Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Leaving on a Jet Plane

It's Friday morning, the 7th of January. Time to pack up to leave this place where six-foot tall bunnies govern the village and a magic button will get you your own personal boat on It's a Small World.

I'll admit it, I'm terribly sad to be leaving. It means I'll have to cook my own food at home tonight, and no one will be there to entertain my kids while I wash my own dishes.


We brought an entire suitcase down with us just filled with snacks to bring into the parks. Not that I'm against buying snacks at Disney World, but seriously, how many corndogs can my kids eat a day? I'll give you a hint: about as many Taco Bell value menu items as I can eat in one sitting. Basically, they'll eat until Mickey has no more corndogs.

With an empty suitcase, we now have room to pack up all the treasures we've accumulated during our trip. The gift fairy has left lots of goodies every night of our stay, and now finally I'm getting some recognition for the snack suitcase's purpose. Yes, we need that many bags of individually-packaged Craisins, and yes, I'm putting them all in this giant suitcase.

One final meal at the Gingerbread House. Again, lamenting that this is the last time we'll have people happy to see my children in a restaurant.

At check-out, we got a disc of pictures that the Give Kids the World photographers had taken of our family at the village. This disc survived the trip home, even though Eve tried to use it as a ninja star. We also got a family passport with a list of amusement parks all over the country that we can use to get into for the next year for one day's free admission. Awesome? Awesome. Except we're going to have to stand in lines.

And if the ride to the airport is indicative of how the kids will behave on the plane, we'll be buying some Dramamine once we get there.

At the airport, we ate at a small place called Johnny River's Grill and Market. The entire dining experience consisted of Daniel dropping his food on the ground repeatedly, to the point that we had to buy an entire new meal for him. Eve, getting me back for not letting her nap for a week, purposely knocked all the drinks over on the table, getting my bag saturated with so much lemonade that it wouldn't dry out for 48 hours. Once there were no more drinks to spill, Eve pretty much dropped every single piece of silverware onto the ground and cried until we got her a new fork. And keep in mind that Eve can't say Rs very well, so you can imagine how I wanna fork! sounds at 194 decibels.

And I actually found out that I do not like all nachos, particularly not the kind that are topped with beef chili and diced grilled chicken. Cow and chicken on the same chip? I think Johnny River must have been on the hooch when he was coming up with his menu. I've topped my chili with Fritos and cheese and onions and hot sauce, but never have I had a naked bowl of chili in front of me and thought, "You know what this needs? Some grilled chicken."

After the kids had thoroughly spazzed at lunch, Matt rocked my world by getting our 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds to swallow a Dramamine. Because Benadryl says, I'm drugging my kids but Dramamine says, Oh, I'm just helping them out with motion sickness.

There were less than fifty people on our flight, which was great because we all felt special by getting into the A boarding group. Once we were all buckled, over the loudspeaker came a whisper:

You are getting sleepy. You are not thirsty. Peanuts give you gas.
Scratch that about me wanting to be an evil stepsister when I grow up. I want to be one of these sassy flight attendants for Southwest.

And would you believe the kids were angels for the whole flight? You would?? Gosh, you're gullible.

I'm pretty sure Nat is big enough to go into the restroom by herself, but she started to freak out and demanded I go in with her. And it's hard enough to fit into an airplane lavatory by yourself if your BMI is over 19. But I guess it's a good thing I poured myself in there to make sure she didn't tamper with the smoke detector, because by the way they talk, people are doing that stuff all the time.

By the way, I enjoy saying lavatory. It makes me think of people doing strange experiments in tight spaces. When you go to use the lavatory, you're not just taking care of business, you're taking care of something important. I imagine philanthropists use lavatories all the time.

Dan was once again fascinated by the Disney guide book and I could keep him entertained by telling him to flip through and find pictures of rides we went on. He was, by far, the best-behaved on the flight. Natalie occupied herself by going through my purse and throwing its contents down the aisle in an effort to reach Daniel. My hand cream and lipstick were later recovered by another passenger, but there's no telling why Natalie thought her brother would look good in Cherrywood Pink, when his skin clearly has a yellow undertone.

Eve consistently gave the Fasten Seatbelt sign the bird and made it her life's mission to push the Call Attendant button. I hope she'll be as dedicated when she gets back to school.

Her Dramamine kicked in near the last quarter of the flight and she passed out on my lap. She awoke in time to find Matt pulling the van up to the baggage claim and wanted to know who was going to drive us to the village. Sorry, kid, we're back to our own people, but trust me, the Kool-Aid is great.

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