Week O' Disney - The Madness

We are back.

From Disneyworld if you missed it. 

It would be ludicrous to call it a vacation.  It was work, people.  Hard work.  Three two year olds at Disney is the equivalent of six to ten people in any other setting.

We, of course, had fun.  There are many funny stories and memories.  The character encounters are probably my favorite moments.  The kids went nuts.  They LOVED meeting the characters.  Dinner with Mickey and his pals and breakfast with Pooh and his friends is a must if you have young children. 

The parades are also just utterly amazing.  We experienced the afternoon parade at Animal Kingdom, the street parade at Magic Kingdom (where the little lady got to DANCE in the street with the characters), the electric light parade at Magic Kingdom, and finally the afternoon Magic Kingdom celebrate parade.  Little lady danced like a fiend through the entire parade despite the heat.  Her little red face was undeterred as she lifted her hands and danced to the beat, causing most of the dancers and characters to stop and dance with her and give her a kiss or a compliment.  Precious! 

But no day, no morning, no afternoon, no evening was complete without a complete and utter meltdown by someone.  Luckily, none of them ever melted down at the same time except for the very last night in our hotel room when I told them to go to bed (that was hysterical though because it was private and they howled because they found out they did not get to MOVE to Disney permanently).  Bray looked at me during one of the individual public meltdown sessions and said, "I don't hear any kids crying this week but ours."  To which I replied, "there ARE other kids crying."  He retorted, "I haven't heard them," and all I could come back with was "maybe our kids are immune to the 'magic'."  Truth is, there were other kids crying, but you somehow only hear yours and yours are somehow always the loudest. 

I loved our vacation.  I did.  I love that I have a family to take a vacation with, I love that we have the resources to travel, I love that we got to enjoy the magic of Disney together, I love that we stayed in a really fun Disney hotel (the Art of Animation - this is an awesome hotel for those of you with little kids, everything is Finding Nemo, Cars, Little Mermaid, and Lion King with a killer pool just outside your room if you're in the Nemo suites).  This was the first week I have taken off from work (full week) since my honeymoon in May 2006.  Vacations, family vacations, are going to be a staple of our life now - Bray and I have already discussed ideas for next fall's outing.  The kids will have fun memories.  And we will too.  However, this year presented challenges inevitable with THREE two year olds that are still mastering their potty skills and in need of strollers.  Disney five years from now will be cake, and that is probably how long it will be before we head back. 

There will be a few other funny recaps this week, but here are the lines I remember as the most frequently uttered by our little people:
The eldest:  I can do it by myself! (most often said when determinedly pushing the stroller he refused to sit in)
The lady:  Can I take my shoes off?  (said everywhere from walking around Disney to riding buses, I did at one point say, "your feet are going to fall off" which Bray taunted me with for the remainder of the week)
The baby:  I love it!  (this was paired with everything from our hotel room to the ice cream sundae he devoured on Main Street)