Chris and I have just decided to do a Caribbean cruise in February (sans baby). We wanted to do some kind of holiday next year but we didn’t want to leave Justin for too long, so we settled on a seven-day cruise. The Kingwell grandparents are more than happy to come stay with the little guy while we’re gone, and we have complete confidence in them, but it’ll still be tough to go away for nine days. After my experience in Vancouver this summer, I know it can be done, but he’ll be 11 months old this time around and it’s possible he may actually notice we’re gone (as opposed to when he was four months old and everything was pretty well out of sight, out of mind).

Those who know me might be surprised to hear that I’m looking forward to this cruise. I’ve never been one to do tropical trips, and I didn’t really enjoy the last cruise we did (our honeymoon cruise to Alaska), but I have a feeling this time might be different. For one thing, we’ll be able to wander out on deck occasionally, whereas in Alaska it was too damn cold and wet. Besides, I deliberately chose an itinerary where we only spend one day at sea, so we’ll spend most of our time touring (read: off the ship). We’ll see how it goes.