Fun In Florida!

I'm remembering how wonderful it is to travel with my parents. Really, it's traveling with another set of hands... that the wee ones adore... who insist on paying for most things. This is definitely the way to vacation -- until it's 9:17pm and the wee ones aren't yet in bed, even though they're exhausted and normal bedtime is between 6 and 6:30.

The plane trip was great. We were able to get five seats in the same row, and the wee ones both insisted they wanted to sit by Grandpa. OK! Grandma and I sat in the across the aisle and read. Well, until an hour into the flight when Little Miss decided that she wanted to sit with Grandma and have Grandma read to her, so we switched places and I was now next to Grandpa. I continued reading. The grandparents entertained. Ahhhhh...

And I realized that I forgot my camera cable, so no pictures until we get back -- unless I can convince my husband to bring the cord with him when he flies down on Friday for the weekend.

Once we arrived, we checked into the hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel is mega under renovation, so the buildings my parents stayed in last time they were here were closed. They put us in a building far away, which is fine. Until we got to the room and it smelled funky. And the carpeting was wet from where (I hope) they'd just shampooed it. And the pool it was by had no shallow/kiddie area for the wee ones to play in. We ended up switching rooms to an area that doesn't have quite the same view outside, but I'm fine with that.

Finally settled, my dad and I went to the Publix to get food. We had a nice long list, as we have a full kitchen where we're staying and plan to not really eat out while we're here. My dad is uncontrollable. He gets so much food, such unhealthy food, such large quantities of food... but I was able to at least sneak in the whole grain Goldfish over normal Goldfish, whole grain spaghetti, skim milk and so forth.

Things I learned about Florida (ok, the particular Publix we shopped at): food in Florida is frickin' expensive! The watermelon my dad insisted on buying -- that I had previously decided was not worth it -- cost $9.99. The ham and turkey my dad got for sandwiches was $9.19 per pound. The tomatoes that I ultimately passed on were $2.49 per pound. Milk was $3.59. Bananas were $0.69 per pound. All of this is so much more than I would ever have paid for anything in Chicago. And I'm still trying to figure it out. It was primarily the fresh foods that were out of whack. Florida is in the sunbelt where they actually grow food, right? At least I got a pineapple for $2.99, which isn't so bad.

Poor Mister Man was so exhausted by the time my dad and I got back that he refused to go to the pool. I've never seen him back away from an opportunity to spend time in water, except for a bath when he was younger. Poor guy was exhausted! Little Miss, my dad and I went down to the pool nearest our building and spent about 30 minutes there before Little Miss was too cold to keep swimming.

Today was much more fun. Sorta.

We spent lots and lots of time in the pool this morning doing splashy cannonballs and playing shark and swimming with the noodles and more. We kept it up until everyone was so hungry for lunch that we got crabby. Oops. After lunch, everyone went down for a nap (and I so wish that I had, too).

When we woke up from naps at almost five, we decided to go hit the sand area and play there with the suitcase full of sand toys that my mom had packed. Little Miss asked me why her ear was bleeding as we walked out the door, but I brushed her off.

Silly me. I discovered shortly thereafter that she had blood coming out her ear! Apparently, I'm a bad mom. But hey, what's a vacation without a trip to the ER? Luckily the concierge gave me good directions to a hospital about five minutes away. Bonus points: it's part of my insurance network.

Long story short: very sketchy ER. Very interesting people watching. We were in and out of there in less than two hours, which I felt wasn't too bad. Little Miss has a perforated eardrum. They aren't sure if it happened on the flight yesterday or if her tube came out sometime today and caused trauma on the way out. Either way, she has it infected, so she's on antibiotics. The good news is that she can still go in the pool so long as she has her earplugs in. Can you imagine if they'd said no water by her ear until it healed? Shoot me now!

So yeah... we have five days of antibiotics, and good girl, she took her medicine like a champ tonight. And yeah, I'll be making that ENT appointment that I've been putting off. We get back on the 30th, so here's hoping there's an opening on Halloween. Poor kid!