In Z, my daughter and I blend into a scene that feels very Mexican, and we're pretty much together day and night. At Club Med Ixtapa, a children's program frees me up for some adult time, which I've enjoyed solo, as part of a couple and with new friends made at the club. I've been there twice: once with Nicole and my husband, once with just Nicole. Both times, I felt an initial resistance to dropping Nicole at the kids' club. Both times after I did, I rediscovered the adult pleasures of freedom--reading, windsurfing, snorkeling, playing tennis and entering silly races--all the while focusing on my own whims rather than on my child. While I had never before seen myself as the "Club Med type," I quickly understood the tremendous success of the family clubs--the opportunity for parents and children to learn, play, relax and stretch their limits side by side, separately and together.

I pondered this while watching a procession of baby strollers on the hibiscus-lined pathways that wind around the 37 landscaped acres of this Mediterranean-style village. Yoga class was finishing for some; others were lying on a spread of green lawn, listening to strains of Beethoven fill the air as the sea lapped the shoreline. I looked across to Ixtapa Island, behind which the sun would soon set. Nicole and I had taken a snorkel trip there earlier that day to explore the stunning undersea life before she returned to her new friends at the mini-club.

We began each day at Club Med together at breakfast, guiltlessly consuming croissants and pain au chocolat, crepes and omelettes and fruits. Then we'd part to work it all off in play. I got to probe my competitive limits in a tennis tournament and an ocean swim race, then let go and merge with the wind on a sailboard. Nicole tried out scuba and tennis as well as walking the tightrope and soaring on the flying trapeze in the kids' circus program.

Evenings, we'd regroup after dinner to enjoy the nightly shows, from extravaganzas to a Mexican folklore night complete with a mariachi band. The grand finale to one show was a bonfire blazing on the beach. But the real climax of the week was the circus, which the children train for all week. When the Greatest Show in Ixtapa opened, I quickly recognized Nicole in a line of tumblers. When the circus performers took bows with the confidence of a seasoned performer, I was stunned to see my sometimes-shy daughter, aglitter with makeup, hamming it up under the footlights. It's as close as she'll probably ever come to running off to the circus, and the best thing about it for me was being there to watch her.

Please keep in mind that phone numbers, addresses, and prices are subject to change. Updated August 2005.