Complete!! - 10 days with 2 kids, one a Disney nut, the other, well, not so much

[justhat]

Well I thought I'd have all this time over Thanksgiving, but I was very wrong. The sick baby only wanted Mommy to hold him, no one else, and then Mommy got sick, and well, you know how it goes. And now I'm typing with the sick one sleeping on me so we'll see how far I get.

November 9 - Remember those bumps I mentioned on my hands? Well now they're on my feet as well. I start to think I have Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease so I share this with DH who laughs. For a medical professional he's not very, well, professional. I complain that if I were one of his patients he'd examine the bumps and not laugh at me. He insists I'm fine so we grab breakfast in the lounge and off we go.

This morning we went to Epcot where commando DH makes a beeline to Soarin' to get a FP. I see this character thing, can't remember the name of it now, but well, Mickey and friends inside a building across from one of the Innoventions. I tell DH I'm stopping with the kids and he runs ahead to get FPs. There was no wait at all which shocked me so we got lots of photos with each character. DD had taken her friends along (who were Ferelpeg's Mickey, Minnie, and Daisy) so they posed along with her.

Pluto seems to have a thing for putting stuffed animals on his nose.

We ask a CM for Daisy Duck and she tells us how elusive she is and suggests we mention this at Guest Services.

We head to The Seas with Nemo and Friends and ride that a few times since DD loves it. We squeeze in some Figment and Imagination Lab time and then head to The Land for our Soarin' FPs. We get a baby swap cause DH thinks we'll be able to ride it more than once each. While I waited for him to ride I call SIL who had HFM disease a few years ago and confirm my diagnosis with her, despite what DH says. He finally emerges from the ride and we grab some lunch at the Sunshine Seasons food court. It's now my turn to ride (and be kid free! ) and DH and kids go to Guest Services to ask about Daisy and where to find her.

I meet them at GS after the ride, where DH says they were very unsympathetic about the lack of Daisy. We ride Spaceship Earth and DD falls asleep.

We go back over to The Seas so that I could pick up some Nemo stuff in the store while she's sleeping. She had pointed some stuff out earlier that I thought would be some good Christmas gifts. DS was hungry, again, so we stop for a snack. For him.

DH rides the "Baby MS", as I like to call it, since I can ride the real version without any trouble and then we head over to the MK since DD is still sleeping. We stop at City Hall to ask about Daisy and find out that she'll be in the Family Fun Day parade in a few minutes. So off we go to wake up DD and watch Daisy in the parade.

It's pretty crowded at the MK today so after a couple of rides on the TTA and a FP for Buzz we head back to the CR to change for dinner at CG. This is our favorite restaurant in WDW and the food was great as usual. And, like always, we both ate too much. We shared a 3 cheese, sundried tomato flatbread, then we each got an appetizer (I had the goat cheese ravioli, DH had cauliflower soup), entree (I had the pork and DH the steak), and dessert (we both got the warm valhrona chocolate cake-mine with the raspberry ice cream on the menu and DH switched for vanilla). DD got a nice free appetizer of goldfish, some pasta entree that I don't remember cause the big highlight of her meal was the rice krispie sushi, which had...BIG RED GOOEY FISH! Okay, they were Swedish Fish, but those of you who watch MMC will know what I mean.

We finished out the night using that Buzz FP at the MK and hitting a few other rides, then watching the fireworks from the balcony. Oh, and DH must have left his AP at the Buzz FP machine earlier in the day cause he did not have it when we went back after dinner. The CM was super nice though and just let him in anyway when he realized. He was going over to Guest Services while I took the kids in to see Spectromagic, but the CM said to just go ahead in, that she didn't care if she got in trouble. Very nice of her and I truly hope that she did not get in trouble!! DH and DD went down to ride the green monorail once around the loop while DS slept and I packed. Ya see, DD wanted to ride the green monorail all week cause it's green, like Nick. It was never the one that arrived when we were going anywhere though so we kept saying "next time". It was finally on the resort line though so there was no excuse tonight.

 

[justhat]

November 10 - Our last day! We added a last minute breakfast at Chef Mickey's, courtesy of the concierge team at the CR. Yes, I had long reached my character meal limit but DD thought we were eating with Minnie again, so there we were. I had promised she could wear Halloween costume, Minnie Mouse, when we ate with Minnie but since she hadn't the previous 2 meals today was the day.

Let me just add that I'm so glad that she's free at buffets cause all the kid ate was half a banana. DS liked his infant chair today so that made my meal better.

The meal was as you would expect, except that we entered our dining room just seconds after every character except Goofy had passed our table. So that meant a 45 minute wait for them to come back. We apologized to our server that we'd be sitting there so long, holding up her table though we had already finished eating but we had to wait for the characters to arrive. She felt kinda bad and told us she'd get a manager to walk us to the characters, but unfortunately all he did was say we had a long wait. DS needed to be changed so I took him to the bathroom and then stopped in the gift shops to buy DD new Minnie shoes (she broke the ears off hers the day before and they were on the small side anyway) and pick up some treats for my Christmas exchange buddy. Got back to the table in time to see the last of the characters.

It was time to check in our luggage (love that new service! ) and store our carry on bags, before heading to the parks for the last time. DS took this opportunity to snag a final nap-definitely the highlights of his vacation.

We chose MK as our final park since it was the closest one to the resort and we needed to be back for our ME pickup at 3:50pm. DH had to replace his AP so he took DS while DD and I went into the park. She said she wanted to "drive the cars" so we went straight to the Indy Speedway, stopping only for a Buzz FP on the way.

DH got a Peter Pan FP and then met us at the Speedway. We stopped for some water then took a spin on the TTA. I wonder just how many times we rode that this trip!?!

Since there was still time before our Buzz FP time, we decided to get some photos and signatures from Stitch and "Buzzy".

Well, I chose Stitch cause he did not have a wait, DD insisted on Buzz too despite his monstrous line. She got incredibly grouchy during that Buzzy line, I guess from the lack of sleep the night before with her late night spins on the monorail.

A really nice CM gave her a Cinderella sticker which seemed to help the mood for awhile.

We got some popcorn which set off the bad mood again cause DD wanted the smaller box (cause Mickey is on it), not the large tub that DH bought. Though the CM at MGM gave us a free box of popcorn a few days ago, this CM would not give us an empty box no matter what. Not sure why cause what could we possibly do with an empty popcorn box, but whatever. DD cried for quite some time over that.

It was time for Buzz and after we rode that we started thinking about leaving since she cried the whole walk to/from the ride. DD really wanted to ride IASW though so we gave in and headed over there. We still had the Peter Pan FP so DH decided to send me and the kids on that alone. Ya see, we only had 1 cause he got it with his ticket while I got the Buzz FP with mine. So stupidly, off I go, with 2 crying kids into the line. DD claims Peter Pan is her favorite ride (that day anyway) but yet cried the whole line. Her shoe came off and while I'm struggling to get that back on while holding crying DS I look up to see DH chatting on the phone. Then the people behind me decide to try to pass me up, even though the line had moved maybe 4 feet. Both kids cried the whole ride, except when passing the alligators, then DD stopped long enough to show Nick the alligators. She then resumed the crying.

For some bizarre reason we agree to go on IASW. DD fell asleep on the ride (thank gosh!!) so we decided that was enough for the day and headed back to the CR to hang out in the concierge lounge till our ME bus arrived. DD had 1 more page left in her autograph book so we stopped to see Gideon on the way out. She was sleeping but we got some Photopass photos with him earlier in the week that we'll use for her book, since I don't think she'd want the one with DS in it.

We grabbed some lunch at the snack bar and brought it up to the lounge where we just kinda hung out for a couple of hours (it was around 1pm). DS was actually happy, probably cause he knew we were leaving.

Not that this will mean anything to anyone reading this, but while hanging out in the lounge my high school librarian and her husband walked in with some World of Disney bags. Weird, I tell you. Weirder cause she was just a couple of years older than me (she only worked there my senior year) and a friend had a crush on her, and well, there's a lot of weird history with her. Very random, but I guess it was Jersey Week after all so I shouldn't have been so surprised since she's a librarian in an NJ school.

Our ME bus came late, about 20 minutes, and then we had the bus driver from heck. He drove sooooo fast and recklessly and literally almost got in 2 accidents. One was an accident that happened a few cars ahead that he almost couldn't avoid cause of his high speed and another was trying not to let any cars in front of him once we reached the airport. We really should have reported him. Things went smoothly at the airport, with the exception of my mom calling to argue about the seating arrangements at this christening!! Our flight took off without a hitch and DS fell asleep right away. And fell asleep for the night! That's right. He slept through that flight, running around Atlanta for our connection, and again through the next flight, claiming our luggage, and driving home. DD, otoh, did not sleep at all so she ended up sitting with me on the 2nd flight. The plane was near empty so we had plenty of space which was a big help.

So that's it! Our whole trip with pretty much every detail. Some things I learned, were that 2 kids are definitely different than 1, November is a pretty good time to go in terms of crowd and weather (well, without Jersey week anyway), and while I used to be this huge supporter of taking young infants to WDW my son has made me rethink that a bit. Of course I'd still go and bring the little guy along, heck we are in just 20 days! But all the characteristics that make him such a great baby at home make him a challenge on vacation. He probably would have preferred to stay home so I think with our next kid we'll wait to see her personality before booking any vacations. I can only hope that things will be a little better for him our our pre-Christmas trip cause I really don't want to make him miserable again. And it's not like we could have slowed the pace anymore-we stopped to feed him practically once an hour, and he sleeps so much that we could not have gone back to the room for naps cause we'd have been there all day. The other thing I did learn, though, is that although it would not be the most ideal way to do WDW, I could do it myself with 2 kids, which was something I questioned when I first found out I was pregnant and everyone responded to me with a reaction.

I think I'll have to throw in some christening photos just cause I mentioned it a lot so you could see how large an event this was. Unfortunately my SIL took all the pictures with my camera that day and they're all of her other niece and nephew. I'll try to find some decent ones though.

Thanks everyone for reading through all of this!

 

[Alice28]

BRAVO! BRAVO! You did a great job! All the pictures are so good- you are YOUNG Justine! I knew your age, but you look younger! And that's a good thing! Madison is so cute, as is Henry. And Nick. Sounds like you guys really had a nice time and lived it up a little! I can't wait for our dinner at CG- our ressies are for 7:45, so I'm hoping for a fireworks view during dessert.

 

[icebrat001]

Excellent job!

 

[justhat]

Here are some of those christening photos. We were late to the actual church event. Nice. My mom was even later. She at one point said something about just rushing through that to get to the party.

One of the tables, with centerpiece.

The balloon animal lady.

My own child sleeping in her stroller.

Another table shot.

My other child sleeping.

Favor bags, cotaining cocoa cones and chocolate covered spoons.

The imposter Mickey and Minnie. Too bad that Madison is back at our house with her Daddy and Papa cause she had an accident during her nap and we had nothing to change her into.

Note Madison has returned in a new dress.

The magician/bird guy.

As you can see, Madison liked him.

This is worth including cause it's the 2nd time that DH has fed Henry!! That other guy in the photo is my uncle, the godfather.

 

[icebrat001]

Nice pictures!

 

[Alice28]

Holy Carp! That was one fancy Christening! Your mom certainly went hog wild! LOL at the imposter Mickey and Minnie. How many people were there?

 

[zalansky]

Justhat! This is an excellent report! I LOVE all the great photos and still even now when I see Nick I crack up. Great job!

 

[missj1975]

Great trip report.

 

[OhMari]

I love finding reports like yours. I hope every one is feeling better in your home. Did you really say you are going back during christmas?

Your children are adorable. My 3rd child was over due and he ended up weighing 11 lbs. But he slept all the time, and ate all the time like Henry. At 3 months he weighed 15 lbs and people thought he was a six month old. My son never changed his sleeping habit until he started walking at 9 months-then he finally woke up.

 

[justhat]

Thanks! Yes, we're going back the week before Christmas. Don't even ask why cause I can't think of a reason to justify the "fun" it will be with my son. It wasn't my idea though, I can tell you that!

I think I mentioned it, but Henry was born 4 weeks early, and was 8 lbs. 4 oz., so I can only assume he would have been an 11 pounder if he had gone to term. He was also 15 lbs at 3 months (he was 16.4 tonight!) and no one believes me about his age. He'll be 4 months old tomorrow and has started sleeping even more-6:30pm-5:30am, plus several naps during the day. Amazing to me, but it has taught me that kids will be who they are regardless of what we try to do to change them. I didn't do anything differently with him than my daughter but she never slept more than 2 hours at a time till she was 19 months! You've got me a little nervous now about when he starts to walk though cause I'm guessing that will be around the time of our DCL Med cruise and I so don't want him to wake up then!

 

[mlill]

WoW! How did I miss this TR?!? Wonderful! Your pictures are amazing and your family is just too adorable! It brings back memories of when I took my son when he was only 3 months old! (Now he's turning 15! They grow up fast!)

People thought I was crazy, but he was easier than his big sister, who was 3 at the time!

I just can't say enough good things about this TR! It's really great. I'm looking forward to reading about your next adventure in WDW! We'll be there the week before Christmas, too. I'm hosting a DISMeet at the Boardwalk, and your family is very welcome to stop by! Here is the info...

Boardwalk DISMeet

Happy Holidays!
-Michelle

 

[lborne]

Great report. Thanks for taking the time to write it and share with us.