Disney World!

What a trip. We have been planning this for a while now. The last year has been a total change for Jay. Before Eli came along the world revolved around him completely. And then, overnight, Jay had to take second place in the family for a while. He was a great sport and loves Eli so much but I felt like taking him on this trip would be a nice reward for all of the changes he's so willingly adjusted to. We drove down, after leaving Eli with Mom, on Saturday morning. Jay was on cloud nine!  Over the last few months we had watched tons of Disney movies preparing him to see all of the characters and enjoy the rides more. He had been asking us at least 3 times a week since August "are we going to Disney World today?" so we had to explain the timeline a million times over. We stayed at the Art of Animation Resort in the Little Mermaid Room. There were four themes in this hotel, depending on where you stayed (The Lion King, Cars, Little Mermaid, Finding Nemo). Jay was so thrilled when we drove up and he immediately saw some of his favorite people.....Mater, Lightening McQueen, Symba, Ariel, Nemo, Dori, etc. After we walked around the resort in awe of the "magic" around us, we threw our stuff in the room and headed straight to Animal Kingdom.

The priority, as far as Wes and I were concerned, was to avoid long lines and big crowds. Jay would not have tolerated that. So we followed my phone app and crowd calendars, as well as the Fast Passes for the popular rides, and spent very little time waiting for anything. November was definitely a good time to go for low crowds too. Still, we had our three year old in a huge theme park so we stopped to have a serious talk about getting lost. We put an armband on Jay with our names and cell numbers and explained that if he got lost to find someone who worked there and show them his armband. And that he had to hold our hands at all times. He said he understood and then quickly went on his way to find Mickey. I thought, "there is no way he got all that" and said a serious prayer for his safety over the next 4 days.
 

Eating lunch at Animal Kingdom.

A few hours later we saw a massive playground and Jay was off. Wes followed after him but Jay turned around and said, "it's ok Dad, I can go by myself, I won't get lost." So we promptly sat down, happy for the short break while Jay played. About 10min later we both started wondering why we hadn't seen Jay come down the slide we were next to. So we started investigating, only to find at least 10 different slides scattered over a huge play area. There were kids everywhere and we could not see Jay with any of them. We both started pacing around looking everywhere. I saw Wes dart over to a group of workers and, lo and behold, there was Jay, standing right in the middle of them explaining with his usual boldness that he was lost, his parents were looking for him, and to look at his bracelet to find them. He then went on to explain about the slide he went down and how it twirled around and over and he landed over there and about the really silly rocks and that tunnel he went through but he is lost now and can't find his parents. They were just starting to decipher between the important information and the non-nonsensical chatter of a 3 year old when Wes came up and clarified everything. They were very impressed with Jay's behavior, as well as the bracelet with our numbers on it. We were so proud of Jay and it really helped me relax knowing how well he handled getting lost. Of course, he became whiny and was scared when telling me about it but, in the moment, he did exactly what he was supposed to do.

So back to the fun parts. Jay was in complete awe the entire time. He had no idea this kind of thing existed. The characters, music, parades, rides, and even the animals were just incredible to him. It really took us a little while to get him to loosen up, he was just so taken aback by every little thing. It is strange to see crazy, extroverted Jay act shy or overwhelmed. He is never like that but, let me tell you, he met his match!  Disney World was far beyond anything he had imagined!

Wes and I were just as exited as Jay and had already determined what rides we would be able to get on based on Jay's height. He was just over the 40in minimum for most of them so the decision was made, we would be going on some FUN rides!  At Animal Kingdom we started on the safari ride. This was amazing. I loved the ways they had given the animals so much space and they were just roaming about as if in their most natural environment. I always feel so bad for the animals at the zoo when they are cooped up in tiny cages. This was so wide open and natural though, it was so incredible. We all thoroughly enjoyed this one together.

Posing with the "tree of life" in the background

Waving to Mickey during the parade

Next we went to ride "Dinosaur", which Jay barely met the height requirement for, and it was described as "dark, fast, and scary"....should have been a warning, I know. We hop on and are whisked into total darkness. And they were right, it was fast and scary...and loud. Poor Jay was traumatized. He had never squeezed my hand so hard in his life. And the few times I was able to see his face through the flashing lights, I only saw complete terror. There were huge dinosaurs jumping out left and right, roaring and gnashing their teeth, all while the ride was flipping, spinning, and falling through the dark. Wes and I loved it! I was hoping Jay would get into it but, when the ride stopped and the lights came on, his little lip was quivering as he said, "I don't like that ride, I want to get off" and it took all I had to keep him from bawling right there. From then on, before every single ride, he asked, "will there be any dinosaurs on this one?"

This was our picture the "Dinosaur". Check out Jay's face....no humor, no excitement. Just serious fear.

The rest of the rides that day were more appropriate for our little 3 year old and we were happily exhausted by the end of the day. Of course, that night we had to take turns comforting Jay during the night as dinosaurs attacked him while he slept. Poor child.

A bug's life...in 3D

Jay and Wes

Dancing with Donald

So happy to meet him!

The next day we went to Magic Kingdom. It was clear about 10am that morning that we had overestimated how old our "big boy" actually was. Compared to Eli he seems grown practically. But after just one day we were already seeing signs of our "baby" Jay. He was whining about his legs hurting, about wanting this or that, not getting a toy he wanted, upset because he didn't have Mickey pants like one boy or a Donald Duck book like another. Basically, from this point on, we had a meltdown about every hour and a half. But luckily, we were in a place filled with kids all just like him. So for every time Jay fell apart, there were at least 5 others within 50 yards doing the exact same thing.

It was during these moments that I had two recurring thoughts, 1) what were we thinking bringing him here? and 2) why would anyone come here on their honeymoon?  I mean really, I can think of A LOT of fun places to be without the constant background noise of 100 ridiculous kids! I would like to do a study on couples who honeymoon in Disney World. I am willing to bet money that they end up waiting much longer to have kids than those who don't choose to subject themselves to that insanity. I will say that, although Jay's meltdowns were like clockwork, he always managed to get himself together within a reasonable time frame and, by far, was not the worst meltdown we witnessed out there.

With that said, we paid good money for these tickets and there was no way we were going to quit early. Jay was just going to have to tough it out. And he did pull through, thanks to our halloween candy and occasional threats.

Magic Kingdom!

Aladdin's carpet ride

Tom Sawyer's fort

Jay probably would have spent the entire week here

This boy and his guns....

Dancing with Mickey

Where else can you have a dance party in the street every afternoon?

Woody!

Another fun thing that happened was while we were eating lunch that day and a man from the restaurant came up to see if Jay would help him with something. He needed a sheriff for the day and thought Jay would make the perfect one. So he paraded him through the crowd while everyone cheered and sang. Jay was totally overwhelmed. He just stood there, frozen. Have you ever seen him frozen?!  I hadn't!  It was so funny. We decided then, that Jay only likes being the center of attention when he calls the shots. Being thrown into the spotlight was just too much for him. In fact, as soon as he walked away he started whining and wanted to take his sheriff costume off because he didn't want people to call him sheriff anymore. He was timid and anxious...I've never seen him like that. I'm telling you, this whole Disney World thing totally wracked his brain!  After a few moments to absorb it all and talk it over with Wes he decided that he could, in fact, handle the role of sheriff for the day and proudly strutted his stuff down the streets of Magic Kingdom most of the morning.

Riding the tea cups, notice the badge and hat?

I asked Jay what he thought of the trip earlier today and he said:

He favorite thing from the trip was the pool and the fighter jet game. The hotel pool and the aracade game. Great. Because those are things you can only find at Disney World.

He also said he liked the Buzz Lightyear ride. I liked this too. We all got to play it together. I drove our car while Jay and Wes shot the aliens with Buzz. That was probably the best ride for all of us.

The scariest was the Dinosaur ride (no surprise there).

Splash Mountain "hurt my belly". Again, the fact that he barely met the height requirement should have been a clear warning. Another ride that ended in me talking my little boy out of falling completely apart while everyone watched us get out.

And Winne the Pooh "was silly, it wasn't scary, but it scared Daddy". Wes kept telling Jay that he was so scared during this ride because we were trying to cheer him up from being traumatized on the previous ride. And it worked, Jay thought he was so tough taking care of Daddy who was scared of Pooh and Tigger!

Meeting Goofy

And of course, you can't go to Disney without meeting some famous people!  We saw Woody, Donald, Goofy, Mickey, and many others. Jay was so happy to see them all. We were starting to get anxious about meeting Mickey because we kept missing him but at the very end of the day we found him and jumped in line. Jay was tired, we were all tired, but we weren't going to miss the main guy!  We were finally the next ones in line, I was getting my camera ready, and, like clockwork, it was due for another meltdown. Oh no. Jay starts whining and pouting, "I don't want to see Mickey, I'm too tired, I want to go home, I'm cold, my legs hurt..."  Wes and I looked at each other and thought, oh no, we WILL see Mickey, we WILL get a cute picture, and there is NO way we are leaving now. But parents know, the ability to get your child to cooperate in a matter of a few seconds is a delicate art. We both put on our most convincing voices and explained that there is really no other option than meeting Mickey, being very nice to Mickey, and immediately stop this pitiful downward spiral. Thank goodness, he bounced back, and was happy during the meeting. Granted, he did loose it the second we left the building but we were prepared to handle that.

Swimming in the pool after a long day of rides

The arcade games were free in the hotel one morning, Jay was obsessed with this WWII fighter jet game, every time we'd loose him he'd be back here, fighting his planes.

we had to check all the rides out though

back to his favorite one by the end

I think he's tired of posing

waiting to go into the spaceship at Epcot

Crashed

Mater!

He had to walk around and touch all sides of every single car we found

and take a picture with each one too. There were about 10 but I got tired of those pictures quickly. Hopefully he won't remember that I was supposed to be taking a picture of each one.

Lighting McQueen!

Wes and I were surprised to see Blues Traveler in concert at Epcot that night....Disney World takes care of the parents too!

Posing in "Singapore"

Downtown Disney on the last day

Digging for dinosaur fossils

That's about all of it. We truly had a great time and loved the time with Jay. He told us both that he loved us hundreds of times that week and kept going on and on about how cool everything was. It was such a fun time with him. We cannot wait to take both boys next time!