Disney - Part 1

We spent a week doing the Orlando thing.  With two toddlers. Yeah, it was one hell of a trip.  Tons of fun, but tons of work, and by no means a vacation.

This was to celebrate my father-in-law's 65th birthday (albeit, we were a year too late, but it was better for the kids' ages this way, as well as other events around my in-laws' family events).  So my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law and her husband, my FIL and his lady-friend (because referring to the woman who a 66 year old man is dating as a girlfriend is weird) and our J-K clan all rented a condo in Kissimmee, FL.  That is a LOT of people in one condo - luckily it was HUGE.


We got the master suite, which was on the first floor.  This was great, because we didn't want the kids going up and down the stairs.  This was also necessary, as it was the room with the crib in it.  We did offer that anybody else could have the room, since it was the biggest, but that they would have to share it with Donovan.  Nobody took that offer :-P.  But it worked out extra well, because Jocelyn wound up sleeping on the floor in our room (instead of one of the kid bedrooms upstairs), so it was good to have the big bedroom. 

Enough travel logistics, though.  It's time to talk about our trip to Disney!

Day 1:  Arrived in the late afternoon and relaxed.  We got the kids suited up and went for a dip in the pool.  They loved it, but Donovan had a thing about trying to drink pool water.  Jocelyn warmed right up to everybody and had a blast playing with her aunt, uncles and grandpa.  Donovan took a bit longer, and did best with the 'outsiders' (Uncle Pat and Ms. Janette) but was afraid of Mike's siblings.  Sarah had a friend come by for a few hours, and they had a baby just older than Donovan, so it was cute to watch them interact.

Day 2:  Magic Kingdom!  And we spent the whole day!  Everybody wore matching shirts - lime green, with "Dad's Birthday" or "Grandpa's Birthday" (or "Dad") printed on the back in Disney print, and with a character on the front and a Mickey or Minnie on the sleeve.  They were cute.  We were there shortly after the park opened, and we had breakfast with the Hundred Acre Wood crowd.  I knew that Jocelyn would be okay about them, as she loves characters, but I wasn't sure how Donovan would take it.  But the fact that we have giant stuffed versions of them at home seemed to have helped.  Donovan absolutely loved them.  LOVED.  There was not much cuter than the way he cuddled with them!



He really couldn't get enough!  He kept on going back for more hugs.  And there was another table after ours (luckily only one), so he would run over to that family and steal more character hugs.  I swear, he is going to be in all of their pictures.

We did stick around a bit after breakfast was done being served, so we got a bit more time with the friends.  At one point I was standing by Pooh bear, and was trying to call Donovan over to give him one more hug.  Donovan then grabbed onto a chair, squatted and started making the poop face.  So, being a mom, I asked him, "Donovan, are you pooping?"  Well, Pooh Bear put his hands in front of his mouth and started to gesture like he was laughing.  Yeah, it was really funny.  But they did get a few more hugs in.  

After breakfast, we made out to Main Street circle in time for a parade.  It was great timing, actually, because we were able to run up to the main circle and get a great spot.  Everybody was dressed up for Cinco de Mayo (because it was May 5), which I thought was adorable.  Once the parading was done, it became a street party, and everybody was invited to dance with the characters.  Which meant that Jocelyn danced with Goofy!


After the parade,  we noticed that the Carousel line was really short,  so we went on it.  It was Donovan's first real ride, and he LOVED it.  He didn't want it to be over. 

Then we met back up with Mike's siblings and we all went on It's a Small World together.  Well, Donovan fell asleep in the stroller, so Grandpa and Janette walked him around while the rest of us rode.  Jocelyn loved it, she loved the song and thought that all of the different rooms were cool.  She liked being on a boat, and enjoyed the bright colors.

Then I took Jocelyn over to the tea cups, but they were closed.  So we went to Dumbo.  Dumbo actually does something kind of cool with the line.   You get to a certain point, and they give you a pager, and let you go run around a playground.  It's imbedded into the line, and makes the wait a bit more bearable.  Of course, you have a wide range of ages playing on the same space, which makes it tricky.  So I had to chase my 2-year-old around the playground.  Good thing Donovan was still sleeping and not with us!  Or else it would have been much harder (of course, Mike would have been with me, so that would have helped).  There was a small inner ring with younger toys, and then rope ladders and slides for the bigger kids.

Poor Jocelyn did get into a small scuffle, though.  She was at the top of a very short slide, and another girl pushed her down off of it.  She tumbled all the way to the ground.  I comforted her, and waited for another parent to scold their child for pushing another down the slide and onto the floor.  No parent came.  So I had to say something - I had to tell the little girl that pushing somebody down the slide is rude and that it's important to wait your turn.  Well, the mom was right there and heard that and was all, "I didn't see anything."  I explained to her what happened, and she just shrugged it off, saying that since she didn't see it.  She was less than 3 feet away.  Pay attention to your kid.

So we did that, I think we took some naps, and then we met some more characters.

Goofy, Donald, Daisy
and Minnie were all in a Big Top.   Donovan was a bit scared of Donald, but both kids loved Goofy and Minnie.  Jocelyn was not super excited about Daisy because she wanted to get to Minnie first, but Daisy came first in the line.  When we met Mickey, both kids were super excited.  I mean, he is the BIG DEAL there.  So we talked with him and his keeper a lot, and we shared that Jocelyn was a big fan of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  So the keeper asked which episode was her favorite.  She hesitated for a bit, thought about it, and answered with, "Elmo's World!"  Yeah, that was funny.  Mickey made a 'laugh' gesture by putting his hands in front of his mouth.  It was adorable.  I laughed SO hard! 


We had several other rides, some ice cream (Donovan's first ice cream, in fact), and another parade before the night was over.  The order of the events gets blurry, but I do know that we splashed in the splash pool, went on the Winnie the Pooh honey pot ride, and met back up with the rest of the family for Pirates of the Caribbean.  Jocelyn did not like it, there was a lot of darkness.  And then the family took the kids while Mike and I went to the Haunted Mansion.  We somehow found them at the parade and got out of there.  It was a LONG drive back, and it surely tired the kiddos out.

And writing this has tired me out.  The other days will not be quite so detailed. 

DOG-GEE DOO-GEE WOOOV WOOOV

Donovan is quite the chatterbox lately.  And he is getting really great at identifying objects and yelling out what they are called.  When he sees a dog, he YELLS "doggy" at the top of his lungs.  He enunciates each syllable.  Then he yells "woof", but doesn't get that out as clearly.  He also tries to say "bird" when he sees birds.  It's more of a 'bwwooo' sound. 

Donovan has a bunch of new words, but I am blanking on them right now (as is always the case).  I think he said carrot today.  In addition to saying more words, he is getting better and better at understanding them.  This morning, I asked him where his shoes were, and he went into the bathroom to get them.  Tonight, before bath, Mike asked him to take his shoes off, and he bent down to open the Velcro. He couldn't quite manage to get them off on his own, but he knew what he was asked to do, and that was amazing. 

He is also big on ducks.  He knows that rubber ducks, pictures of ducks and actual ducks are all called ducks, and welcomes them all with a resounding "DUCK!!"  When we open the garage door, he runs out toward the creek yelling "duck!" and looks for ducks in the creek. Of course, we must be VERY diligent about chasing him down, because he is not respectful of boundaries and would climb right over the curb and head downhill toward the creek if we didn't stop him. 

It's pretty crazy, actually.  He has no concept of fear or being bound by natural lines.  The border around the playground - climbs right up over it and runs around the field.  I have explored more of our local park since taking Donovan there than ever before, because he just goes where he wants (and I run behind him, of course). 

This makes me nervous for our trip to Disney World next week.  Donovan is at the run-around age as it is - he won't want to just hang out in the stroller the whole time.  He will need to run around!  But he doesn't seem to have a healthy sense of caution or fear.  He just GOES.  So we will have to be very careful.  At least there will be 7 adults and 2 kids.  Of course, that makes it a bit trickier, because everybody else will assume that somebody else has them.   So it's still not a break for us.  But the point is that we will have to watch him like a hawk! 

I am very nervous about one thing, though.  Hand, foot and mouth is going around his daycare.  We have gotten two letters so far.  How much do you bet that he starts showing symptoms while we are on vacation?  I have half a mind to take him in for a preemptive checkup on Friday, and get some precautionary medicine (or whatever is needed).  It would be his luck to get sick at Disney World.  My kids are always getting sick on vacation.  And, of course, we are planning to spend a day at a water park, where he will want to be in the splash pool, and where other parents will give me dirty looks with his exposed sores (even though the presence of the sores means that the incubation period is over and there is no more contagion, I think... I'll let the doctor tell me).

Donovan is also going through a stage that I don't like very much right now.  He thinks that hitting and pulling hair are really funny.  Like, REALLY funny.  He laughs.  And when we sternly say, "NO" to him, he gives these big belly-laughs, like he just won the game.  I don't know what to do about it.  I try to not react, but to simply remove his hand.  And that is fine when it's my hair.  But what about for Jocelyn?  He pulls her hair and pushes her all the time.  I can't show her that I will quietly correct and ignore that behavior, because then she might start thinking it's okay to do.  So Donovan has started getting 60 second timeouts.  Jocelyn didn't get her first timeout until she was at least 18 months old (I think Donovan was born by then).  But D is starting a bit earlier - as second-borns are wont to do with many things due to having a role model :-P.

He is still my love bug, though.  He gives the best hugs, and loves giving and getting kisses.  He runs up to me with open arms when I show up to daycare, and we have so much fun cuddling and laughing.  He still insists on nursing for bedtime (I admit, I haven't worked too hard at weaning yet, but I have tried some).  I'm thinking that he will be weaned when I take a week-long training in June, which comes between two other work trips.  So he will have more days away from me over a 3 week period than with me.  Maybe that will help.  Not that I mind, per se.  But I'm ready to get my body back.  My boobs have started to shrink back down to their former size, so maybe that means my supply is dropping and he will give it up soon.  We shall see!