So as we are heading toward the exit, we see the "fake nap" in our future during the long bus ride back and fearing the inevitable, I am preparing myself for next 2 hours, trapped in a hotel room yelling at one of them to lay down, stop talking, stop wrestling, stop crying, stop whining, stop pacing, stop yelling at each other only I am allowed to yell, stop going poop, stop talking about poop, stop describing your poop, stop farting, stop laughing, and announcing "I'M DONE," every 5 minutes. In a stroke of genius, my wife gets an idea: They can not sleep if they are eating. So we duck into a candy store on Main St. and buy them each a "large" sucker. We are not talking dum-dums but a big Mickey sucker with a big Mickey head and a big Mickey ears. Its a win-win. Because now our kids think we are the greatest parents ever and my wife and I are high-fiving each other cause we just avoided the "fake nap."
We get on the bus to our resort and settle in for the 45 minute ride back. Drew is standing next to me holding onto the bus pole with one hand and his sucker in the other and Nate is sitting in a seat across from me eating his sucker. Everything is right in the world: they are all sitting/standing quietly, eating their suckers, happy, and on our way to a nice relaxing 2 hour nap time...until.
I look across from me at Nate and I see this progression I luckily captured on film.
Happily eating his sucker, fully awake.
Begins to think, "I have been up since 6:30 and have been walking all day at Disney."
"and this bus is rocking....and rocking... and..."
and out.
The little stinker fell asleep on the bus...with his sucker in his mouth! So much for "eating will keep them awake." And while my wife and I are laughing and taking pictures of our sweet baby, I realize I haven't heard from Drew in a while, who was standing right next to me. Little known fact about Drew: he is either wiggling or complaining all the time, even in his sleep. So it was concerning when I neither felt nor heard from him. Now Drew had been standing next me holding the bus pole and his sucker. When I turned to look at him, he too was dozing off but when he went to take a lick of his sucker, he used the wrong hand. I saw him turn his head and lick the PUBLIC DISNEY BUS POLE! After I threw up in my mouth and woke him up so he wouldn't do it again, I turned to my ultra hypochondriac wife to share this story of her middle child. After the initial shock, we could not stop laughing. The Disney bus system is used by thousands of people everyday and I guarantee you that they do not clean those bus poles every day, or month or possibly whole year. Then I started to think of all the Walt Disneases that Drew could have contracted from the bus pole. Of course severe diarrhea could end up being Disneytery. He could contract kidney sword in the stones. Tigger finger. Its a small world pox. Tinker Bell's palsy. Viral Minnie-gitis. Captain Hook worm. Peter Pancytopenia. And of course the ever popular: hand foot and mouse disease.
We arrived back to the resort and Nate woke up from his 15 minute nap. We load everyone up and get them back to our room and into beds ready for naps. And guess who was not tired? Nate proceeded to keep everyone else awake because of his bus nap. Lindsey ended up dealing with that because I needed to make a change to a dining reservation that I ended up spending 37 min on hold. I finally got to crawl in bed after the phone call. We had 2 queen beds and a Murphy's bed, so the open bed for me was with Drew. As I am about to lay down, in his sleep, Drew rips a huge fart. I loved crawling into my own special Disney dutch oven with my sweet wiggly child for a relaxing nap. It was magical!
Everyone woke up 3 hours later. You think we needed the sleep? We got up and headed back to the Magic Kingdom for dinner. We ate at the Liberty Tree Tavern which was a great family style restaurant which was surprisingly calm and peaceful for a Disney restaurant.
The only picture of 7 where they are all smiling.
They enjoyed a root beer and a milkshake...at the same time.
After dinner, I had to take all 3 boys to the bathroom. It was busy so they ended up sharing the same toilet at the same time standing around it. I then had to say "Please do not pee on each other" making everybody laugh in the bathroom. But the warning had to be given because someone was inevitably going to be peed on and most likely it would have been me. (Even though I was 5 feet away.) We make it out of the bathroom dry and go outside in time to see the fireworks. It was shaping up to be a great night.
Our family during the fireworks.
Lindsey and the boys.
including Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Lynn.
G and G and Uncle Scott, Aunt Lynn and their 3 boys. Another theme of this vacation was that in most pictures with grandpa, he is constantly looking the wrong way.
Nate was obsessed with Grandma.
After the fireworks, we met up with my brother and his family so all 18 of us were together again. We went on the little Mermaid ride then got a place in Frontier land for the Electrical Light Parade. We were by the frontier stockades and to my disappointment were not active nor functioning.
Nate happy
Nate not happy.
Grandpa and the boys. (Grandpa looking elsewhere)
Most of the crew.
Lindsey and the boys watching the parade.
After the parade, we made it out of there in one piece fighting the traffic and hordes of people. The great thing about naps is that even though it was late, the boys were awake and in great moods. We returned to our room without falling asleep on the bus and got ready for another busy day tomorrow at Epcot. Another tidbit, that night I realized how much my own children fart in their sleep. It seems like I never will catch my white whale called "Quiet."
Call me Ishmael,
The Joyful and Tired Dad
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