The past couple of weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster for me.  Jason’s business has been very blessed, and he has won an Alaskan cruise.  It is July 20-30, so we only have about 6 weeks to prepare.  That’s totally doable.  We already have our passports and the Frommer’s arrived in the mail two days ago. 

What is the problem, you ask?  Charlie!  He will be 14 months old on the day we leave on the trip, and I have had SUCH a hard time deciding whether to take him or not.  A 14 month old on a cruise?  The long airplane ride? His naps and bedtime schedule?  We decided to leave him with his grandparents.  Luckily, Jason and I both have divorced parents (that seems like an oxymoron, doesn’t it) so we have 4 sets of grandparents to use for childcare. 

Then, the guilt set in.  My heart was hurting.  My mother, the guilt machine, didn’t help matters any.  I chose to make matters even worse by Googling and finding all of these studies about anxiety and depression in infants and toddlers who are away from their mothers for more than a couple of days.  I almost told Jason to just take his brother on the trip.

I really had to pray about this one, and God is a really good God.  I put it all in His hands and felt total peace with the fact that whatever He decided would be best for me and for Charlie (and Jason-sometimes I forget about the poor guy).  I researched and found that the cruiseline we are using, Royal Carribean, is one of the top family-friendly cruiselines.  They have a partnership with Fisher-Price and Crayola, for goodness sakes!  We don’t have to have a plane ticket for Charlie since he is not yet 2.  There are onboard babysitters, cribs, and tons of children’s programs.  I feel like God is telling me something here, people!

Jason called the travel crew in charge of the trip to see if it is too late to bring Charlie, and it looks like it is not.  They are going to double check and call us back next week, but they told Jason to go ahead and get a passport for Charlie.  This just happened today, and I at first felt anxious about taking him.  How will we do this?

Then I remembered that God made this decision and I don’t need to worry about it.  Putting problems in God’s hands is one of the best parts of believing in Him.  He is just so willling to take all of our worries away, and is so much more capable of dealing with them than we are.

Now I am so excited about going to Alaska.  Sure, the trip will be a little (okay, a  lot) different than if Charlie were not going with us, but being good parents is more important than taking a vacation without Charlie, at least at this time.  I’ll let you know after the trip if this was a good idea or not!