Mexico

We took Sam to Mexico. Kate wanted to go somewhere warm and sunny, and some folks that we know go to Tulum on a regular basis, and had told her either that it's a good place to take a baby, or that it's a baby-friendly place. I can't remember which. Anyhow we took Sam to Tulum a couple of weeks ago. He'd just turned eleven months old. This is what we learned:
- Traveling with a one year old is a lot of work, but there are things that make it easier, or would have if we had done them.
- Renting a place with a kitchen would have been worth it.
- Having lots of things on had that the kid can munch on is really helpful.
- You can mostly keep him from eating the stuff he finds in the sand, but some of the sand is going to get in there.
- Sand causes pretty hellish diaper rash on the way out.
- You can keep a pasty white kid from getting sunburned in Mexico, but it takes a fair amount of attention.
- Once the kid is quiet for the first ten minutes of the flight, the other passengers stop giving you dirty looks.
- If just one of the flight attendants likes babies, you're set.
- If you bring a baby sitter, or travel with another family that has little ones, you can probably do more.
- Naps on vacation don't really work.
- Mexican guacamoli is way better than what you can get here. But...
- Mexican guacamoli has little slices of serrano pepper hiding in it. And...
- The face that the baby makes when he finds a slice of serrano pepper that you missed is funny enough that it's impossible not to laugh, even while feeling guilty about it.

The bad news about Mexico is that it's really expensive. That's part of where a kitchen would have been helpful. We had to eat out every meal, and I don't think we found a meal that was less than 25 bucks on the whole trip.
The good news about Mexico is that they love babies there. Everyone loves babies. People you pass on the street always wave and say "Hola bebe! Que bonita bebe!"
For those of you that don't speak Spanish, "bebe" is baby.
Everyone wants to hold the baby.
Literally.
We were in scary non-tourist neighborhoods where there was MS-13 graffiti and waiters with knife scars on their faces were coming up to us saying things like:
"Can I hold the baby? Is okay?"
MS-13, by the way, is a scary street gang. In case you guys troll blogs like Home Depot does, no disrespect intended.
Oh, and for the Home Depot guys, we're boycotting you because you supported Scott Walker (the wannabe Emperor of Wisconsin).

Sam loved the beach. He liked the sand, and he really liked the pretty Mexican women that always fussed over him when he crawled up to their beach blankets (see my previous post). He wasn't a big fan of the ocean itself, but that's mostly due to the ocean's tendency to wash over him when he wasn't expecting it. We're thinking we'll try Mexico again in a few years when he's more mobile and able to do stuff. We're glad we went but there's not a lot for a one year old to do there. We'll wait until he's old enough to snorkel and fish, then we'll go back.