Playa del Carmen

For photos in facebook, click here

So a beach vacation in Mexico isn't our typical vacation thing.  We started talking months ago about the need for a real family vacation, since we usually spend our time off visiting family on either coast.  We started talking about going to belize and seeing the ruins of Tikal ... And invited both our moms so that we could see family at the same time.  But then my boss offered us his 3 bedroom condo in playa del carmen, Mexico.  So we took it and booked spring break on the beach.

We (mojo and Rachel) left Friday morning at 4am to catch our flight.  We flew to Houston, had a short layover, and the flew to cancun.  Rachel did well with the travel.

We rented a car in Cancun and drove around Playa trying to find our condo for a while.  We ate a street stall-type of restaurant and crashed.  Unfortunately the air conditioner in our bedroom was not working, and we fried Rachel's noise maker in the process of playing with the plug.  Rachel did not sleep well that night, and was wide awake at 3:30am!  Grandma and Nana arrived after we spent the morning exploring the area and getting groceries.

Our spacious 3 bedroom condo was 30 steps from the sand of an amazing beach and 35 steps to the pool with a swim up bar.  The location was AMAZING!

Rachel had a blast every day jumping the waves, running from the waves, digging in the sand, throwing things into the waves, and getting sand all over herself.  It was fun to see her excitement - the ocean and beach are totally new for her.

Sunday we drove 2 hours to the ruins of Coba, which we really enjoyed.  It was a very hot day, and involved lots of walking from one ruin area to another.  We wish we had taken more cold water, paid for each of us to be on bikes, and had more pesos.  But we really enjoyed the ruins.  Jason and I climbed up the steep steps (42m) of the pyramid, and the view from the top was a little frightening and energizing.  I was proud to be much faster ascending and descending the stairs while pregnant than most others taking on the task.  Jason sprinted up the stairs, just to show off.

On the way back, we stopped to buy road side fruit from a stand, where I got to show off my terrible Spanish.  We spent less than $3 on 1.5 kilos of mangoes!  YUMMMMYYY!!  Then we had lunch in the town of Tulum, and Rachel was thrilled to be able to order pancakes for lunch.

Monday morning Jason and I snuck away to go snorkling at a cenote, or a cave-type swimming hole.  We just did out own cheap thing in our rental car, rather than going on a tour.  It was interesting, but nothing thrilling by any means.  We hoped to go to an amusement park of sorts later that evening called Xcaret, but it poured with rain and was pretty harsh outside, so we took it easy.

Tuesday we went to Chichen Itza.  It was a long drive for Jason each way, on a boring highway.  We had a little trouble at the provincial border crossing because we hadn't remembered to bring our passports with us, but Jason managed enough Spanish to get us through.

Chichen Itza was cool enough, but didn't live up to all its hype in my opinion.  Maybe if I was there on a solstice day to watch the shadow of the sun cast a snake image that moved down the stairs of the pyramid, I'd be more impressed.  Or maybe I'm becoming a ruin snob after Macchu Picchu and Ankor Wat temples.  Anyway, I'm glad we went.  Rachel entertained us in a different way than most people probably see the sights - more interested in playing games/watching lizards/running away and falling over than the buildings.

Wednesday we lounged around in the morning and then went to Xcaret in the evening.  We donned life jackets and swam for 45 min inside a man-made cave.  It was very fun, and Rachel did awesome 'swimming' for that long.  After we dried off and warmed up, we tried to see a few animals before going to see the cultural show.  We watched some traditional sporting activities, including an on-fire version of floor hockey that I would love to try, before Rachel and I left to go play elsewhere and let the rest of the gang enjoy the remaining dancing/entertainment.  I wish we had more time at Xcaret to see all the other animals and sights.

Thursday morning we went to the Tulum ruins, and by this time perhaps we were a little sick of the ruin thing.  Or maybe the heat and crowds seemed more annoying, but we didn't enjoy these ruins as much.  After some wandering around, we drove to Akumal beach for lunch and then went snorkeling.

Snorkeling at Akumal beach was the friendliest place to snorkel in the world.  Warm, clear water that is shallow for a long way out.  Turtles nest in the area from April - June we think, so we were thrilled when we saw sea turtles underwater anyway.  We were most proud of Nana and Grandma for trying to snorkel, despite some initial anxiety about the activity.  Nana even saw a mommy and baby turtle!

Friday morning we caught one last walk on the beach before heading to the airport and flying home.  We had expected to be in Houston for 5 hours and land home at 11pm in Denver, for a long yucky travel day.  But in Houston we were able to get on an earlier flight and be home in bed by 11pm.  Rachel was pretty grumpy and we were all pretty tired by the end of the day, so we were thrilled with this change in plans.  Our bags and car seat made it, too!

Anyway, as much as we sometimes poo-poo the 'typical' Mexican vacation that so many North Americans seem to make every year, we had a really nice time.  It was lovely to have some heat, some ocean, some pool, some adventure, some family time, some relaxation.

And now we can be excited about planning bigger, more adventurous trips in the future!

Travel logistics with a toddler

Recently, our family traveled to Mexico for a week.  In another post, I'll show pictures and tell all the fun things we did.  In this post, I'll highlight our gear and travel decisions made with a toddler, since the original plan for this blog was about life with a baby/child.

Mexico is the third country that Rachel has been to, and her first non-English-speaking country with a different cultural feel.  I also believe it's the first time in a long time flying an airline other than Southwest, who are awesome to fly with when it comes to kids/babies/families.  What to take?  What to eat?  Will she sleep?  Will the plane ride be ok?  Will she eat enough?  Will she go potty there?  Will she accidentally drink tap water or get sick somehow?

CAR SEAT
We took our own car seat, and we also checked it with our luggage rather than having her sit in it on the plane.  We haven't actually tried that option yet, but we don't think she would like being strapped into her car seat on the plane.  Maybe if we had a 3-4 hour flight that included nap time or overnight from place A to B... but so far it seems like too much hassle to take it through the airport and security.  It is recommended that you don't check car seats so they don't get bumped around and it's safer to have Rachel on the plane in her car seat... but we think it's more work.

United airlines, by the way, allowed us each to have a bag free and allowed one extra checked piece of luggage for free for children's gear.  So we flew there with 2 bags, one stroller, and one car seat checked with no issues.

POTTY
Rachel did a great job of using the potty while traveling around airports/planes, exploring in Mexico, and at our condo.  We didn't take anything special - just extra clothes and wipes wherever we went.  Overall, we have been really happy with potty training and Mexico was not exception.

SLEEPING
We elected not to take our travel crib with us.  At home, Rachel had been sleeping on the floor on one blanket with other blankets on top.  She's big enough to climb out of her travel crib now, unless we zip her top closed.  So we didn't bring anything except 2 blankets from home.  The first 2 nights, she was up a few times and had trouble getting to sleep most nights for a little while.  She woke between 3:30am-5:30am every day we were there.  Thankfully, we were able to snuggle quietly with her for a little bit before handing her off to Grandma so they could visit in the early morning while we slept a little longer (Thank you Grandma!!!).  We wondered if having the crib might have been better... but who knows?  She napped in her carseat, in the ergo carrier, on her blanket on the floor, and on our bed at different times.  Interestingly, she also tended to nap a short morning nap many mornings as well as an afternoon nap, probably because she was so tired from waking so early.

SUN and SAND
We took 2 swimsuits, 2 'sun suits', sunscreen, sunglasses, swim diapers, and sun hats.  Rachel did ok wearing sunscreen, but the sun suits made way less sunscreen necessary compared to regular swimsuits, and we were happy to have them.  She did not do well wearing sun hats or sunglasses consistently.  She also managed to accumulate a LOT of sand on her every time we went out, and we showered frequently to rinse off everything.

STROLLER
We debated about taking a stroller or not.  Because I'm pregnant, and because Rachel is becoming less of a fan of her carrier, we decided to take the stroller.  It was tricky on cobblestones and Rachel doesn't love being in it, but it was helpful.  We even took it to the Coba ruins, which was a challenge to push but we were glad to have it because we walked a lot there.  We took our black graco 'regular' stroller.  It is a hand-me-down to begin with and getting worn out, but it served us well.  We checked it as regular luggage also on the way there, and gate checked it on the way back because we had a long layover and a longer day (so we thought Rachel might sleep in it in the Houston airport).  It did well as checked luggage (better than our Chariot fared previously).

CARRIER
We took the Ergo carrier and used it some, but Rachel fights it unless she is really tired now and always wants to be held without the carrier ('just carry me plain').  Still, we love this carrier and love that it packs small and can go front or back.  I can still use it quite well at 26 weeks pregnant, which is great, because our hiking backpack is not very comfortable anymore.

EATING
Was no issue at all.  We found lots of stuff for Rachel.

So, all went well, and we wouldn't have done anything differently.  This was a good prep for future, bigger travels that we are trying to plan for next winter.

Stay tuned for pictures and videos of the Mexican trip.

Rachel cracks us up

Rachel tired on the 3 person chair after a long run

Rachel is 29 months old, and gets funnier to us all the time.

M: "Rachel, do you want to go ski another run or do you want to go down to the library?"
Rachel: "hmmm.... let's review the option.  Do I want to ski again or go to the library...  I choose library."

Rachel and Daddy skiing through the trees

Friend: "Rachel, what do you want the baby's name to be if it's a boy?"
Rachel: "Well... Donner.  But it's going to be a girl, actually, and the baby will be called Blitzen."

(She has actually told several people now she is having a baby sister named Blitzen! and I think most people think we are actually having a girl and that we are actually going to name her Blitzen.)

Saturday we drove up to Keystone, did a few runs, and then Rachel and I returned to town in hopes to go to the library while Jason skied.  Rachel fell asleep in my arms in the gondola, and then slept peacefully in the wagon all the way to the car!

Can you find Rachel sleeping in this mess of ski gear?

Sadly, moving her from the wagon to the car woke her up, so her whole nap was about 20 minutes.  But that's what we get trying to do what we do.  She did sleep on the car ride home, which proved to be a fine drive without any I-70 craziness.

See this video of Rachel entertaining herself on I-70 in car seat.  She can show you how she likes to start every word with the letter 'F' right now, just to be interesting.  Eg. "Can we fay food-night to this fenguin?"

Sunday we had a visit with some of the Oliver family.  We went to Jeannie's house (Ray's cousin) to meet Lin Oliver(Jeannie's brother/Ray's cousin), Debbie Oliver and their 3 boys.  This was my first time meeting these folks and now think I have met the entire Oliver family.  We had a lovely brunch together.

Rachel, Lily and Kelsey have a tea party

Lily and Rachel look at baby chicks

Oliver boys eating brunch

Rachel looks at chicks with Jeannie Ray

Other Oliver/Ray/Butler folks

All the crew

Snow, ski, and silly adventures

This blog will mostly be about the adventures of Rachel as she grows into a 2.5 year old, and snow.

Rachel and our next door neighbour sledding in our back yard

video = long story by a toddler

Pregnancy
First, a note to say that the baby is almost 24 weeks and doing well.  According to a patient of mine, I've 'really blossomed lately'.  This is a nice way of saying that I'm now large and showing and starting to waddle.  I had to go buy a new round of maternity pants today.  Thankfully $5 pants at Goodwill are great!

Rachel is insistent that she is having a baby sister, and is quite adamant about this fact.  At school her teacher told me she thought I might have a boy and Rachel said, with some attitude,  'Actually, it's a girl.'

Funny things about Rachel lately
Now that Rachel is sleeping well consistently, healthy for the most part, and thriving, we can enjoy her more. Also, potty training is going quite well.  (Except for here, when Rachel was tired and frustrated after going pee on her potty and decided to stop for a break and snuggle on the floor.  Oops!)

Rachel is really fun lately and curious about many things.  I don't think it will be too long before she is asking why about everything and saying embarrassing things like 'why is that lady so fat?'.

Example: Rachel eats chicken bone/cartilage chunk at dinner and says "oh... that's a seed!" and puts hands the half-eaten slimy drumstick to Mommy.

Example: Last night at snack she threw her apple sauce across the table and I was upset and said snack was over and it was time for bed and she needed to be more co-operative.  So tonight, she sits down for snack and says "Mommy, I'm going to be co-op-er-a-tive."

Sunggling under 100 blankets with Mommy and Rachel

Rachel is enjoying numbers and counting.  She knows all her shapes and colors down pat.  She knows most of her letters.  Have favorite words to spell: Blitzen and Donner.  She's pretty into the clock and time.  She can put her own underwear, pants, socks and shoes on.  She's not that into coloring lately, and puzzles are not quite as cool as they were two months ago, but still fun.  She's even trying to learn the days of the week, months of the year, and some of the countries on the map of the world.  She can fold small towels quite well, sing funny songs, and recently got her first pair of scissors in a care package from Grandma.

In this next video, you may need to turn up your volume to hear Rachel say 'January, February, March... uncertain months... we love Nana!'

Consequences
One fantastic cognitive development that is very helpful is the understanding of consequences.  For the last month or so, threats have become meaningful and useful.  We can look at a visual schedule of bedtime routine and say 'if you don't put on pajamas, you don't get snack' or 'if you don't brush your teeth, you don't get your bedtime stories'.  This is now meaningful, motivating, and can get things accomplished more quickly without as much fuss.  Unfortunately, it's hard not to make food the reward all the time.  Stickers and stamps are a fantastic reward, and Rachel gets stickers for many, many things in the house.  We are trying to make hugging and being help my Mommy a reward and not a given also, but that is harder.

Losing Battles
Rachel is also testing us more and more.  She will get frustrated and hit me.  She will throw things and do things she is not supposed to in order to get attention.

Tonight we went grocery shopping, and she was 'helping' me unload the cart in order to pay for items at the register.  She picked up the yogurt containers, held them off to the side of the cart, and looked at me suspiciously.  Nervously reaching I said 'please give Mommy the yogurt and help me pay for them' and she pulled them further away.  I panicked a little and started saying 'Rachel, don't drop the ...!!!' just as she dropped the yogurt to the floor and watched it explode and make a mess on the floor.  I was proud that I didn't react very strongly and quietly talked to her about it after she watched the helpful cashier clean it all up.

Also, I am starting to be too slow for her.  This is a little embarrassing. But if Rachel is sitting with me and leaps up and runs away, I can't grab her as quickly as I used to.  My belly is too big and I'm too awkward and my pelvis has been pretty sore.  So it takes me a second to get up and get to her, and by then she's often where she shouldn't be or doing something she shouldn't do.  This makes me a little nervous about the future of being larger and slower and then also attending to a newborn and losing Rachel completely.

Snow
It's finally been snowing around here.  Yay!  The rest of this blog will be pictures of recent snow, as well as videos of Rachel getting on and off the chair lift and skiing with Mommy and Daddy.  Mommy tends to have Rachel lean back too far on Mommy's thighs and go faster, while Daddy tries to coach Rachel to take her own weight and make a pizza to stop.  Rachel just wants to ski down to the next pole and give it a hug.

Snowman in yard in the evening after my big exam

Skiing with cousin Kelsey

Riding the gondola with Daddy

My 'edgie wedgie' to help my ski tips

Hugging a pole with my Daddy while skiing

OCS exam

I am finally finished my exam!  Yipeeeee!!!

To back up, because I know it's confusing, this was the OCS exam to become an 'Orthopaedic Certified Specialist'.  For me, passing the exam would be a great personal achievement because it is a nationally recognized title in the USA.  I started a fellowship in manual therapy in Canada and completed 3/5 of it, gaining the title of 'Resisdent' or RCAMPT, but that means nothing in the USA, and will become meaningless in Canada in the upcoming years also.  I finished the 4/5 part here in the USA, but completing the whole fellowship process would have been extremely expensive and difficult.  There are not a lot of manual therapists in the Boulder area, which has been a real disappointment for me as a PT since moving here.

So this exam seemed like a great plan B.  A way to get recognition for all the courses I have done, without doing a full expensive/intensive fellowship program.

Paying for membership dues and exam fees amounted to about $2000, of which my company paid $1000.  Then I had to decide what material to study and if I would take a formal prep course.  I decided to study on my own from two resources: 'Secrets of Ortho PT' book and an at-home study course called 'Current Concepts in Orthopaedic Physical Therapy'.  These cost about another $750.  The first book was full of  a lot of random details that did not seem applicable (types of anemia, for example) and I don't think it was a good investment.  The 'Current Concepts course' was very helpful and prepared me decently for the exam.  I also felt like I learned a lot doing that and that it has made me a better clinician.  Each week I would tackle a new body part: neck, shoulder, thoracic spine/ribs, elbow, hand, jaw, lumbar spine, pelvis, hip, knee, foot/ankle.  I ignored the 'clinical reasoning' section, which I think was just fine, although there were certainly some research questions I did not know the answers to.  Also, studying the jaw was quite silly because I don't treat the jaw often and there were only a few questions on the jaw that I still wasn't confident in.  At the end of the 'Current Concepts' course, there was an online exam, which I completed, but it was not very similar to the OCS exam.

So the big OCS exam was scheduled at a Prometric testing site, where you register ahead of time and pick a time and location (available across the country) and I could pick my date between Mar 2-16.  I picked March 9, which happened to be a day that the front range of Colorado was scheduled to get anywhere from 5-18 inches of snow!  I wasn't entirely sure that the center would be open if such a storm materialized, but they did.

I did not know much about the exam itself and what to expect.  I had not attended any of the 'in person' prep courses that are held around the country because the travel would be so much extra money.  I didn't know anyone who had taken the exam.  There are no practice exams.  The syllabus you are given is very vague (eg. anatomy 10%, cervical spine 10%, etc).  I knew we had 7 hours to sit at a computer and complete 200 questions.  I knew each question was based on a patient case 'vignette' that required some reading, which is why so much time is given.  I knew that a passing grade was a scaled score of 600, but have no idea what formula gets you to that scaled score.  I knew we would be allowed breaks after we secured answers in at the end of a testing 'block', but I didn't know how many blocks or breaks there would be.  The idea of sitting at a computer for 7 hours without many breaks while 6 months pregnant and a snowstorm outside was not appealing.

I drove down to Denver Friday night to get a hotel room for $47.99 including everything.  I studied, had an ok sleep, and got up early for last minute review.  I arrived at the testing center at 7:30am for an 8:00 exam, and there were already many folks there.  I would guess 30 people had an 8am time slot for testing for various exams.  Unfortunately, checking us all in (metal detector, take our picture, sign in, check papers, get computer test to start) took quite a long time, and I didn't start my exam until 8:30am.  That already meant an extra hour of sitting around and waiting!

We had 2 blocks scheduled of 3 hours each with one 40 min break allowed for lunch.  I was disappointed to learn that and wasn't sure I could sit still and focus for 3 hours without a break.  After one hour I had ants in my pants and was dying for a break, but had only completed 40 questions of the first 100.  Ugh!  Anyway, I made it through my day and spent less than 5 hours actually completing the questions, and then drove home in the storm.  The storm wasn't so bad in the end, and the roads were ok despite poor visibility of blowing snow.

As I had read online by others, I'd say 80% of the exam was fair in the sense that it reflected ortho practice. The other 20% seemed random, and many questions were strangely written and confusing.  It reminded me very much of the Canadian and USA national licensing exams.  A lot of studying, stress, and hard work, and then after the fact wondering if I would have done the same whether I had bothered studying or not.

I won't find out my results until June.  I'm honestly not sure what to think, and I have no idea what makes a pass or a fail.  If a pass required a grade of 95% or more, I'd be confident that I failed.  If a pass was 70%, I'd be confident that I passed.  But who knows?  I'll have to wait and see if I get those letters behind my name or not.

Until then, I need to get the rest of my life in order.  Start exercising again. Put the house back together.  Not study!

A more fun blog will be posted shortly with all the adventures we've had with this storm, including playing in the snow with Rachel.