When You Wish Upon a Star...

I have been to Disney, dear readers, and lived to tell the tale. Prepare yourselves, as this post is going to be epic, The Odyssey of my blog, if you will.

I already detailed the craziness involved in getting our flights changed Monday to escape before last week's snow hit the Northeast Tuesday night, with H away for work and not able to leave until Tuesday evening, so let's begin on Tuesday morning....

Part One: That Which Sucked

I was up at the crack of dawn, not to run, but to start manically throwing last minute things into the suitcases and various distractions for the kids into the carry on bags, and getting my mental wheels spinning to ensure I'd be as keyed up as possible for the flight. I got the kids off to school for a few hours, not only so I could finish packing, but so they would not have to witness all the crazy in the house as their mother ran from room to room scattering to-do and packing lists in her wake. It was an attempt to spare their poor, innocent psyches. Later in the trip, I would see how useless this effort would be. Oh, and I started drinking a lot of coffee. A lot. I think we can all see where this is going.

At ten-thirty, Little Man and I roll up to the school, car packed to the gills with suitcases, carry-ons, and a Kmart umbrella stroller, as well as the dog, his twenty pound bag of food, and his bed, creating a tornado of dog hair inside the van. I quickly grab the girls and head to my in-law's to drop the canine and pick up my father in-law, Big T, who graciously volunteered to drive us to the airport and help me with the luggage, since with all the kids, moving four large suitcases through the airport was not an option. Big T helps me unload the dog and all his crap and then walks toward the driver side door, at which point I say, "Pfft. Have we met? Control freak on the way to the airport? I'll drive." He pretends not to notice as I drive like Mario Andretti to Newark airport.

After assisting me with luggage check-in, Big T escorts me to security, at which point I get a phone call from H. "I have good news and bad news." Oh Jesus. His flight is scheduled to leave Newark at 8:51pm, right as the snow is about to hit, and I have been praying he will make it out. "My flight's been canceled, but I got on a flight to Chicago with a connection to Orlando. I get in around one in the morning." OK, not ideal to be dragging an exhausted husband through The Most Magical Place on Earth, but it's better than having to do it alone and wind up in the psych ward. I tell him, "You'd better get on that last chopper out of Saigon, my friend, or we are screwed."*

Just a blip on the radar I think, until H tells me, after his safe arrival, what actually happened. Apparently, that morning, JetBlue told him his flight was canceled, but they could get him to Orlando on Thursday, to which he responded, "I have a wife and three small kids on their first trip to Disney waiting for me. Get me there tonight or the Mrs. will lose her mind." Then he proceeded to do his own research and find that crazy Chicago connection on his own. He kept me totally in the dark until it was all resolved. This is why I love this man. H knew that if he clued me into the problem before he could solve it, I would dissolve into a state of panicked hysteria fueled by no sleep, too much caffeine and the pressure of a trip we have been waiting to take for three years. Good man.

Big T departs, I get all three kids through security with minimal crying. Which is no mean feat. How is a lone parent supposed to do this? Go through myself first and have Little man, thinking I'm leaving him? Send the kids through first which will require essentially shoving them through the metal detector yelling at them to "stay on the other side!!"? I sent #1 through first, followed by #2, then had them entice LM over as I followed quickly behind. Shoes back on (those pesky child shoe bombers!), I feed them at the gate the peanut butter sandwiches I brought from home, since traipsing around the airport looking for kid-friendly food is NOT something I'm going to do, then successfully board the flight. I settle into my seat, stick headphones on LM's head, hand the girls their Nintendo DS's and think, "I made it! I only have to survive the flight, then I'm home free", since part of the package when you stay at a Disney resort, is a shuttle bus that takes you directly to your hotel and picks up your bags for you. LM has Handy Manny on Disney so I'm all set. Then we take off, #2's ears start to hurt despite all the gum I've packed into her mouth, and since she and #1 are sitting in front of me, she spends fifteen minutes shouting, "MY EARS HURT MOOOOMMY!!!" through the gap between the seats since she can't hear properly. Then LM discovers the joy of kicking the tray table his sippy cup and Play-Doh are sitting on, sending everything flying. He is also fascinated with the tiny bathroom, and tells me he has to pee every ten seconds, requiring me to wake the poor twenty-something sitting in the aisle seat, who obviously had a very rough night the evening before, as she is essentially wearing pajamas and Uggs, which, make every outfit you wear with them look like pajamas so maybe they were clothes. Did you really think I'd get lucky enough to get aisle seats? Apparently, God needs to laugh once in a while. Upon our return from Bathroom Trip Number Infinity, Disney has moved onto the older kid programming for the day and now LM's only viewing choice is iCarly which has about as much to interest him as Oprah. Cue more kicking and bathroom trips.

After a long three hours, we land, and I can see the light at the end on the shuttle bus. We deplane and begin our walk to the shuttle - except there are no signs. Not one. I head to ground transportation, two floors down and am told I am on the wrong side of ground transport and have to head back up two floors, across the airport and back down two floors. I am now exhausted, the kids are crabby and the wheels on the cheap-ass stroller I brought keep turning sideways and sticking, causing LM to be almost catapulted out of it every time I stop and start. I make it to the shuttle counter nearly weeping with relief, hand my tickets to the attendant who asks, "Do you have your luggage?" I reply, "Um, no. was told it would be delivered to the resort." She smiles pityingly at me and says, "Yes, in four hours. I'm sure they didn't tell you that. So you can go back and get them yourself and bring them to the bus, or you can wait for them."

This, my friends, was my darkest hour. Contemplating heading back up the two flights to gather our four enormous bags and them find a Skycap to help me with them, or waiting until approximately ten o'clock for our bags, not having a single diaper on me for LM to go to sleep in, or pajamas for the girls, my eyes fill with tears. Turning to wave at my eyes with my hands, the female attendant turns to her male cohort and mutters,"Now she's getting upset." if I hadn't felt I'd already scarred my kids enough with this display of emotion, I would have jumped across that desk and punched this woman in the face. I pulled myself together, and was about to begin my trek upstairs, when an angel stepped in. Ed, the other attendant, who was seventy if he was a day, and looked exactly like Bob Barker, silver bouffant, dark tan, and all, gently pats my arm and tells me, "You sit over there, honey. I'll go get your bags." And I start to cry again! To answer you question, yes, I have started saving for my children's psychotherapy already. I drag the kids to some benches and wait, with #1 looking at me with wary eyes. Ed returns twenty minutes later, with all of our bags and resist my attempts to give him a twenty telling me to "buy the kids something nice at Disney World." And more tears..

We make our way to the bus, each child devouring a family size bag of animal crackers I bought at the newsstand, since dinner is a ways off, and I lapse into a catatonic state. Since it is only my family and one other, whose child is terribly behaved, on the bus, I decide to let Little Man jump on the seats all he wants and allow the girls to talk way too loudly. I just don't care anymore. I just have to get to the hotel room and this terrible day can end.

Arriving at The Contemporary, I am given keys and directions to our room. This hotel was part of the emergency plan, and we will be moving to another one tomorrow, where we will have two adjoining rooms, but for tonight, we will all be packed in together like passengers on a Japanese subway. The Contemporary is a ranch-style hotel, with many one-floored, interminably long wings (apparently, modern means "averse to elevators or stairs"), so this was the Baatan Death March of hospitality. With each room number we passed I became more hopeful my journey would finally be at its end. We reach our room, I triumphantly throw open the door...and the room has one bed. ONE FUCKING BED. The bell hop rolls up right behind me, providing what will be the only example of fast customer service at this hotel, dumps my bags and takes off, telling me to call the front desk. Not having the strength to chase him down and beat him to death for leaving me stranded with three kids and all our luggage, I call down to be told new keys and a bellman will be up in fifteen minutes. Twenty-I'm-hungry-whine-filled minutes later I call down to see what the story is. When I am told it will be another twenty minutes by Brad, the very gay-sounding operator, I tell him, "Brad, I have been traveling all day, alone, with three kids. None of them have eaten. They are all tired. I am a woman on the edge, Brad. Get me my keys and some food to my new room in fifteen minutes or there is going to be an incident." Damn, if there wasn't a knock on my door five minutes later.

Finally, in a room with enough sleeping surfaces for five people, with food for the children and wine for me (room service did not have wine by the glass, and I did not think it safe to order an entire bottle, thank God they had a split), we ate, and bathed to wash all the plane stink off our bodies. At ten-thirty, twelve hours after we began our travels, the last of the three kids fell asleep, I turned off the light, and passed out.

I never even felt H get into the bed, but at six o'clock in the morning I am woken by Little Man's train noises and I see my beloved has finally made it to Disney. knowing it could not have been any earlier than two in the morning before he got in, I grab LM, some pants for both of us, and run into the bathroom before he can wake H or the girls with his E.T.-esque repetitious inquiries, "I go to Disney World now?...I go to Disney World now?" We change and head all the way to the lobby in search of milk and a banana. Finding both items, we snack, then spend an hour chasing birds outside, until LM has a pee-pee accident and I need some new undies. Dragging him back to the room, I plan on grabbing the clothes and heading back out to let them sleep. I get to the door and the goddamn key the bellman gave me the night before does not work. At this point I am d-o-n-e with this hotel. So this means walking all the way back to the lobby again. I stomp to the concierge desk, carrying all forty-two pounds of LM whose legs have given out after all the walking to a from the room, and demand I speak to a manager and no, I don't care that it's seven-thirty in the morning and I am a sweaty, red-faced lunatic. I tell Maria, the lovely manager, who ignores my obvious rage-induced facial twitch, of my trials at The Contemporary, which earns our family a free breakfast. Woot! At this point I get a text from H saying everyone is up and it's time for the magic to begin...

Part Two: That Which was Awesome

So far our trip to Disney has been anything but magical, but once we are all dressed and are enjoying the food it took me five trays to carry from the ala carte breakfast place (when you comp my breakfast, we will all eat like lumber jacks on death row- pancakes, eggs, sausage, pastries, fruit cups, yogurts, milks and A LOT of coffee), everything shifted. Plus we were checking out of this damn hotel and into the one I had actually chosen before the Great Escape Plan required me to book an extra night. We hopped on the monorail and were ready to meet The Mouse.

I will not bore you with the details of every single ride and show we experienced, as I have with everything that went wrong getting to The Magic Kingdom, but let me assure you, it was worth everything we went through in the first twelve hours. Before this trip, I used to think the only adults who were into Disney were of the denim-shirt-embroidered-with-characters-wearing variety, the same people who get married at Disney and want to dance with Mickey and Minne at their reception. My eldest was on the brink of becoming one of those women before I set her straight. Checking into The Grand Floridian** and passing a bride, #1 asks, "You can get married at Disney?" To which I reply, "Some people but do, but you won't. Trust me on this." But despite my disdain for people who feel the need to ride in Cinderella's actual carriage on their wedding day, taking the whole "princess for a day"thing to frightening extremes, I became a believer in the magic of The Magic Kingdom.

We screamed with laughter together on rides and ate way too many funnel cakes. I watched as my children grinned ear to ear, meeting characters they had only seen on TV, but believed were their friends. Watching Little Man shake hands with Woody, nearly peeing himself with excitement, and watching #2 get over her Don't-bother-me-I'm-thinking-Ralphie-from-A-Christmas-Story act to hug Rapunzel, was worth almost killing a bell hop. I even sort of enjoyed meeting the characters, especially Cinderella's wicked step-mother, who my daughters were shocked to find I favored. "But she's mean, Mommy!" I prefer to think misunderstood. And, yes, I am surprised too, that I had any patience at all for these kind of interactions. You all know my hatred of these types of situations, and Disney is the Super Bowl of awkward performances for children. I wondered if there was a hierarchy among the performers. Was there stiff competition to play Cinderella? Did the guy who played Pete of Pete's Dragon know not one kid knew or cared who he was in The Electric Light Parade? And the extras - the poor saps who aren't even characters, but wear colorful outfits, and oddly enough for the women, Dorothy Hammill-esque wigs, and dance on the sidelines of parades and shows - there was enough frustrated performance energy in that group to power Space Mountain. Also, if my gay-dar is correct, almost all the men were gay, or at least confused.

This trip was amazing because H and I immersed ourselves fully in our children's world. No Blackberry, no email, we spent every one of their waking moments together. Where else can you find such family togetherness? At the beach I am distracted, at times, wanting to read my book, and H to fish, but at Disney, we all wanted to go on the Dumbo ride and we all wanted, yet another, funnel cake***. Even my dad, who hates crowds, got sucked into staying for both the parade and the fireworks. We were "yes parents", agreeing to any reasonable request. Swimming in the hotel's heated pool, even though it's fifty-five degrees out? Sure! Pizza for both lunch and dinner? Knock yourself out! We didn't even have to argue over bedtimes as we were up until nine each night and the kids barely made it to their beds before collapsing into a deep slumber. H and I would then hang out in our room, drinking wine and eating room service (there are only so many chicken nuggets one can consume in five days before one's bowels seize up) and choosing from the strangely bad television choices. There was a lot of TV evangelism, and one memorable performance by a Gospo-centric singer that was so terrible, we just had to watch, as well as the Miss America pageant where Miss Arkansas did a ventriloquism act, making the dummies sing "My Cowboy Sweetheart", while wearing a red, sequined, strapless jumpsuit. No, really. I'm not kidding.

One of the last nights, we had a prime spot to watch the fireworks, right next to the castle. H ran, fought the crowds, and heroically brought back ice cream for all of us, just in time. We sat there looking like a damn commercial, mouths agape, as a real woman dressed in a light-up Tinkerbell costume, flew out of the castle and across to Main Street to start the show(Back in my day it was a green light. These kids don't know how good they have it!) In the rainbow-colored light, I watched my kids' faces as they listened to Jiminy Cricket speak of believing in your dreams and having courage, and I thought my heart would burst. In the final moments, "When you Wish Upon a Star" played, and Jiminy told everyone to find their deepest wish, and at that point I knew how very, very blessed I am in life. Because I couldn't find a wish. It seems for so many years there were big things to wish for, to get married, to have a baby, then another and another, to finally move out of our tiny house, to be able to get ahead. That moment was my wish. And it came true.

So thank you, Mr. Walt Disney. You gave my family the experience of a lifetime. And while we are all suffering from a little post-Disney depression, and funnel-cake-induced pants-tightness, there is a new kind of closeness among us, having experienced magic like that together. We talk about this trip like cult-members, it's really kind of surprising. We will definitely be back for a dose as my children edge toward their teenage years and we need to circle the wagons against the influences of the outside world. A booster shot, if you will.

Just don't think I'll be buying one of those shirts though.

*To clarify for my readers at H's office, I was the author of that joke, although H shamelessly took credit for it with you all.

**This is why I wear Target sunglasses, V.

***And now I feel every single one I ate, like they're in a bag tied to my waist, as I run each morning.