Mommy, Daddy, Baca, Mimi, Mickey's Castle!!!--Pre Trip Report - UPDATED 4/11 About This Page:

[KimandMark]

Oh, my its been a long time...I'm not sure if I even did trip reports for our last three trips. After the epic 40th birthday/getting pregnant/missing nationals/no wine at the wine festival trip I've barely been a presence here.

Blame the kid.

Short Version: Mommy, Daddy, Weeman, and my parents (Baca and Mimi) are returning for our third family trip in three years. These trips have been alternately awesome and exasperating.

The first trip was great, weeman was just over a year, and didn't give us any grief, took naps, went to bed at 7:30, slept til 6:30, my parents (being old) stayed in every night and Mommy and Daddy had several dates. God Bless DVC and their two bedroom suites.

The second trip was...well...annoying. Turns out weeman needs a tremendous amount of preparation for the crowded, stimulating environments that are Disney. We didn't know that yet, he was just turning 2. He wept and wept every day and there was nothing we could do to stop it. Truly awful and a flashback to his colic days.

Then my mother happened. My mother is not very healthy, although a huge part of that is serious hypochondriac factor. Anyway, based on her insistence that she was not all well enough to leave on our trip in 14 days, you know, since she'd had her gall bladder out 3 months earlier, I had to fart around with DVC points and basically make a mess of our trip. I also rented her a scooter. Kiss of death right there. Suddenly there was a menace on our hands, who now felt she could do anything, go anywhere and basically disappeared with my father for the entire trip. I get it, they have friends in the area they don't see often, etc. etc. BUT. I pay for this trip. I buy the tickets, both plane and park, I get the room, buy the groceries, rent the car and the ever loving scooter. All I ask in return is babysitting at night. Not every night, but some nights. I was probably sensitive due to the hoop jumping I did two weeks prior, the insanely unhappy little man, and now I'm missing dinner at Jiko.

Let me be the first to say I'm an ungrateful brat of a daughter. My parents live 7 miles from me, they watch my son one day a week, and are pretty much always available for date nights/short get aways/FFW sans children. HOWEVER, my mother has no respect for the efforts we have gone to for them to live near us (our doing, their desire), bring them on vacation, and provide a variety of other services for them. Her regular requests usually begin with "Since you were going to do X anyway can you do...." with X ranging from going to the store (no biggie) to build an addition on our house (not even kidding). I live with love and frustration all at once.

Ugh, and I forgot this...Mom wanted a whole family trip for their 50th. We booked a Disney cruise for three nights for them, us, my bro's family, and a close cousin and spouse. Grand Villa at AKL. TWO YEARS of DVC points for us involving banking and borrowing. Immense levels of planning. She decided to bail. Because, you know, we plan trips all the time, what was the big deal. ARGH!! That's why we are going in April rather than the fall. But I digress (and vent. and rage. and put on my happy face and smile through my teeth.)

But, on to this trip. This will be weeman's first trip with an active knowledge of what Disney is (he remembers the fireworks!!) and will be seconds shy of 3. This is also the first trip with FP+ and trying to plan and coordinate the limited FPs. This is our first trip in which we intend to let the weemand stay up twice--I know! We're living on the edge!! First trip doing the Jiko Wine Tasting. First trip in which I've created date afternoon and made it clear that for our one big Mommy/Daddy event we are going to be gone from 3PM until late.

Next post--the saga of Florida resident passes, broken ticket links, FP+ selection, and the F'in Scooter Revival and Sob Sisters Tent Meeting. (EDITED TO ADD--Okay, so that wasn't my next post...I posted about kids and sleep and blow up bed and bathrooms, I'm not as organized as I used to be, but I promise the Scooter Revival and Sob Sisters Tent Meeting will be a thing!!)

(My mother is a wonderful woman who love me, loves my son, love my husband and would do anything I asked. Sometimes she makes me bananas.)