2/12/06-Sunday-Part 8-Writers Block and hows the weather?
Why do people pick a particular time to go on their great journey to the land of mouse? Read all the planning threads and you too will notice many who can only go occasionally, who spend inordinate amounts of time trying to pick the very very best time. The next time I go on a trip, I am going to do no planning and see if DJ sees the wisdom of my obsession and begins to understand that I am not clinically off my rocker, but well, instead just thorough. In fairness, he is very very understanding of me. You see, I am kind of like Lucille Ball. For you older folks, you know how Ricky always found himself at the other end of Lucys schemes? Thats me, only I am not a flaming red head, nor as charismatic, nor as funny. However, I do try way too hard in my life to make things happen and make everything perfect, and our vacations, or trips, or whatever they are, present all of us with endless opportunities for lots and lots to go wrong. And like life in general, there are those things that you can control and those you cannot. A trip has so many variables of the things you can control, that I have the need to minimize those. And like many, I love the planning, because of the anticipation. It makes the trip last so much longer.
What are the variables? Well, how many people are at the park. That is a biggie for me. We have purchased 200 acres of land through the years to have plenty of room for us and for all the wildlife that safely roams our fields and woods. It is part of my need to save something on this planet. We like wide open spaces. So July 4th at the MK just isnt ever going to be a place we see fireworks.
Weather. Maine is really really cold in the winter and the winters are very very long. Our kids can sometimes only go out for 10 or 20 minutes due to the wind chill. It is not healthy for any of us, nor any darn fun. Why dont you move, you ask? Well, my family is here, and it is important to be near them. We all came home to Maine after literally exploring the world as whippersnappers. So for now we are stuck here. But I suspect at one point when our kids are grown and we arent working anymore, well find a milder spot for some of the year.
But folks, I will let you in on a little secret. The cabin my MIL rents on a big, beautiful crystal lake 2 hours away is the entire families favorite vacation spot, yup even more so than Diz. We relax, play, enjoy nature and while we play hard, tubing, and swimming and sipping on the great drinks we like to make, we are able to really enjoy one another, without any distractions. All the kids and adults plan one trip a year together and everyone unanimously picks the lake house. So I suspect Maine will always draw me to it, even if it becomes just for summers, no matter where we end up down the road.
But back to the story, Maine has a long, and sometimes dreadful winter, so we need to get away in the winter. Price. Yup, we dont chose to spend our money traveling at peak times because we are trying to be fiscally sound, and still have a couple of big splurges a year. Education and social work just do not pay the big big bucks. So we pick times when the airfare, rental cars and hotels are a little less pricey.
So we ended up this year again, in February. Obsessed about the weather, will it rain? Will it be cold? Will we need coats? Will we get to a water park? Will we freeze on Kali River? Why dont they predict the weather 30 days out? 15 doesnt appreciably help. Will it, will it, will it? Whatif, whtif, whatif? Do you see how my poor obsessive mind works? I know some of you understand because I spent months on the budget, themepark, transportation and resort boards trying desperately to make it all work. I saw many of you there doing the same thing. Trying to make it perfect.
Now I will tell you, the weather thing, to us Mainers, 50 in February is rootintootinwonderwillydoo! It beats 30 below with a wind chill of minus 50, so we went this trip with the expectation that we could handle high 40s and 50s at night. So I packed the essential one pair of long pants, 2 sweatshirts and light jacket. I did not pack the mittens and hat, folks, because in Maine, you only do that when it is below freezing. That is when the body starts to get cold and the extremities need little snuggly extras to keep em from turning blue. And to us, if the less than tropical climate keeps some folks away, then yup, well take that weather, even if it means that we have goose bumps after getting splashed at well, SPLASH!
So when we woke up on our first true official exciting wonderous day at Walt Disney World, we were not dismayed by the high 40s with drizzle that morning. We had all we needed to be pretty comfortable for a day or two. I was so glad the kids had their blankets. Oh and BTW, we bought them those fleecy Disney themed blankies for 15 bucks at Wallyworld when they were little, and they love them to pieces and have provided security in every new bed they have ever slept on, every long car trip theyve ever had to endure, and every flight over the earth we have dragged them on, annnnnnnnnd they are still all in one piece. Look in the infant section. They arent designer, but they are a suretoplease shower gift.
We headed to OKW, in our toosmalltaxi, with true joy and excitement as the big day began. Our driver was from Haiti and he was a delight. We talked about the state of desperation and political upheaval there-oppression, poverty, suffering. His love of his country was moving, and sad that due to the terrible conditions on this once beautiful island he had to come here. Leaving his family, his friends, his life, his home. We used the opportunity to try to introduce our children to how privileged we are here in America. They undoubtedly wont understand yet. But DJ and I both hope to instill in them, our social consciousness and values.
We arrive at OKW to very excellent customer service, and as down to earth a gal as I am, I do love getting treated extra special and they did that at the hospitality house. Our kiddies ran to watch the vintage Mickey toons in black and white, whilst beginning their infectious exuberance. Instantly they were given balloons and stickers by the staff. Not a good thing, but well intended. Our dks, having not had enough sleep, are on a non-sugar high because they are going to see the Mick. The balloons are used to bop one another, not meanly, but as a sillywilly game. Their giggles are getting louder. The adorable little child-sized chairs are starting to get tipped over, and Jack starts intentionally letting go of his balloon so it will fly to the ceiling. It took the CMs 4 tries to figure out that he was doing it to get them to retrieve it. He is Stitch after all-impish, devilish, but utterly sweet. I didnt neurotically try to intervene initially, as I was on vacation and I was not the one who gave them the balloons. But then the good mommy part of me swelled up and I helped then, because I remembered that the CMs werent in my life all those times my children sat on balloons to hear the big pops, let them go in the air and screamed bloody murder because they were gone forever, or whacked animals and other children or whatever it was that innocently happened to be in their vicinity. I need to confess something. I am not a perfect parent. Surprised? I doubt it. You know that because you struggle to be one too, right? So in my earlier parenting years, after a birthday party nightmare, when all three of my little hooligans were acting, well, like hooligans, I had a very bad mommy moment. When we got in the car, and I was frustrated, I took my keys and popped each one of their balloons and said there, no more balloonys. Huge wails emitted from our car that day and I felt about one inch high.
Back to this moment, here at the hospitality house. I am a better parent now, because I do not want to traumatize my sweeties and I have a few more parenting skills than I did in the earlier years. I do the check-in switch with DJ and he goes and gets Jacks balloon with Jacks help and he ties it to the throne pram. Jack also gets placed in his throne, so that his brother and sister can finish their show and we can get to the room and that ride, you know which one
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I have to admit I feel like the DVC Welcome home is a tad bit cheesy, but then I am not a DVC member, so if I were, perhaps Id feel differently. It didnt feel like home to me, but it is a very pretty place, and the room, as gazillions of folks have said, is spacious and quite nice. We really missed our patio looking over the pool of the 60s building at Pop, as we didnt get a room looking at a pool here. We would never be able to sit outside our room and jump in to get the kids if they start to sink to the bottom, as the balconies at OKW do not allow you to exit from them where we were. So we had to trudge all the stuff and the kiddies to the pool. If you rent two studios, they will not be connecting, and we had to go in between the two rooms with food, drinks, clothes, shoes and everything. OKW was quiet, except there was lots of road construction. This was an endless source of fascination for the kids, and Carson learned a new smell, with his incredibly amazingly good sniffer, tar. This kid has a heightened sense of smell, and never holds back from sharing what it is and how he feels about it. So instead of reminding me about my morning breath, he would talk about the tar each morning. Our bags magically appeared, and we didnt lose one piece of luggage. Our porter even came back for a special trip with new balloons, after our kids dramatically and predictably popped theirs. They were thrilled, we were not. Can I just say at this particular time in my life I detest balloons in the hands of my children? And please dont think me a meanie, it is just one more complicating thing that increases the chances of life being less than smooth for us. But I did appreciate the extra step that porter took to please my babies. And he did, please them very much.
We do not take time to settle in our room and zoom to a bus stop to get over to that park, you know the one with all the amazing animals. We had to go through a lot of Are we there yet? and Is this the bus? But we didnt mind, DJ and I were anxious to get there too. We havent matured a whole lot more than them in some situations, and this was one of them. Look what we have gone through in order to get a few jollies on these Diz-zie kiddie rides! I am a child. I spend my life trying to hide that from the judges I testify to, the attorneys I joust with in court as an expert witness, the clients I try to heal. Only Dj, my family and our close friends know my true emotional age and it is about 5, folks, maybe 6 or 7 because I love to be scared, and thrilled, and love sweets and characters and all the things that that place has, you know. How old are all of you? What is your true emotional age? Why dont our bodies reflect our enduring youth, as we age? It is a true cruelty of nature
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Okay so the bus comes and bam! we find ourselves in the parking lot at AK. Can someone tell me why they cant have the stroller rental there? I would pay $30 for a double stroller there, instead of the $18 inside the gates. I think they could come up with a system to ensure we didnt all try to squeeze them in the bus, or in our cars. Would one really fit in there? Would the driver not notice?
As annoying as folding up the stroller is, it contains, our little Stitch. I dont want him to grow up, I really adore his impishness, but it so complicates things at times. We head out, and we watch Peter Pan and Snow White skipping ahead, stopping, and looking back to make sure they dont go too far. We are proud of them, they have matured so much from the last time we were here. Have you got that we love our kids?
Carson, who will be 7 soon, has always loved Peter Pan. I am ashamed to think about how many times he has watched it. He has had 2 peter pan costumes because he refuses to stop growing. He is fascinated with pirates, and ships, and unfortunately, sword fighting, because of his love for peter. His imagination has also soared because of it. We named him Carson because the minute we saw him, he was funny. Silly. He still is.
Sky. Well her name is actually Schuyler. Pronounce it like 'skylar', I always have to tell people that. It is Dutch and means scholar. Our hopes for our girl is that she is seen and appreciated for who she inside, not for her gorgeous exterior. It is, I believe, a traditionally male name, and we saw instantly that she was both a flower and a tom boy, and wanted her to have a name with traits of both. She is Snow White, because luckily for me, she loves animals and nature and has a heart of gold.
Jack. His name is Jackson. I love the name, and the Renaissance man who is his namesake Andrew Jackson, the statesman, architect, gardener, and humitarian who loved someone very different from himself. Stitch, this little creature, who creates a whirlwind all around him, is just like our little Jack.
Everyone has their own reasons for going to Disney. I want to tell you now why going to Diz is so important to us, and why we will try to go frequently and also why that cold weather bore no ill effects on our mood this first day. We were unable to have kids for a very very long time. So long that I am now a relatively old mom, or would qualify as a young grammy, if I had grandkids. It was a very painful and terrible thing to not have children in a world of families. It was also tragic because I once had a little boy, and he was born. He was full term. But he never came home from the hospital. And it was so distressing to me that I eventually changed my profession from the business world to becoming a psychotherapist. I was from a world of chin up and move on with your life. It didnt work and the years that I grieved were almost like the Dark Ages in Europe, when art and architecture nearly ceased to exist and people just struggled to stay alive. Not having the skills to properly grieve I stuffed my sorrow for years and had wounds that would surface at times. For many who learn how to grieve properly, the pain lessens much quicker. But as the years wore on, and another baby did not come, the loss became sadder for me. That is how we ended up with so many creatures. I tried filling the void in my life with them, and rescuing as many as we comfortably could.
Many years after not being able to start our family, we adopted Carson and Schulyer. It was the happiest day of my life. Nothing will ever compare to it. They were nearly 2 and 1, and luckily as full biological siblings who share the same mother and father they lived together. They had a less than optimal life. I will not say more, and would ask that you not ask me anything, because they need their privacy. After all, they arent writing this story I am. I would also ask that you not comment on my loss, because I dont need that. There are others here that need it more right now.
One year after we were blessed with our two wonderful children, Jack came to us. He had been placed with another family erroneously and it had taken us nearly six months of beaurocratic baloney to get him placed with us and his siblings. We fought hard, not because we wanted or needed more children. Two was enough. We never intended to have three children. They are each a little over a year apart and are a handful. But we made the right decision to keep these kids together as they are crazy about each other and will undoubtedly be friends for their entire lives. They are so fortunate to be able to have each other, and share in their unique journey going through life as adopted children. They are not alone, as sometimes, adopted people feel.
I have long since healed, and I again ask that none of you feel sorry or sad. We have learned so much from our darling, darling children and are very grateful to have them and very fortunate in our life. I would like this story to inspire hope to some of you who may have shared the sadness of childlessness or the loss of your own child.
There are all kinds of families. I could not possibly love my children any more than I do, had they started the world with me and I know DJ feels the same. I also hope that this inspires some of you to consider alternatives if you want to expand your family and cant for whatever reason. Our children are a great amazing gift.
Their birth family and I exchange a letter and pictures each year and they have expressed their gratitude and relief that these little people are loved and happy. But we are truly blessed. If you look below, youll see in my signature that there were many years that we did not go to Florida. This is why. And it is why I was so sad here when I read the end of one particular trip that had the ending it did. I have been blessed or burdened with more sensitivity than I wish to have at times. I often feel others pain intensely, whatever type of creature, might be suffering. It has made me a good therapist and a strong advocate for those less fortunate.
I am mostly healed, from my own profound sadness, however when I come in contact with another who exquisitely or not, relays their own loss, I am affected. And sometimes a tiny piece of my own loss pushes its way back to the forefront of my heart. I know that our humanity is what is supposed to lift us above our less than optimal behaviors; to feel compassion, understanding, forgiveness, concern, and make decisions that will spare others experiencing those same feelings. Sometimes our sensitivity is more effective than it is at other times. And sometimes that pain is a little more intense and we push it back to try to not feel. Why is it that our own pain gets in the way of feeling for others sometimes? I could try to answer that, but I won't.
I tried to continue writing a few times in this past week, not addressing our particular situation. The story just wouldnt go forward. I also did not want to detract from the pain of others, and tried to avoid sharing my own out of respect. But there will always be loss and sadness on this board at any given time, because unfortunately loss is part of life. So waiting for the right time, might be hard.
So I suppose I was unable to move forward on this report without telling you exactly why going to Disney with our kids means so much to us. Sharing joy and fun and laughter is so important to us because we were deprived of it for such a long time and our children, almost, would have never had a chance to go that happy place. All of our lives are richer and more brilliant and more wonderful had we each not shared some miserable fate- our kids, my family, our friends and DJ and I. I will admit that sometimes it is painful to look at children, and see their parents features in their beautiful little faces. Or sit in a room full of moms and hear about how lousy their delivery was. They just dont know how lousy a delivery can really be. And because my kids had a more challenging beginning to their lives than my friends' kids, some days are harder for them at home and school. Some days are harder for me and DJ as parents too. But I said earlier, no one escapes sadness, heartache, and hardship.
But this is why I had so much joy on that cold drizzly day, watching our kids skip towards Animal Kingdom, which was our first big day at the Parks.
I would again ask that we keep this a trip report so please keep comments to that, and so I will get to all the exciting details of EE and the parks in the very next installment. I cannot possibly reply to all of you at this point, but if you look, there is a thread I just opened on the community board, and youll find a thread about going gaga over horses and other animals. Look in the family board and you'll see threads about loss, not from me, but from others who have shared similar losses. Did you know you can click on someones ID to find the threads they started? I didnt until just the other day. Feel free to stop there and talk to each other if you want to express something. This is not the place to do it. And I will try to stop by and say hi once in a while, because you have all inspired me with your replies, and generated lots of activity in this gigglywiggly little head of mine. But I can't possibly respond to all of you. Who knew there were so many middle aged minivan driving parents whose kids are rowdy and loud but they love them anyway and BTW, Diz too?
There are wonderful people here. I have met lots of you! As a professional, I cannot share so much of my life in the community. Thank you for allowing me this forum to write and providing me an inspiring and funny place to hang out, anonymously.
stay tuned for reading about the thrill of the thrill, with more pics, i hope
Part 9 addendum- Go to Page 17, post 255
Part 10- Go to Page 19, post 281
Now call your local provider and step into the 21st century!
I still love the TR 
There is nothing wrong with living a century behind!! 
Sounds like a nice kind of day, except for that nasty germ bath, I'll keep checking if you keep posting 
??? Where have you been??? I am missing my fav state of MAINE reporter... 
