DDD...Feb13- Day 2 - And so it begins..

[Irishrover]

Day 1 is HERE


Up at 7am & down for breakfast at the Premier inn, which was If I remember free with last nights dinner purchase. This was to be one of the longest days of my life so far...

Fair dues Sadie had gotten up and was ready waiting, she'd managed to get herself and Duke ready with little or no tantrums from either side.



Lovely choice of breakfast buffet but I wasn't really hungry as the dread had turned my stomach into the slush and gusher.


Duke started the way he meant to go on and manged to throw most of his food on the floor. I am pretty sure that 6 and a half years ago when Georgia was his age I actually spoon fed her if she was making a mess.
Hey, but what the hell do i know? Ive only had four kids and that was ancient history.

So alot of my breakfast time was spent picking up the bits off the floor. It became a three times daily occurance as I was mortified at the mess that would be left, especially in places that had carpet.

Paul foolishly said to Sadie- "you should be doing that , not your mother" to which she mumbled, "more fool her" or words to that effect which of course cheered us all up immensely and we skipped along the corridor back to the rooms to pack up the last bits.

Went back up to the room and tried to sort out the things that were going home with Paul and repacking the other stuff up again. Needless to say we found later Id fetched stuff that we didn't need with us , and left things we did need behind (hair straighteners) next time I am going to kill with my bare hands, anybody who opens a bag once its packed.


Paul dropped us off over to the terminal and a nice man helped us print out the boarding passes (hadn't been able to get onto the online checkin the day before) and to my utmost delight we had got the bulkhead seats- YAAAAAAAAAAY.

Any of you who read the pre trippy will have known about the bizarre conversation with virgins special assistance lady which hadn't gone exactly the way I expected. So I had little faith that we would get any grace on our request but there you go, wrong again !




Said a tearful emotional goodbye to my darling OH , to the strains of "Leaving on a Jet plane" ….no not really, but did say

"you better get yourself gone before your car gets towed away" and
"don't forget to feed mr squeaker"
"change the sheets before i get back"


Paul added, "Don't spend all your dollars"
and (very helpfully) to sadie, "Find yourself a nice young man in america"


Off he skipped back up to Newcastle, loving the peace, quiet & the pub meals every night for the next ten nights.

So now I was on my own, basically in charge of three squabbling kids all who took it in turns to jingle my bells.

First we had the pushchair. I have a broken back (seriously) and a neurological condition. So who got the job of trying to get the pushchair into the skinny plastic bag they give you?

Baboossssh!

Me.

Then onto security.

Sadie, in her defense is a bit of a nervous flyer. But she was driving me crazy whineing about how we were going to get through, we will never be able to do it, blah blah

I can hardly bare to remind myself of the chaos that went on here, but think of one person trying to get four lotsve bags onto the belt while removing four lotsve stuff that shouldn't be in the bags outve the bags.

There was no easy way.

Sadie got to chase Duke through . Georgia was told to take her high tops off (not an easy task for a 7yr old) so i was left with the man barking at me, who owns this bag, and this bag, and this bag, you get it.


I was dizzy as a duck and could see stars and a bright shining light , and a man waving to me …come toward the light, yes towards the light., walk towards me it will all be alright…

Actually it was the security guard once again making me press my ravaged body against the wall thing with the dead man outline. (everytime since the bleddy things were put in, ive been picked) Im pretty sure they like a laugh and pick the most frazzled looking person.





Today Matthew I only had my iphone in my trousers and three suitcase locks in my hoodie pocket which id taken off the cases at 7am this morning.

<<Rebel


As a family that isn't great at dealing with stress I think we did alright, one or two choice words were mumbled by my dearest daughter about how heavy duke was to carry, while I hobbled along behind with four lots of hand luggage and shooting pains head to toe… but I didn't bite and vowed from that moment that whatever happened from now on could not be anymore stressful than that.

Ha ha ha. See. I am an optimist at heart.

Sadies complaints became a crescendo so i herded the group up to the childrens soft play area aka Last chance to scream saloon…., thinking it was a good idea to run a bit of Dukes energy off.
It didn't really work like that, more like it run the last of mine, Sadies and Georgias energy off trying to keep him in there.




Sadie had her first meltdown of the day, yelling at Georgia for not looking after Duke closely enough. Georgia in her defense said the play area was for 5 & under and at almost 8 she was breaking the rules (and she was on a severe warning about breaking rules after the gangman dace at school which had caused WW3 a couple of days ago. (pre-trippy)

Sadie has a "bit" of an issue with Georgia who she calls " My spoilt brat sister" (Reminder Sadie is 24, and obviously has been spoilt beyond redemption over the years hence the ungrateful churlish behaviour , but of course can only remember the christmas when I couldnt afford buy the colour combo tv for her bedroom, and she ONLY got taken to butlins for holidays until she was 15…..not disneyworld,Boo Hoo. Im surprised she hasn't rang childline on me.)

So there was a few minutes of the usual,
"Sadie, please don't scream at your sister" which starts WW3 until the crowd sitting around the soft play is thoroughly bemused and smug sitting watching a 24yr old having a full belt screaming argument with a 7yr old while her own 14mth old scales the soft play area to the highest farthest away point.
I try and squeeze my fat bum up the levels into the highest corner to yark him back, but cant even get my foot up to the first rung in the ladder.
The mind is willing but the body is weak. So eventually Sadie grudgingly has to stall her arguement and bring him down again, still throwing out verbals to Georgia like "see what youve done?, this is all your fault"

Luckily the flight was being called.

Before we knew it we were boarding the plane and settling into our bulkhead seats. These were a godsend. the extra room for my legs was fab and Duke got to sit on the floor for short periods.






The flight went as quickly as it does, with a Nervous highly strung flyer, a 14mth old, a 7yr old and Me.

We played shuffle the baby, complain about who has watched the least of the entertainment system, find the dummy/sippy cup/toy/ thats rolled up the plane, and many other marvellous stuff.
Sadie had a game all to herself which was called try to change a babys poopy nappy in a phonebox while the plane wobbled about and people kept trying to open the door. From her reports, she had a great time doing it so in my "bad granny" style i didn't offer to help.

Duke managed to put sadies & mine inflight entertainment system into japenese mode which neither us or the crew could get it out of.

The seatbelt light was turned on for extended periods, Im think the crew were just having a rest as it wasn't bumpy. Sadie sat for best part of an hour needing the toilet with duke on her knee waiting for it to go off until she couldn't wait any longer, she rang the bell but no one answered, until she had to give the baby to me and run to the loo.
Hey presto up popped one of the crew outve the galley, giving her a huge telling off. What on earth are people supposed to do? Pee in their seats?
The food was the spinach thing which dosnt look very appetizing but was ok.


We had a spanish speaking family behind whose two beautiful girls kicked us all the way to Orlando, but as we were probably annoying them by keep changing seats , getting up with the baby, losing things under the chairs, we felt it was fair game.


Duke fell asleep for only 40 mins outve the whole flight. the boy has the stamina of an ox.



Eventually, a couple of lifetimes later,we landed and joined a gigantic queue in the security hall.
This was my near death experience.

We stood with hand luggage, a very tired 7yr old, and even more tired 14mth old and snaked around the lanes for 2hours.
To be honest the kids were brilliant, Duke toddled around trying to rustle the trunkis off other kids, making a lot of the tired adults raise a smile or two with his pole dancing routine, and georgia carried her own hand luggage and stayed cheerful .
It was me who was flailing. I had had my whack of painkillers for the day and really couldnt stand or walk straight after sitting in the plane for 8 hrs.

We survived and got through eventually but i did notice how a lot of people are starting to sit at the back of the room with children and babies and get escorted through the US line instead of waiting with us mere mortals.


Another hour was taken up chasing the bags through the second drop, and walking through the airport only to find one of the bags had gone missing. This is when I met my second guardian angel of the holiday.



We were forlornly waiting at the second carousel for the missing bag, the lovely luggage guy regaling us with stories and assuring us the bag would turn up "soon" When over walked a cosmos rep and said are you looking for a blue bag?
As it happened she was waiting for the BA flight for her clients arriving and once she'd set them all away with their luggage she noticed the lonely bag circling the luggage belt. She was worried one of her clients had left a bag so looked at the tag, sure enough it wasn't BA it was Virgin and s she came rushing down to us to see if anyone was waiting.

We were so grateful as the BA luggage belt was on a different floor and we would NEVER have found it.



Onto the magical express with about 30 japanese students. We were flagging now and sat very quietly all the way while the students serenaded us with songs and tunes on several yukeleles, yes by now we were in a parallel universe.



Eventually arrived at the boardwalk absolutely shattered,we mustve looked like Hobos, tatty, covered in baby gunk, bickering away, into the posh lobby!

We checked in a great room, overlooking the boats to HS. Unpacked a little and set dukes bed up for him, which he never used but it became a handy wash basket.




I offered to go to the store for milk as Sadie was simply exhausted and steaming by now. Both me & georgia got a bit of a new lease of life. So Duke could be put to bed we went and got the milk and we ordered a pizza with on the boardwalk with 2cs from our disney dining plan. Great pizza and we all fell into bed after a long long day.



Stress Level today - 7

Tommorrow- will the magic begin?

[KarenG]

Oh my goodness - what a day! You can read as much or as little emotion into that statement as you like

[nadya]

well at least u got there in one piece,and the room looks good with a great location! been there with young baby on plane and squabbling older ones,hope the next day was better for you!

[ely3857]

Oh my days. Stress 7, mine would have been 7897! Well done! X

[Irishrover]

Originally Posted by ely3857

Oh my days. Stress 7, mine would have been 7897! Well done! X

See more...

I had to put 7 as it gets worse. ALOT worse...

Hope its not too miserable for people to read I am sitting laughing at it now. We mustve looked like the Batterseys, rolling into the Boardwalk,

[Cutiepie]

What a day! At least you got there in the end. Georgia's hand luggage is the same as my DS & DD. they love being able to carry their teddies on the front.

[Eeyore rocks]

Wow... what a looooooooooooong day for you.

[Ilovesnowwhite]

What a very long day, But you made it hope things look brighter after a nights sleep

A brilliant honest read jsut how i feel on arrival at the hotel
xx

[tylergeorgia]

have fun - looking forward to next post

[Pussycat Doll]

I admire you, I really do, I'd have killed someone I think! Can't begin to imagine 'worse'! At least you got there and got sorted with a lovely room, Pussycat