless.

( I am not the idiot who tries to touch or capture wild animals so I wouldn't know if they were harmless or not). There was a trail next to our property at the RIU that people were talking about stating we had to go to the Monkey Bar. So we took the trail one day and if I could white knuckle my own hands, I sure was doing just that! I was freaked out. The thought of being on this trail, alone with lots of foreign animal scurrying about was freaky. I did give my hubby a good laugh that is for sure. I am usually the brave and confident one but after reading some crazy article in The Mens Journal about a man who went missing in the Costa Rican jungle, I was freaked. We finally reached the monkey Bar and it was just that. A bar that had a tree just across the street with several monkeys just chilling minding their own business. I later learned you are not supposed to smile at them because they show their teeth as a sign of agression...note to self for the next time.

On one of our last walks it was a Saturday and the locals had all come to the beach to enjoy their family time and we saw thousands of tiny fish had washed up on shore. The little children were collecting them in their toys and taking them back to their parents...something my child would do, although she would have it in her mouth! Birds were swooping down picking up these fish left and right as it was probably the easiest meal of their day. All of a sudden these 3 men ran out into the water throwing a string wrapped around a scrap piece of wood with a lure attached to it. They all reeled back in these huge fish like it was nothing! Incredible to see. I guess that was going to be their dinner that night.

It is those types of experiences you can not buy.

In my "older" age I love trying new things and foods. At our breakfast buffet there was this fruit with snot like seeds inside of it and whatever made me want to try it is beyond me but I am sure glad I did.

It turns out that I LOVE passion fruit and ate it every single morning. Convincing my husband to eat it after he tried it was another story :) See for yourself. Snot? or not?

Before we left I really wanted to do the Arenal volcano tour, so once we had a few relaxing days under our belts we booked the tour through a travel guide at the hotel. Gray line tours did a great job and I highly recommend them. It was about a 3.5 hour ride in a van there and back but you can't describe the experience unless you see it for yourself. And what else do you have to do the next day besides sit poolside and relax? Get up and go! You won't regret it.

That is what I had pictured Costa Rica looking like. Absolutely stunning. Our driver quickly pulled the van off to the side of the road or just stopped in the middle of the road several times for us to capture photos of monkeys, pizotes (as seen below), volcanoes, and of course a couple of selfies!

We selected the tour with the volcano, the rainforest hike, and the hot springs. The hike was more like a walk and not a hike. We are the dumb tourists and wore flip-flops but if we would've bought different shoes for this "hike" we would've been pissed. We were fine. Just remember your bug spray. I had read this in previous posts that mosquitos were bad. I led the pack, after the guide of course so he could take the first snake or spider bite :) Kidding. sort of.

Next stop was the hot springs. They took us to this hotel called The Springs Resort and Spa where of course the Bachelor had filmed and Sharon Stone happened to be walking into the spa as I was walking by...eeek! This place was breathtaking.

This is the view from their lobby, where I would've just sat for hours. The views, the springs, the people, the food....ahhhhh I want to go back. I think this would be a perfect place for couples or just a group of girls for a trip!

It is our tradition that when we stay at a RIU we must see the Michael Jackson show because it was the first one we saw together and it is so funny. Hard to believe that they can look and dance so much like him. So this is the Michael Jackson of Costa Rica :) Pretty good I would say.

So peace out Costa Rica until we meet again, if ever. Happy travels to all and if you have any comments of suggestions feel free to let me know or ask!! If I put every single detail it would be a book and if I wrote every single praise or fail I would be one of THOSE people :) Cheers!