Day 5: Going with the Flow

For most of Phoebe's life, I have repeatedly proclaimed that she is so chill.  She's almost always willing to put up with whatever the rest of us are doing and very happily "go with the flow."  We've constantly debated how much of that can be attributed to her personality, how much of it is simply because she's the third kid, and how much of it is actually because we are so much more relaxed and confident in our own parenting abilities.  In answers to our own wonderings, we've been content to agree that it must be some sort of combination of all of the above.

In any case, Phoebe handles it all very well.  Including an entire day spent traipsing around the northwestern coast of Costa Rica.  The actual hotel portion of the resort we stayed at was actually a few short miles from the actual coastline of the property.  This meant that from our hotel room, we had a short drive to the beach.  Also, the natives that we were with had a few different ideas of where to hang out on the beach and where the best surfing could be found.

So day number 5 in Costa Rica began with breakfast, and a general layout of the game plan for the day.  Tim and I felt bad because we were with two other couples, and we were the ones with the baby, so we were always the one to complicate plans.  Phoeb's may be chill, but having a baby on this kind of trip always changes your flexiblity somewhat.  Even with a chill baby.  Everyone else was on vacation and were attempting from making plans of any kind, but because we were trying to maintain optimal baby happiness, we were attempting to have SOME kind of naptimes!

The "plan" we came up with for the day: go to a different beach a short distance away at the neighboring resort, get some lunch, maybe check out another beach and come back to the hotel for Phoebe's afternoon nap.  Pretty simple, loose plan.  When asked, we did say that in an ideal situation, we would have Phoebe back for an afternoon nap around 1:00ish.

Here's how the day actually played out.  We left around 9:30ish for the beach by the Marriott resort.  It was AMAZING.  I don't think I took a single picture at that beach.  I was too busy enjoying it.  So you'll just have to take my word for it.  We put Phoebs in the stroller and strolled the beach for a bit, and she napped like a champ. 

Shortly after she woke up, we loaded back up in the cars and headed to a second beach.  This one was a bit busier than the resort beaches, but we got a much better taste of local culture.  It was everything you expect in beach culture, but it was Costa Rica instead of San Diego or Cocoa Beach.

The craziest part was that we parked in the parking lot and couldn't see a drop of water anywhere.  To get to the actual beachfront, we had to walk almost a quarter of a mile along this rickety, wooden plank boardwalk through the mangroves to get to the water.  If we hadn't been with people who had been there before, we would have never found the water.  

Phoebe wasn't so in love with this beach.

But at least Tim got a taste of surfing.

We hung out at this beach until long past baby lunch time, while Tim and I frantically fed Phoebe everything we had stashed in the diaper bag for a "just in case" situation.  And she survived with hardly a protest.  Once we left the beach around 1:30, we stopped at a restaurant that was just at the edge of the parking lot.  We ventured back through the mangroves, and Phoebe almost fell asleep in the stroller.  Once again, "going with the flow."  The restaurant was this perfectly "thatched roof" nearly outdoor beach lunch stop.  I ordered a fruit salad (in Spanish, thank you very much), and to my surprise, it came with ice cream on top!

Restaurants in Costa Rica are a totally different experience.  In the sense that you are on Costa Rica time.  You wait to order.  You wait for your food.  You wait for your bill.  A simple meal can take hours.  And usually does.  

This one was no exception.  Poor Phoebe was absolutely exhausted, but she was hanging in there like a champ.  And once lunch was finished, we decided to part ways with our friends.  They took us back to the hotel, and the rest of the crew went shopping in nearby Tamarindo, and we finally laid Phoebe down for a nap and chilled out at the pool right outside our door while she slept.  

After her nap, we met the rest of our group down at the resort's pool/beachfront and bar for sunset on our beach along with a little bit of pool time and dinner.  After dinner, we headed back to our room just before everyone else to get Phoebe back to bed.  Incidentally, she unquestionably prefers the pool over the ocean.

Looking back on the day almost makes me laugh.  I spent a good portion of the day trying to balance enjoying our surroundings, not being the difficult people with the baby, and worrying that Phoebe was not going to be able to handle all that was going on.  But really, was she phased by it all?  Not hardly in the least.  As I've boasted hundreds of times, "she just goes with the flow."  

And I'm beginning to learn that I should should take some lessons from her.  Relax.  Go with the flow, Aim.  It's all gonna work out just fine!