Thursday February 3rd, 2022 – A Conveyor Belt of Carbs
Before I opened my eyes, my face was swollen. My cheeks and lips were painful to the touch even in the dark. I knew that our original plan of Animal Kingdom, a notoriously sunny park, would spell the end for me. I’d told Dad that my face was hurting the night before so he knew not to expect me in the parks in the morning.
I got up early to try and book the good
Genie+ rides. There was a long line at guest services of people who had been trying to use the app and failed. Rather than joining the line, I kept running all around the resort searching for a good internet hot spot. I booked Rise of the Resistance for Dad, David and Clark. I also booked Slinky Dog on Genie+ for them but it was super late. So late that I could have rode with them.
David took the kids in the pool while I stayed and did yoga in the room with the curtains half closed and my back to the window, trying to save all my lumens ( unit of measurement for light) for the park. Finally I went down to meet them.
The three of them were sitting on the sandbar together. “Claudia, tell Mommy what you did,” David prompted. “She ate sand!” squealed Clark, unable to hold in the secret. My children put weird things in their mouths. This was a theme on the trip a little. Claudia was lucky that David was there – he’s better at cleaning both objects and people than I am. Claudia would still have sand between her molars had I been the parent on deck.
I made Claudia go down the little slide once. She was not happy about it. She was scared both by the slide and the water getting in her face at the end.
Then I went in the lazy river with Clark. I was covered head to knee in UV clothes and since my calves have seen zero sun since 2019, they didn’t shout about it. The experience was so fun. There are times where I’m struck by how grown up my little boy is becoming, this was one of them. Despite not having swimming lessons since the start of the pandemic – our local pool was closed for renovations – he showed a lot of water safety awareness and stuck by the edge of the lazy river.
The lazy river was crazy deep. Like ten feet deep! Who makes a deep lazy river? What is wrong with you Michael Eisner? If you drown all the tourists they can’t spend more money on your business. But seriously, you looked down and realized how deep it was. The lifeguards all stood there, warning everyone who waded to the bottom of the steps – careful, there’s a drop off!
Caption: Where Michael Eisner sacrifices tourists to the gods of consumerism.
Clark sat on a floating chair with me then decided that he would try to get in a tube himself. It was tricky and he fell in while wearing a life jacket. I fished him out and he rode on my lap again. Once Clark built up some courage and we managed to get him onto his own floating chair. For a minute he even decided he wanted to float separate from me before crying, “Come get me!” and I paddled back over to him and hooked my leg onto his floatie.
It’s rare now that I get alone time with Clark. It’s funny how having just one kid feels sooooo easy. It also feels special because I get to really connect with that child. With Clark starting school, a lot of the time, I feel like I don’t see him. He’ll run into my classroom for a hug before and after recess, but the rest of the day, he’s in his own classroom. I really loved the times when I got to float around the lazy river with Clark and appreciate how wonderful and grown up he is.
While we were swimming, David and Claudia walked to the Boardwalk Bakery on what was a baby training walk. While I had trained Clark to walk across town, Claudia’s training walks consisted of her walking three blocks without crying from snow, cold or difficulty. I had varying success with this.
Caption: Lunch! Spoiler alert, it’s cake. Again.
But David not only convinced Claudia to walk to the bakery, he also got her to walk back by handing her the Key Lime pie she had picked out for me. “Hold this carefully for Mommy,” David said, handing Claudia the dessert at the bakery. Claudia held the pie tightly and upright in her hands the whole almost kilometer back to the room, but when Clark and I opened the door to the hotel room, she rushed at me almost upending the dessert in her enthusiasm. “Mommy! This is for you!”
David and Clark had pineapple celebration cake after having Mickey waffles for breakfast. Cake for lunch – Shhh! Don’t tell Mom. As Mom is sitting right there questioning what kind of parent she is while her children mow down on a conveyor belt of carbs.
Then David and Clark took off to make their Rise of the Resistance fastpass with Grandpa Jim. I was a little worried about how Clark would do on Rise of the Resistance because the cast members there belong to the First Order and don’t break character so I’ve heard stories of little kids crying. I had explained to Clark that he could trust anyone with the cast member badge and ask them for help and they would be kind, except for the First Order ones. The room full of Storm Troopers looks menacing even in photos so I didn’t know how Clark would feel on the ride. But according to David and my Dad, he loved it.
Caption: You can't see it but it looks like my Dad is viciously pinching Clark's side. My Dad isn't obviously, what with being a good grandpa but all the same Clark looks miserable. That’s his photo-taking face. The other 99.9% of the vacation when there wasn’t a camera on him, he was grinning ear to ear.
Claudia and I hung around the room while Claudia napped and I willed my skin to feel less sensitive. After Rise of the Resistance, the boys took in the Indiana Jones Spectacular. Clark paid attention and quoted the show afterwards telling me that Indy never loses his hat. It was neat details like that which brought home how much my little boy was taking from this experience.
Grandpa Jim bought Clark a remote control RC Car and a shoulder Woody to ride on him. But took them back to his rental house for safe keeping when he went to get Jen. This was the only time on the trip where Clark lost his mind. Claudia and I started walking over to the Studios. I realized I couldn’t log into my Gmail account since Google enacted the double sign in measures on unfamiliar devices and my phone didn’t work so I made a long distance call to David from the room telling him we’d be there soon.
Caption: This was the best one out of eight. Please take my assurance that Clark is making a bizarre face in this one.
I knew the call would be expensive even though we talked for less than a minute but I had no idea how expensive. Twenty dollars! American! Twenty-six dollars Canadian! I told David afterward that for that price he should have said everything he wanted to do to me or some other such X-rated talk.
David and Clark did Swirling Saucers because Clark was losing his mind from waiting for Claudia and me and not having his toy.
Caption: David is having the time of his life with a depressed orphan.
David booked a Disability pass for Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Then I took Clark on Star Tours while David and Claudia went to see Muppet Vision 3D.
We got my favourite seat on the ride- back row, far corner. I can’t touch the ground there so I got thrown around. Clark is nowhere close to touching the ground and even though the seatbelt tightened, he really got jostled. Clark was taken with C3PO and wanted to know what R2D2 was doing that was going to get them deactivated. It was funny the way Clark would pull out tidbits from rides days after riding something. Slinky Dog Dash was his favourite but truly Clark enjoyed every ride and paid such close attention.
Muppets proved to be too intense for Claudia. She didn’t enjoy things jumping right into her face. Despite the Muppets’ claims to the contrary, they used gimmicks and gratuitously tossed 3D objects at people but once David removed Claudia’s glasses, she had a better time.
Then we did Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad. Both kids melted down in the line after the preshow so that David and I each carried a child onto the ride. My Dad thought the effect of walking through the screen was really cool. It was a minor meltdown because the kids quickly recovered and enjoyed the ride.
All of us agreed that Mickey and Minnie was super strange. I filed it under the ‘Don’t Need to Ride Again’ category. I found the storyline disjointed and both David and I agreed that it reminded us of the ‘Itchy and Scratchy’ cartoons that used to be featured on the Simpsons but less violent. Those sections of the Simpsons were so gory that it would turn my stomach watching them. I remember dreading seeing those characters pop up on the screen.
Caption: The ride stopped in the Daisy ballet lesson so we got a good on ride photo.
From there, the people with Genie+ ; David, Clark, Dad and Jen, had some time before the Midway Mania fastpass so I suggested we ride Alien Swirling Saucers. It posted a thirty minute wait but I knew it wouldn’t be that long. Dad likes waiting even less than Clark and as soon as he realised we were in the standby line, decided to leave.
Claudia and I stayed and I fed her grapes in line while she played coy and hid behind my legs before staring at the people in front and behind us, enchanting everyone in the line. The ride was perfectly at her level, I made sure to hold onto Claudia tightly. The previous night when the seatbelt had been tightened to David, I got tossed about. I didn’t want my little girl having that experience.
Everyone else went on Midway Mania. Clark, who loves video games more than anything else in the world, adored it and scored 42,000 in his first game. David scored 142,000.
Caption: I love the intense focus; no one gets between Clark and his video games.
Next up, it was Slinky Dog, the ride that they had been waiting the whole day to ride. Normally as a parent, David goes with the flow, if the kids don’t want to do something he’s fine with it. So when Clark said that he was scared to ride and David got upset, I was kind of surprised. The only ride I was willing to force Clark on was Splash Mountain which was closed. I tried to tell Clark that he didn’t have to ride – Grandpa Jim would ride twice. But David would not let Clark back out of doing Slinky Dog Dash.
Caption: Daddy is all smiles but that arm says it all, “Not letting you get away kid, you MUST ride.”
I could understand why Clark was intimidated- Slinky Dog arcs up over the Toy Story Land pathways so you can hear the rider’s cheers and screams as they go past. Despite being a kiddie coaster, Slinky Dog seems like it’s very high in the air because you can physically see it. Claudia and I watched the four of them go into the queue and by the time they’d gotten to the front of the line, Clark had psyched himself up.
I promised Clark a bubble wand if he rode not realising that Grandpa Jim had already purchased both kids a bubble wand. But Clark walked out of the ride raving about it, he said it was fun but it made his tummy feel funny.
Caption: That is one uncertain face, the next ride photo is all joy.
While the four of them rode, I realised Claudia hadn’t had any dinner. First I stopped to buy bananas and got sticker shock when it was nine dollars for two. I referenced Arrested Development to the guy working the till, “How much can a banana cost Michael? Twenty dollars?” The guy wasn’t familiar with Arrested Development but he laughed and said, “In Disney, yes.” It made me feel smug about the amount of fresh produce I had ordered for the room and the sticker shock I had been avoiding all week when the kids ate out of their snack bags.
I got the kids dinner from Woody’s lunchbox. Claudia ate maybe three tater tots and declined the grilled cheese sandwich that my Dad happily ate. Clark inhaled his turkey club so fast that I realized he hadn’t eaten all day (again). Oh well, score one more for theme parks. Clark mowed down the tater tots and rode in the stroller because Claudia was DONE. She was screaming and crying and insisting on being held only by me. I walked while holding her for as long as I could before giving her the choice of walking by herself or being carried by Daddy. She chose Daddy who went back to being called ‘Dada’ this trip.
Clark was delighted to be riding in the stroller. On our training walks we had our big Bob stroller so Clark could sit on the front and give his feet a break. I had hoped that Claudia would walk more this trip but the only time she left the stroller was to melt over David’s shoulder. I was relieved that Clark was off his feet, I was worried that walking twenty thousand steps a day would harm his growth. David assured me it wouldn’t. One of us has a medical degree but one of us is a Mom so there’s a fifty percent chance that I’m right.
Grandpa Jim drove us back to the hotel and Clark conked out in his car seat. He only woke up when we put him on the potty in the room. Even though he had been completely out of it, he sat straight up and said, “I need to play with RC!”
Because I’m clinically insane, I decided to take Claudia across to the Screendoor shop half a kilometer away at the Boardwalk so she could pick out a toy. The previous night on our date, I’d seen a great selection of doll sets. Joke was on me though because Claudia picked a set that was available steps away at the Beach Club Marketplace.
Clark was still playing with RC and Woody when we came back to the room. Even though it had been the world’s longest day and both the kids were hours past exhausted, I still read with them and made Clark do his home reading because I’m a crazy person and the home reading teacher at his school. It ended up being a beautiful, quiet moment, holding my babies in bed after a long day. It showed me both the power of cuddles and routine, in a sea of new, over stimulating experiences, reading together before bed was our special activity. It was so unexpected that I can still recall the softness of the moment now.
The kids fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows. David and I laid next to each other in bed and I whispered, “Have you ever been this tired in your life?”
“Yes, five years ago. The last time we were at Disney.”
Then David gave me a foot massage which is to say he really and truly loves me because after spending my twenties running marathons my feet look like Shrek’s.
I tried on my running shoes shortly before we left for Florida and found there was less than zero tread left on them- I slipped everywhere. So that was how my three hundred dollar orthotics ended up in twenty dollar Joe Fresh shoes. I thought for sure I was going to lose a toenail this trip from all the walking.
Caption: Date night!