At about 9:30 PM on a Friday night I was sitting alone at the SeaFire restaurant feeling awkward in a fancy resort alone. I had exhausted most logical activities such as reading through the menu to review the prices of steaks. A filet at the SeaFire costs either $42 or $46 depending upon your appetite for meat. A woman walked up to me and asked “Is she all right?”. My first response was “She is hopefully going to come back soon as soon as the baby calms down.” At that point I recognized the woman and why she was asking me the question. She was the water woman from the beach the day before.

On Thursday we had decided that it would be good to get Madeline some experience with the warm teal Caribbean water. So we took her to the beach and found some of the chaise beach chairs with the shades that go over the top. These are the coveted items on the beach and we only obtained them because the people in them had inherited theirs from a pair of early risers who had gone for a walk and never returned. Sarah and I were lounging happily with Madeline sitting first with Sarah and then Madeline was moved over to sit with me for a while. I had her sitting facing away from me so that if she fell backwards I could catch her. But I wanted to see her face so I pointed her back towards me. I mentioned to Sarah that I felt this was a less stable configuration. At about this time the people in front of me started having an interesting exchange. A pair of New York women were being picked-up by some resort cruiser guys and I wanted to listen in on the outcome. It was a little drama to be had on the beach where otherwise all there was to do was stare at my baby or stare at the many scantily clad teenagers wandering about looking for the resort cruiser guys to pick them up while their parents were away getting drunk on $11 Bahama Coladas.

That was when Madeline fell backwards, rolled off of the chaise and before Sarah or I could catch her, fell face first into the sand. Sarah must have read a book that sand is among the most dangerous of elements for a baby since she immediately proclaimed that it was her worst fear of coming to the beach that this would happen since Madeline could be permanently blinded by an incident of this gravity. I tried to help Madeline who was not too happy having fallen and done a face plant and was helpful in trying to explain to Sarah that it was better than Madeline falling into concrete. I was brushing off the sand from her face but it wasn’t easy to do. Apparently baby faces when covered with suntan lotion are infused with some form of sand glue that allows sand to attach and bind to the face. So Madeline was just crying and Sarah rushed off in a panic to acquire water.

While Sarah was gone to the bar the water woman appeared along with the woman from New York who was getting hit on by the beach cruisers with their water bottles. The water woman was a mother, whose child didn’t appear to be traveling with her, who knew how to help out in this situation. She let me know that I needed to tip Madeline’s head so that the water didn’t go into her nose while she poured water down Madeline’s face with the water in her bottle and got a large part of the sand away from her eyes. She recommended going to the shower by the beach to finish the job and when Sarah returned with a glass of ice water I continued to apologize for my lack of diligence and let Sarah know that we had been helped by an experienced mom who knew how to handle this sort of situation. The mom did reinforce the gravity of the situation by mentioning that it is quite possible to get a very painful scratch on the cornea from sand in your eyes.

So we finally went to the shower and spent time washing out Madeline’s face and body to remove the sand and parted ways with the water woman. We decided that the beach was too dangerous for the rest of the day and moved to the zero entry kid wading pool to swim in shallower water but it was closed due to a fecal matter incident that was not our fault. Think Caddy Shack and Bill Murray.

So the water woman was now dressed in her finest resort casual dress looking at me oddly as I sat alone in my 30th minute staring at the menu waiting for Sarah to return. She had to be thinking something along the lines of “Boy – these are the most incompetent new parents that have ever walked the face of the earth.” We chatted for a minute or two and I informed her that Sarah was just outside nursing the baby because Madeline had been unhappy about the situation at the restaurant. The water woman went outside to say hello to Sarah.

Among the things to keep myself entertained while waiting alone for my wife and child to return was the birthday song that was being sung on a regular basis. The Bahamians must equate volume and excitement with luxury since they were practically yelling while they clapped a happy birthday each time at a volume that could be heard on neighboring islands. The wait staff was also trying to figure out what to do with me since I was this guy not ordering food at a fancy restaurant so I let them know we were having a problem getting the baby to calm down. Sarah had mentioned after I had tried to calm Madeline with a bottle that she wasn’t going to ruin people’s evenings who were paying through their teeth for a fancy meal with a crying baby. This seemed to especially apply to the local Bahamian couple sitting next to us that had a long discussion with the waiter, who they knew, that they had finally been able to come out to the restaurant after all these years. The Bahamian man leaned over to ask me at one point “So – no dinner for you.”.

It was after this that I decided to go out on my quest to see what Sarah was doing. I found her outside of the restaurant sitting in some outdoor waiting tables nursing Madeline. It looked like Madeline was about to go to sleep but there was a problem. Apparently at 9:30 at night on Fridays the streets at this resort are filled with entertainment. The entertainment was a parade including a marching band blasting music at volumes loud enough to drown out a Bahamian birthday song at the SeaFire restaurant. It was also loud enough to prevent Madeline from easily sleeping since every time Madeline started to dose off the rough equivalent of a person crashing a pair of cymbals over her head occurred. I had to laugh at the oddity of the event and given the two evils of the loud parade or the restaurant we opted to place her carefully into her carriage and stroll into the restaurant to order dinner.

When we sat down Madeline was sleeping and we had some cautious moments discussing the current scenario. We were sitting on a bomb that could go off at any moment but were going to eat our $42 steak and $40 tuna along with a Caesar salad, Merlot, and desert. We were on a mission to enjoy a nice meal while on vacation. That was when we learned that the Bahamian couple next to us was celebrating their birthday. The color from Sarah’s skin drained out of Sarah when the clapping, shouting, birthday singers arrived at our table. The nearby tables of knowledgeable parents looked on and were sympathetically mortified as well.