“Daddy, daddy, throw me again, again!” I stand up in the waist-deep water of a massive swimming pool, feel the strong Caribbean sun on my winter-weary shoulders, and lift my breathless 4-year-old son high over my head. I toss him forward, his tiny toes grazing the top of the water, as he flies through the air toward my husband. He splashes down and, then, thanks to his floatie — if not quite to his whopping four sessions of swim lessons — he pops right back up. He’s gasping a touch but gleeful. “Now you, Papa,” he squeals. “You throw me. Throw me back to Daddy.”
It’s nearing dinnertime, and we’ve been at this for much of the three hours since we landed at the airport in Cancún, my husband and I stealing glances at each other, and at the turquoise Caribbean, the beachside palapas — and, I’ll admit it, at the bar — as we launch our little guy back and forth between us. The kid acts like he’s never felt warm water, or the heat of the sun, for that matter, and we can hardly blame him.
It’s been a very long, very omicron winter back home in Boston. And thanks to the pandemic, which has lasted for half of our young son’s lifetime, it’s been a long time since we’ve been practically anywhere, let alone someplace this close to the equator. (“Palm trees grow so well here!” he marvels as we drive from the airport to the resort.)
We’ve come to Cancún — on a spring break holiday with friends who also have a young son — to try to remember what vacation is. That’s a vague memory mostly because of COVID, but also thanks to parenthood. As they say, after you have kids, you’ll take trips, but you won’t get a vacation.