Boat Drinks

Two weeks and 1 day until we leave for Jamaica.

I am sitting in my office imagining the combined smell of a coconut rum and pineapple juice in my hand and the ocean in the air. This is, without a doubt, my "happy place."

This will be the last year that my husband and I will be able to escape to the islands, childless, for quite some time.

See, since Gabriel was 3 months old, he has been safely cared for by the loving staff at the daycare center/pre-school/kindergarten attached to the University where I attended law school. They graciously allowed him to stay after I graduated from law school - because he was 3-years-old at that time. (Spots for children under two-and-a-half are pretty much exclusively for current students and professors, but, the pre-school part is less competitive.) He currently attends kindergarten there, after which they will kick him out into cruel world of the public school system, since they don't have any elementary grades.

The point of this is, that the daycare/kindergarten is on the University calendar, which means that "spring break" is the first week of March, because that is when the University has spring break. This means that Gabriel is actually in school during the spring break for the high school where my husband teaches. Hence, Husband and I have been able to go on vacation every year for the past four years while my dad and step-mom have been able to watch Gabe, because they can take him to the daycare during the day and go to work themselves.

After next year, this will not be the case, because Gabe and Husband will (probably) have the same spring break. This means family vacation, which is not a bad thing at all. But, it does mean, no more childless island escapes for the next, oh, 12 years or so.

So, our next island escape will likely be to a family resort - I'm thinking Beaches in Negril or maybe Turks. But, that probably won't be next year, since we will be endeavoring to save money for our trip to Vietnam, or endeavoring to recover from the expense of our trip Vietnam. So, it probably won't be until spring of '08 that we escape to the islands with Gabe and our new child along for the ride.

So, I am trying to savor this trip, not as, 'the last time', but, as 'the last time that it will be quite this way for quite a while.' And also look forward to the time when we will be taking Gabe and the new child for their own (virgin) boat drinks.

I had to listen to Jimmy Buffet on the way into work today, to start the mood. The "getting ready" mood. The getting the suitcases packed mood. The going shopping for new bathing suit and sunscreen mood.

Jimmy Buffet songs generally take me to my coconut rum and pineapple juice, smell of the ocean, sound of the waves, happy place.

Also, they remind me of the night that Gabriel probably joined us - a night marked by a pitcher of Margaritas shared with our friends M. & D., and me leaving a Mexican restaurant, getting into our car (I was NOT driving of course) and singing "why don't we get drunk and screw" to my husband on the way home. And evidently M.&D. must have had the same song on their minds, because, roughly nine months later, in a snow storm, D and I gave birth to our babies, less than two hours apart.

This is not a story we shared with our homestudy social worker by the way. Nor did we mention that that particular Jimmy Buffet song is one of "our songs" from college.

College having been a long time ago, and that night at the end of May of 1999 being a pretty long time ago too. :-)

Work beckons.

Law Mommy