Back to Reality

I’m back!  Hope you all had a great week.  Can someone please explain why winter is still here?  Winter and I had an agreement that she would make her 2011 departure while I was away.  She is so fickle. 

Anyway.

A huge thanks to my fabulous guest bloggers who held down the fort while I was gone.  Because of them, I had a lengthy list of vacation cocktails.  I wish I could say I sampled every one of them, but then I’d be writing to you from rehab.  But they will stay with me for future reference.  And my DVR is ready to combust with the variety of great suggestions.  Not a bad problem to have.

Ten days away from reality is just what I needed.  But, I assure you, I wasn’t in a deck chair or floating in a pool the whole time.  We were on the move.  My set of plans revolved around visiting my mom and step father at their Snowbirding Headquarters in Florida. 

Don't be mad, Mom :)

Yes, there’s much more to their lovely set-up than a Bingo board — but I had never seen one before, so I had to snap the photo.  My mom and stepfather could, truthfully, dance any of us under the table — so I’m sort of misrepresenting them with the Bingo bit.

Anyway, with that as a home base, we also took two side trips:  1)  Two nights at Disney and 2) This is where it gets brilliant — two nights without the kids in the Bahamas, while my mom graciously babysat. 

With the Kids

This was the first trip to WDW with our kids (P and I have gone on our own, pre-offspring).  They are still young, so two nights was enough.  We had a ball, though not without some challenges, given their ages.  Here are some highlights:

–Money saving tip:  A nearly four year-old train fanatic doesn’t really care about anything except riding the monorail around the perimeter of WDW.  Repeatedly.  He is also map-obsessed, and so he was far more delighted by the map than by the real-life experience of WDW.  Which is totally fine.  Just so long as, in the future, I plan to simply ride the monorail for two days with map in hand and skip the ridiculous expense of park admission.  Of course I’m kidding.  Because then you can’t have ice cream shaped like Mickey’s head — which, in and of itself, is worth the price of the Park Hopper Plus ticket.

–So, I knew that 20 months old was not, shall we say, an ideal age for Disney.  This is The Era of Squirming.  The Age of I Won’t Sit Still.  The Time of Give Me Motion, Dammit.  And, of course, The Vacation Where I Refuse Any and All Seating.  Running free in the world’s most overcrowded theme park for long spells wasn’t really an option.  So the poor thing was just pissed most of the time.  But here she is in a “set free to run for a while” moment.

–In fairness, I can’t blame my daughter’s crankiness entirely upon her need to run.  It’s very likely that she was also pissed about inheriting my Floridian look, which is not attractive.  Do you know that “Friends” episode when Monica is in the Caribbean, and her hair continues to expand out horizontally from the humidity?  That’s me.  And, apparently, my daughter — whose hair began to resemble Nick Nolte’s mug shot after day two. 

–Lastly, can we please discuss these kids who fall asleep all over the place?  In their parents’ arms.  In a stroller.  While riding It’s a Small World (which, incidentally, still freaks me out).  On the Disney transfer bus.  Are they doped on Benadryl?  I don’t have these children who pass out when tired.  They instead get overtired and, well, you know how it goes after that.  But all of you with your sleeping beauties in their strollers, while you luxuriously eat your lunch with two hands, tell me your secrets.  Because I don’t get it.

But don’t get me wrong — we really did have a great time!  I just had to adjust my expectations to “OK, I guess three attractions per day is enough ground covered.” If the kids were happy, all was good.

And God bless WDW for giving a borderline-germophobe like me an endless array of marble, clean-as-heaven diaper changing stations.  Since you can’t drink in the parks, this went a long way towards keeping my sanity.

See?  Everyone is happy.  Except the baby, because she’s strapped into the stroller.

Without the Kids

After WDW, we ditched the kids dropped off the kids for quality time with their grandparents, while P and I grabbed a quick flight to the Bahamas for three days.  This was the polar opposite of our time at WDW (except for my hair, unfortunately — same look).  There were spa appointments.  Entire conversations without having to referee a fight over a toy.  The ability to eat a meal sitting down and with the use of two hands.  People waiting on us.  Reading things that don’t involve trains, cars, dinosaurs or Dora.  But I won’t pretend that I absorbed any fine literature.  Let’s just say that if you need any updates on celebrity gossip, I’m your girl.

However, I don’t want to you get the idea that it was all relax, relax, relax.  We did, after all, hit the casino both nights after dinner.  This was hard work, people.  It requires strategy (“I know that 8 and 20 will be next to win on roulette.”), communication (“Look, are you going to the ATM for more cash, or am I?”) and perseverance (“It’s crazy to leave now — I’m about to break even”).  So don’t accuse us of simply sitting around, eating and drinking. 

Before we could say “May I have another pillow for my beach chair?” — it was time to hop back over to Florida and pick up the kids.  It’s funny how, in 48 hours, you can simultaneously relish being without them and also miss them to pieces.  I owe my mom big time for babysitting.

So yesterday brought us back to New Jersey, with one less hour of sleep (where can I apply to get that back?).  And post-vacation Monday is a drag.  But I’m exceedingly grateful we got to take this trip.  And now I have to go talk to Winter about our arrangement. 

I’ll keep you posted.