Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Like all good moms, my screensaver scrolls through my photo folder. And since I've taken a thousandfold more pictures on this trip than I did in all the years that preceded it, most of the pictures that flicker past are boat-related.

It would be easy to slide down into the caramel-coated Pit of Nostalgia every time I see how utterly adorable the girls were when we started out. I mean, look at this:

Smashing the squee-meter

But, lately, those early-day photos remind me of what a huge mental adjustment we had to make to succeed as cruisers. Erik was coming off years of constant travel and round-the-clock work. Stylish was in school full-time. Indy and I darted between swimming lessons, music group, library storytime, and all of the other activities that fill a city toddler's days. In short, we were people with a schedule, and we knew how to keep it.

Park It

I spend a lot of time with the kids at the park. But I'm the first the admit that "going to the park" isn't always as fun as it sounds. On a good day, it means the kids and I trek out to New Farm Park for a half day playing in the two-storey spider web among the banyans. On a bad day, it means we steal half an hour on the sad scrap of undeveloped land squeezed between the dock, the parking lot and the marina office.

Lately, Erik and I have been beset by Guilty Feelings regarding the kids. For although one of our family mottoes is "You Get What You Get and You Don't Get Upset,"* let's be fair. We're six weeks behind schedule. The girls are stuck in a marina with a total lack of other children, an excess of biting flies, and two increasingly cranky parents. The odd outing to New Farm isn't really cutting it anymore.

And so Erik hatched a Cunning Plan.

You Are Likely To Be Eaten By A Grue

First, a very happy belated Star Wars Day to you all. May the Fourth be with you! We celebrated by watching The Empire Strikes Back. (We try to observe the most important days in the calendar. Raise the kids up right.)

Once again, I've been slow to blog. And I have heard your complaints. I submit two reasons for my poor performance, namely a) we have been working nonstop to get the boat ready and I just don't have it in me to write after ten long hours of manual labour, and b) I have been following the principle of If You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say, Don't Say Anything At All. We have spent the last two weeks wandering through the valley of the shadow of death. Everything broke. Nothing worked. A horde of tiny biting flies invaded. I reached epic levels of crabbiness. You would not have wanted a blow-by-blow.

But now, finally, we're getting there. Sure, the cockpit is still cushionless and full of junk, but Erik has built new shelves to stow all that stuff and new cushions sit below, awaiting only a clean surface on which to rest. The salon overflows with milk crates, but the new tool bench will absorb most of that. And so on. We have reached that point in the refit journey when we can crack open one eye to peak at the future. To ponder sandy beaches, clear snorkelling and our next port of call. To break the seal on the guide books.