Breaking the News: The Girls

At this point, our little cruising plans are secret.  But, we have managed to talk about it to our girls over the past few weeks.  At 1 and 3, neither of them are really old enough to engage in a long conversation about what it will mean for them and for our family, so our conversations have been fairly simple:

Me: “Do you want to go live on a boat?”

 

BigGirl: “Yeah!  On the ferry boat?”

 

Me:  “No, we’re going to live on a sailboat.”

 

[Pause while the 3-year-old processor tries to access the sailboat records.  No records found.  Giggle and shrug it off.]

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I think the best approach to preparing our kids for this adventure is to just keep talking about it.  They’ll grow up simply knowing that this adventure is part of their future.  And since we’re not planning to leave until they’re older, closer to 6 and 8, we’ll be able to have the bigger picture conversations with them as things get closer.  This way, when the time comes for those conversations, it won’t be a shock.

For those of you with kids, how have you prepared them for the cruising life?

PS – I know posting photos of ourselves isn’t helping the anonymity that we’re trying to preserve before we tell our families our plans.  But, we’re getting used to the idea of others knowing, so I think it will happen sooner rather than later – stay tuned!