Babymoons Then and Now (er, then)

This blog entry was written quite some time ago and remained unposted until today.  It's "unfinished" and I don't really have anything to add right now.  I think I had probably intended to get back to it. Now, much much later, I only opened it to fix a typo in the title which bugged me (was surprised to see the typo and hadn't remembered writing anything with the word "babymoon" in it -- wondered if someone had bombed my blog, or whatever euphemism one might use to characterize someone ELSE trying to create and post on someone else's blog. No one else got into my blog -- it was ME. doh!). By the way, the post title originally said "Babymoons Than and Now" -- ooh, it makes me cringe.  P.S.  My daughter is not pregnant now . . .
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Our daughter, who currently resides in Switzerland, is pregnant and expecting in the next month or so. She and her husband are friends with another couple that currently live in The States whose first baby is due soon after theirs. Maggie mentioned that they'd be seeing them soon as the couple was embarking on their babymoon.

What's a babymoon? I queried. I was told it was that trip a couple takes just before the baby comes where they pretty much celebrate their last hurrah of being a twosome. Hey, we did that, too!

I didn't go into it while we were Skyping (the only way this miles-apart-while-she's-pregnant is keeping me sane as a grandmama-to-be), but later I thought about the "babymoon" Tom and I had had before the birth of our daughter so many years ago. There's a picture for us to remember it by, sort of.  The picture reminds me of the maternity swimsuit I had when we went on our trip.  Though in the picture I am standing next to the car in the driveway with my dear friend Pam. It's Florida, Pam was visiting, and we were maybe going to the beach. This was not the babymoon but it reminds me of the maternity bathing suit I had and the fact that that suit accompanied us on our babymoon.

Some time before our daughter was to be born on a late October Florida evening, we went on a short trip to Sarasota, a favorite vacation destination of mine as a child.  I don't really remember how pregnant I was -- was it before Pam's visit or after? -- but I do know I had that jewel-tone green bathing suit.

Was that the time we seemed to remain invisible to all the waitstaff?  (Looking back, I wonder if they avoided us because we looked like we wouldn't know how to tip?)  Was that the time we went to the Columbia Restaurant and I asked the waitstaff to see if they could give me the recipe for the wonderful dish I'd had. And I received a jotted note that involved measurements for very large crowds.

Now, thirty-one, thirty-two years later, with no notes or photos to go by, a whole lot of living has elapsed and though that was a vacation we took while I was pregnant, it wasn't the caliber of the vacation Maggie and her friends are taking.  Maggie and Ken went to Prague. Their friends are going on a multi-country tour.