How mean is this???

[mickie0866]

I could easily blame this on my Mother for her continuous bad influence on me. She has been the victim of our surprises on more than one occasion. Now she is inflicting her revenge on my children.

We (meaning the whole famn damily) decided to make a second trip to WDW for Halloween. We were there last year and had a blast.

We started making the plans in June. It originally was a means for my Mother to take her mind off an extended medical treatment for breast cancer. If I may digress.....It really was her only sanity saver through the most uncomfortable of times......


I have a pre teen son.....I will not bore you with the details except to say that boys DO go through PMS!!!!!! His behavior, even though understandable pre teen hormonal Y chromosome syndrome, has been a bit on the hair pulling side. My own, of course, not his.

I seriously thought of pulling out of the trip because I did not want to put him or my family in WDW during one of his fits. This decision thoroughly upset my Mother. She is an avid WDW fan and has been there almost 20 times. She had thought for her last trip, the whole famn damily should be there including my husband (who happens to be a Disney virgin). My children and I have been there 4 times and forever thought we could get Dad there one day. This trip, he will be joining us. (just a thought......my Mother and I blame him for the recent bad weather)

With the torn feeling of my Mothers guilt and fears of fits, I decided to plunge ahead and make the plans.

Here is the twist. My husband, Mother, Step Father and sister are keeping the plans from my two kids. I have simply told my pre-teen son that I could not handle our trip being ruined by fits between him and I, and I would not make the plans as long as he behaves as badly as he does. This actually has helped to some extent. I have changed my approach to his fits and pick my battles when possible. My eight year old daughter has come to except my decision and is talking about a trip next summer to Jamaica (where that came from, I have no clue).

I have gone as far as to take our suitcases to my mother's house per her request.

My son may or may not have thought to this point that we were joining them. Just to let you know, I did this to them last year. Our flight was on a Friday afternoon and I sent the kids to school that morning. My husband picked them up from school and spilt the beans. I wanted to wait until we hit the airport, but NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, he had to tell them. (Note: DO NOT TELL HUBBY SECRETS..........He is bad at keeping them).

Here is where my mother comes in. We surprised her in WDW in 2000 and 2003. This year, she is in on the surprise and she is very creative. I wonder now how I never saw this side to her before. She is one wicked woman. I think they might put her on the thread to light the castle for the MNSSHP instead of the Wicked Witch of the West.

She has packed my suitcases with her clothes so that my son could see them. She has devised a plan for the morning trip to the airport. My husband is in law enforcement and often brings prisoners in from out of state. (By the By.............he hates to fly and is going through anxiety attacks even at less than 30 days out of our trip date. Good thing the kids don't know, they would torture the man to death.)

My Mother's plot continues:

We are going to wake the kids at 3:00 am and tell them that Dad needs to fly to get a prisoner. I will get our tickets and escort the kids to the gate. We will wait for the flight to start boarding before I hand the kids their tickets. If by chance you are in Philia airport at 7:30 am on October 2, 2004, stay away from the four of us. I cannot be responsible for the yelling and screaming you may endure when my kids go nuts. Keeping in mind I pulled this off once, twice will really send them over the deep end.

Feel free to tell me how mean I am. I know that if the kids knew they were going, count downs would be everywhere. This would only make hubby's tummy flip. We don't want that....I don't like cleaning up half digest doughnuts.



: rincess:

 

[talicskai]

Sounds like a blast! Your kids will always remember the "big surprise" I would however, never be able to do it because I find half of the excitement is the countdown. More power to ya!

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

You and DM should get jobs with the CIA.. I have never heard of such an elaborate plot to keep a vacation secret. The best I have done is wait until we are pulling into the WL parking lot at 10:30 p.m. (after driving 10 hours) with 2 sleeping kids, and a DH who was in on the trip part, but had no idea we were staying at WL. Since everyone was so tired, it was totally anticlimactic. Won't do it again..


Have a great trip..your kids will remember the surprise as much as the trip!!

 

[luvflorida]

Just wanted to say "hi" and "welcome", and wanted to let you know that your post made me laugh. You are very witty!

I feel for you and your son. My DD14 sounds a lot like him, and we seem to have a lot of "confrontations" lately. I love her dearly, but WOW, sometimes I just want to run away to WDW ALONE!

 

[crz4mm2]

Wish my mom was that mean
Have a great time!

 

[mickie0866]

Thanks!! Funny you should mention CIA.......I am currently a Penn State student (please, no heckling about football as I am a die hard Notre Dame fan myself)...........My major is Administration of Justice..........However, I think I can learn more from my mother than I can from my teachers......

 

[Kimnicki]

That's a great plan . Just keep in mind that you won't be able to go to the gate with out showing your tickets and having to go through security. Just want to let you know so you're not thrown off when you get there!

Good luck!

Kim

 

[CajunDixie]

Hmmmmmmmmm want to be even more wicked? Is your mom going on the same flight? If not, you could always tell the kids you and DH have to fly down to take care of your mom and stepfather because they caught the flu or ate bad food and cannot simply fly home. Yet you feel that you absolutely cannot leave your children at home with neighbors/relatives since you do not know how long it will take for you mom & stepfather to regain their health. You could even have your mom call at a pre-set time so as to have one of the kids answer the phone.

 

[mickie0866]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......are you any realtion to my mother???????? She LOVED your idea........

 

[MelessaG]

I wish I could pull something like this off, but I just have too much of a big mouth. I've already told my oldest DD about the PSB at Epcot and my mom about her "surprise" anniversary CP package at Rose and Crown. I know, that's pitiful, I was just too excited.
I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall at the airport on Oct. 2nd! You and your mom are amazing!

 

[Poohnatic]

I love it.

We pulled one over on the kids last year. A fellow DISer had to give up her Courtyard ressie (the 20.03 one) and gave it to me (thanks, Joyce). My kids had been told over and over we were going in October, so they weren't expecting a trip. This was mid August!

We packed the Jeep with them not even really noticing. They'd been asking to go to the Lego store quite a bit in the previous few weeks, so we said "Maybe after Daddy gets home on Saturday." Okay, so we got them piled in the car, they thought for the 1:20 minute drive to Potomac Mills. They fell asleep in the car, we passed the Mills with them sleeping. They woke up around Richmond-didn't see any of their familiar landmarks, so they didn't think we were close.

Side note-Hubby has a hat he only wears at WDW or on the drive down. He put it on as we walked out the front door. They didn't notice.

We stopped for dinner, DH still wearing his WDW hat. Kids ask when we'll get to the Lego store. We say "tomorrow", whining ensues, until DH says "Look at my hat." It took a few moments, but the reaction out of my younger son was worth it.

Bad part is we had totally wired kids until we got to our hotel room that night, because we sprung the trip on them. But it was so worth it to surprise them!

Again, you're mean, but a good kind of mean!!!!

Suzanne

 

[Beanie]

I love these stories!! You guys are great at pulling these things off!!

 

[mickie0866]

The more I am reading the boards.........the more me thinks I will need to have the digital camera available to get the photos of the kids faces to post after our trip...........or during..........hubby wants to take the laptop to download photos and movies at night........less storage space that way..........

OK................now how do I get my counter for my trip on my posts............I am a disboard virgin myself

 

[miche61]

I love being "mean" like that. Last year we were so mean we didn't tell the kids we were going until we woke them up at 3:30am to go to the airport.

The time before that, DH pulled DD out of school early with a note to tell her we were going to WDW.

This time the kids know all the details. I'm trying to think of some thing to surprise them with while we're there, like a character meal or something.

Your kids will love this!!!!!

 

[BrerLizzie]

hehehehe good ones here

we did something like that to my little cousin.. we told him we were gonna drive somewhere on a small trip.. my friend Johnathan was going to come to help mom and aunt drive and we were going to use his van.. well, we never decided where we wanted to go (everyone but cousin knows we are goin' to Disney) the week before mom and aunt get us all matching shirts.. we get ours names and the dates put on them.. night before we still pretend to argue about the trip.. cousin goes to bed.. aunt puts shirt on his bed about 12.. we all get there about 4, all wearnig our shirts.. he completely missed his... he's still completely in the dark.. we figured he saw it so we asked him where his official trip tee-shirt is.. he SCREAMED "I dont have one of thoose shirts!" and he started crying.. i asked him if he was positive and held out mine so he could read the dates and the poor kid still didnt get it!!! we're all sitting there in disney shirts with our names and the dates and he still didnt figure out thats where we were going! we finally told him to go get his shirt off the foot of his bed and put it on.. we got in the car and about half way to the airport he asked "does this mean we're goni' to disney?" (side note: Johnathan didn't get to go to disney.. he was just droppin' us off at the airport because we couldnt get all our luggage in our car and he has a van.)

 

[MouseClubMom]

My parents did something similar to me when I was 11. I had attended golf camp in Sebring, FL and when my parents came to pick me up I BEGGED them to please let's go to WDW since we were SOOOOOOOO close! My Dad said we had to get back home but we would pass it on the way home so I could wave to the exit. I pouted in the back seat all the way from Sebring to Orlando... As we neared WDW, Dad said that we could drive THRU WDW but we just couldn't stop. I told him that was the meanest thing he could possibly do!!!

Dad pulled up to the parking gate and into the "resort guests" lane. I figured he was just trying to get out of paying to park... Dad told the attendant that we had reservations at the Poly and gave his name. The attendant checked the list and sure enough there was Dad's name!!!

I started crying tears of joy right there! We had a nice 3 days in WDW before heading home. My Dad LOVED being MEAN that trip!! I'll never forget it!

 

[princess pooh]

Heh, you guys are sneaky . I think I'd get along well with your mom.

 

[SandraM]

Ooooohhhhhhh you're so cruel; but I love it!

Please, please take the digital camera & post photos, I already can't wait to hear how it goes!

 

[chrissie123]

Have a really really great time

 

[mickie0866]

If you can't wait to hear how this turns out, you should have been in the Cont in 2000 when we pulled the wool over my mom's eyes the first time........

My Mom, her husband (Lenny) and my sister (Sam) went to WDW on their annual vacation. I had never been there before and to be quite honest, I never thought it was much for me. I made fun of those people around me who had 'animated rodents' on their desks at work. I couldn't have been more wrong and whole heartidly admit my stupidity.

Lenny had asked me if I would want to go to WDW with my kids to surprise my mother. I had the spending money, but there was no way I could afford a week in the Cont. Lenny, very generously offered to pay for our flight and accomodations for our stay.

My kids were younger and had no clue of what they too were in for. Lenny and I planned it for over a month. I got my Mother's reservations duplicated with the gracious help of a CM whose name escapes me at this time.

My Mother, at the time, never flew and would only travel on the Auto Train to Florida. They had left two days before us.

My children and I had never flown either. My DD was 3 and my DS was 8. I don't know who was more frightened. I lucked out when we were seated with the wife of a retired U.S. Air pilot who offered to help my 3 year old while I looked after my 8 year old from across the isle. My DD was pulling at my shirt yelling, "Look MOM!!! The trees and houses are getting smaller." Just what I wanted to hear Keri.........Thanks loads!!!

My DS took the take off better than I had expected and was checking my wrist for a pulse after we leveled off a bit. He was very interested in how white my knuckles got.

For those of you afraid to fly. I am right there with you. However, I have flown 6 more times after that and will be flying another 2 times next month. It's like riding a bike. Once you do it, you know what you are in for and it's no big deal.

Please keep this in mind, I have NEVER been in the state of Florida and had visions of being stranded with two kids in the airport my entire trip. Lenny would call the national guard and I would never be heard from again. Pretty elaborate, but anxiety plays pretty big head trips when you step into the unknown.

We got off the plane, me, DD, DS, stroller and the car seat, and proceeded to the tram to take us to our luggage.

Note about Orlando Airport: IT IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET LOST!! The signs are great and easy to understand!!! Even my 8 year old knew where to go. Great Job Orlando Airport!!

We got our transportation. Not a rental car, remember, I have never been there. Not that that ever stopped me. Someone remind me later to write about my FOrt Bragg experience and my new boyfriend, Iron Mike. Those of you, who know Fort Bragg, know Iron Mike.

Anywho, we got to the Cont in one piece and no luggage MIA. We walked to the desk and my DD now in her stroller and DS sitting on the couch across from the line at the desk.

Then it happened.

Lenny came running into the Cont yelling, "Mickie, DUCK....your Mother is right behind me!!!!"

I stood there and looked at DD and DS and thought, "yeah, right jack***, where do you want me to duck??!!??'

My Mother comes into view. She looked as if she was run over by that Amtrak train! She started to cry and then turned and belted Lenny across the stomach. I don't think he realizes that she DOESN'T LIKE SURPRISES!!!

All of the poor people in line thought something was wrong because my mother wouldn't stop crying. I found myself apologizing to everyone around me. Even to the woman in line who cried just because my mother was crying. I know you didn't see that one, Mom.

That night as we were eating in the GF, my mother asked what floor I was on. When I told her the 12th floor, she turned and belted Lenny again across the stomach. This sent me for a loop. She turned and said, "Nice you get the security floor with the concierge."

Just another thing I felt the need to apologize for.