Running the Gauntlet

What a week.

It's cool and drizzly out and I can't tell you how much I'm loving the Saturday we've had so far.  We were under the impression that the Big Yam was starting Chinese school so we hauled a** to get out of the house and to the school in time, only to find that the mad scramble was in vain and we were a week early.  Is there anything worse, when you're a parent, than a mad scramble for naught?  Not really.  So much wasted coordination and energy.

Faced with an unexpectedly free Saturday, we did our grocery shopping, hung around in the park, then we had quiet time and I started Roxane Gay's already-excellent Bad Feminist and died a few deaths at how good it is (to give you an idea of JUSTHOWVERYGOODITIS I'm only halfway through the introduction).  The heat has broken, it is easy to believe that we're slowly slouching into fall, and the rain means that you don't feel guilty for cozying up at home.  The best thing about fall and winter is cozying up at home.  Luxuriating in your home and your family.

I wasn't one of those kids who imagined what my adult life would be like.  Like, I had lofty goals about maybe being a writer, or an academic, or a perhaps some high-powered 80s lady, but the idea of having a family of my own didn't register.  Remember: for a long, long time, I didn't think I was going to have kids.  I associated having kids with some kind of betrayal of radical feminism.  When we decided to start a family, I still didn't spend time trying to picture what that might be like.  I never imagined how much I would covet and enjoy an insular weekend afternoon spent with my own family.  How an open afternoon with nothing pressing to do, perhaps making dinner, definitely lying on the couch reading while my boys careened around me, would be so fulfilling.   How I could so enjoy seeing just these 4 faces engaged in the mundane.

Edit: fast-forward to Monday evening - I reveled so much in my free afternoon that I abandoned blogging

Summer ended in a roar of activity and culminated in last week's insanity.  We hit summer, HARD, and we're wringing out every last drop of goodness.  We went to the CNE, we went to the beach, had one more glorious swim in the outdoor pool, and hit up some nature walks with some of the people we love best.

 These two photos make me laugh because you can see various stages of Quincess trying to scale that log.  He's trying so hard!

Big Yam didn't want to sit in the front because he wasn't sure how he would "drive" this thing

School started last week and chaos of the first day was given a thematic supporting assist from some truly hellish weather.  I dropped the Big Yam off at his new school and it was hot, humid, muggy, oppressive.  His new school made the tactical error of letting the parents into the kindergarten area to drop off their kids which obviously resulted in a smaller-scale recreation of that Civil War scene from Gone With the Wind.  There were people strewn about the halls, widespread pandemonium, tears.  The Big Yam had been on board with me up to that point but when he walked into his classroom, he went AWOL on me.  Flipped right out.  I tried everything.  I spoke calmly, I was upbeat, I tried distractions.  He was having none of it.  Finally, I had to do something I'm not proud of - which was to shame him into snapping into it.  "I've been very nice and calm with you up to now, and you're leaving me no choice.  I'm going to have to get stern with you and cross.  Do you want me to get stern and cross in front of all your new friends?"  I re-live that moment and squirm inside every time.  But you know what?  IT F**KING WORKED, okay?  And there's a small part of me that doesn't regret the fact that I was able to deposit my kid in the system and get to work *only* an hour late.  You do what you gotta do, desperate times, etc., etc.

  

 This guy's ridiculous, crooked-mouth, old man, elvish face kills me

Sunday we intended to do a hike in the Rouge Valley Conservation area, but it was raining so we skipped to the city's first ever Kothu fest.  We picked up Kothu and supplemented with Babu for the kids.  It was a bit of a bust, but we wanted to show our support for kothu and Scarborough.

Also, every other day since then has been beyond fine.  He's found himself some homies, he's adjusting well, this new school - first day tactical error notwithstanding - has been head and shoulders above the previous one.  They just have their s**t together and are inspiring a great deal of confidence in us.  We're happy with the transition over all.

I mean, it probably wasn't helped by the fact that  I had three consecutive interviews last week.  By the time the week ended we were all DONE.  So the lazy Saturday described above was exactly the reset we needed.

I'm hoping that one of those interviews results in something, but even if it doesn't, I'm happy with my current job, I'm happy with my home position - so I think I'm in a pretty good spot, overall.  All the preparation and work that went into the interview process was harrowing, but it's behind me, and I think I know better now than to sign up for back-to-back-to-back interviews again.  Although knowing me, and the my masochistic need to put myself in the line of fire, I wouldn't put it past me.

Every day, I come home from work, put away my bike, take off my shoes and bag and put the finishing touches on dinner.  Within 10-15 minutes of me being home, the Wonder Twins cotton on to the fact that I'm in the building, and they clamber up the stairs and I get this exact same greeting:

Every. Single. Day.  "Hi, mama."  It kills me.

We started watching the new Netflix series, Narcos on the weekend and blew through 6 episodes.  I didn't think I'd like it.  I'm only so-so into drug movies.  They can get kind of repetitive after a while - the tropes, the delivery.  This series has a killer first episode, but I do recall wondering how they were going to sustain it for 9 more.  For me, they don't do a good job of delivering.  This is "history comes to life" type of watching.  It relies on some narrative clichés and some clunky exposition, but it's anchored by a compelling score and charismatic performances.  Like, how do I end up having the hots for Pablo Escobar?  Granted, he's a bawss.  But he's also a really, really, really bad person?  That does terrible, terrible things?  Yet when you watch him, as embodied by Wagner Moura, you can see how you fall under his thrall.  It's good for watching while you're knitting (*raises hand*), but I only half pay attention.

Quincess has been using the placeholder, "Ummm..." before he answers a question.  It's friggin' adorable.  Lindsay doesn't have time for placeholders, because he's too busy aiming at my head with a baseball bat and saying, "shoot mama?" "No, we don't shoot people."  "Shoot baba?" (and so on, until we go through the entire list of everyone he knows, who he's NOT allowed to shoot), or trying to wrestle a giant couch cushion, UP the stairs.  

End of summer means blueberry pudding cake.  Blueberry pudding cake means blueberry pudding cake and whipped cream breakfasts, with a boiled egg for respectability.

Smitten's hazlenut plum tart.  Which I may have talked about already?  I doubled the hazlenuts but would reduce the butter and omit the custard filling, so all you have is toasted hazlenuts, crunchy around a thin layer of plums turned jammy in the oven.  

Meal templates to the rescue of busy week/school days!  Taco Tuesday: salad edition

A pound of zucchini, thinly sliced, fried in olive oil with minced garlic, some sliced basil, and tossed with artisanal pasta, topped with grated ricotta salata and a fried egg

We hung onto summer hard this past weekend - lobster rolls on buttered brioche buns, fried pickles, and this roasted cabbage salad that I've been obsessed with, ever since Dr. Rei made it at the cottage.  Thinly sliced cabbage, tossed with oil, roasted and turned every now and then at high heat in the oven until crispy, tossed with a spicy mayo dressing.

Smitten's crispy peach cobbler.  This was a HUGE hit.  You sprinkle a generous amount of sugar on top of the cobbler topping and then sprinkle that with water.  It makes a shellac that bakes up in the oven until it shatters.  A nice mix of textures against some fresh, juicy, yielding peaches.

The textbook Lagerfeld late-summer pasta - fried eggplant cubes, cooked with minced garlic, some grape tomatoes thrown in and cooked in the pan with the lid on until they burst, with some kalamata olives and basil, tossed with pasta.

Fin.

Intensive Mothering

I’ve had a lot of thoughts this past winter (long, cold, insular winters are conducive to thoughts) on the topic of intensive mothering (long, cold, insular winters when one has three young children and is project managing a renovation and starting a new job are particularly conducive to thoughts on intensive mothering).  This concept has been kicking around since 1996, when academic Sharon Hays wrote about it in her book,  “The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood” (accompanied by this amazingly dated picture):

What is intensive mothering?  Here is a description pulled from the abstract to Hays’ paper: “an ideology that holds the individual mother primarily responsible for child rearing and dictates that the process is to be child-centered, expert-guided, emotionally absorbing, labor-intensive, and financially expensive” (emphasis mine).  

Now, almost 20 years later, as my Facebook feed explodes with discussions about vaccines (populated mostly with commentary from women, natch), and as I see the endless stream of weird questions on this “Ladies with Babies” forum on Facebook filled with my cohort (mostly women in their 30s, educated, living in downtown Toronto, newish parents) – “Question: when to give my daughter eggs?”  “Felix has a weird speckled rash and mostly runny, green poos that resemble a verdant forest on a Bon Iver album cover - thoughts?”, and after my ill-fated experience on the parent council at the Big Yam’s school, it is evident that intensive mothering is still a pernicious and pervasive ideology - one that is contributing to gendered labour inequities in the domestic sphere and hindering women’s progression in the workforce.

I think we all know intensive mothers.  As progressive as I am, it is impossible for me not to fall into a certain trap when it comes to household domestic division of labour.    Part of the problem is me – being an insane micro-manager and type A.  I know of a few other relationships where the male counterparts in the couple fulfill the role of making sure that everyone is fed, clothed, and happy, but in the intensive mothering sense – which means enrolled in programs, eating organic food, dressed in the proper pediatric-approved shoes - that work still falls to the women.  In the vast majority of my experiences and observations though, even if the guys do the laundry and the cooking, the thinking about the kids is disproportionately borne by the “mothers.” 

In my own house, this manifests thus: the Dotytron is responsible for packing the Big Yam’s school lunch, but I still take a second look to make sure the Big Yam gets vegetables AND fruit, and I’m the one who manages the grocery list and notes which mini yogurts the Big Yam prefers.  I don’t think the Dotytron has ever, in his going on five years as a parent, ever bought our children a stitch of clothing, or expended a nanosecond of time thinking about what season we’re going into and what the kids have to have in their wardrobes to be sartorially prepared.   The Dotytron has never scheduled a doctor’s appointment or a specialist’s appointment for our kids.  Jobs that he does do, have been assigned to him, by me.  Yes, he does the cooking at the end of the day, but it’s from a recipe that I’ve laid out for him, with ingredients that I prepped (by waking up at 5:30am, most days), and from a weekly menu plan that I devised, with groceries that I planned for and stocked. 

The bar for fathers is deplorably low.  I’m reminded of this as I read through the proofs of my friend JJ’s forthcoming book on the topic of food and femininity.  In the introduction, she states: "We demonstrate how the organic child ideal is informed by neoliberal notions of individual responsibility, positioning mothers as personally responsible for shielding their children from the risks of the industrial food system. At the same time, we argue that critics must not dismiss food-focused mothers as neoliberal dupes. Maternal discourse is constituted through neoliberal logics, but is embodied and enacted through food traditions that have deep roots within feminine and maternal identities." 

Women are responsible.  Do you ever hear of people judging and shaming middle and upper-middle class dads for feeding their kids Gerber baby food (the horror?!)? No.  Women are the ones who are guilted and shamed.  Just like when I’m at a family event with the kids and older women feel the need to tell me what I should be doing or how I should be raising my kids and what I’m doing wrong.  It’s all on the mom, man.  It really is.  When it comes to “voting with your dollar” on the world you want your kids to inherit, it’s women making those consumer decisions. 

It’s a lot of pressure being responsible for waging war on capitalism and the industrial complex on your own.  I would LOVE to be a dad – where you get daps for carrying a diaper bag and being able to put your kids to bed.  That would be awesome.  If that’s all I had to do when I was home, and I didn’t have to spend any time negotiating “work-life balance” and making sure that I had a handle on 4 people’s lives (5, if you include the Dotytron), then I would be freaking Executive Director by now. 

I love my partner, but sometimes he has to be reminded that I don’t exist to facilitate his life, which it can sometimes feel like.  The pressures put on mothers and working mothers is indeed internalized externalized pressure – we are complicit in an ideology that serves to subjugate us.  I could easily just not care.  But, I do care and the general tenets of intensive parenting are valid. On the nights when I’m not home and the Dotytron has to pick up the Big Yam from his karate class (as an aside – the first time we watched him at karate class was worth the price of the class alone.  It is ridiculously adorable how uncoordinated our eldest is), the Dotytron’s default dinner is a walk-in special (large pepperoni pizza).  I don’t want my kids to eat pepperoni pizza and Habitant pea soup (which is what the Dotytron assures me would happen if I ever actually made good on my threat to give up on the menu planning and food prep) every night!  That’s gross!  What JJ’s research shows is that even when men are the “foodies” in a relationship, it tends to be reserved for the “special” cooking.  The entertaining, fussy kind.  The everyday cooking and the thinking about nutrition and the like fall on women, more often than not.   

I don’t have any easy solution for this problem, but I know that I grew up in a house where my mother was a working mother who categorically did NOT practice intensive mothering.  She was largely absent and preoccupied with running her own law firm.  My stepdad, Big D, did all the grocery shopping and laundry and dotes on my mum.  Cooking was largely hived off to the nannies my mum hired to look after us.  I’ve never talked to my mum about it, but I don’t think she’s ever felt an iota of guilt (I’m so sure of this, that it’s why I’ve never talked to her about it - there just isn't a need to confirm what I already know).  There are models in my life for an unabashedly career focused mother.  I don’t necessarily want to be the mum my mother was, but I don’t think I have to shoulder the burden of the pressures of modern mothering myself.  It’s nice to be able to give a form and language to the oppression of intensive mothering – to be able to name that which I am casting off. 

It is difficult to be a socially conscious, environmentally driven, health-minded and reflexive person in society.  It is extra hard when you’re doing all that, working, and trying to be and create that culture for your children.  It’s exceptionally hard when you do all that, and you’re the kind of exacting, psycho, obsessive perfectionist like me.  I don’t make it easy for myself, but I can choose to say no.  I can choose to not let the state off the hook for collective social action.  I can choose to ask for and be gracious in the face of help.  I can choose not to do it alone.  I’m not sure if the model to aspire to is intensive parenting instead of mothering, but I know that I don`t have to die on the sword of social consciousness on the battleground of my children.

Diversion – how was your weekend?  I had a fantastic weekend, starting Thursday night with a lovely dinner in advance of Dr. Rei’s birthday at Sukho Thai.  This resulted in the following hilarious exchange when we some Chinese guava candies were presented with our bill –

Me: “You should try one, they’re good, Benoit in my office has a bowl at his desk.”

Dr: “Who?”

Me: “Benoit”

Dr: “Did you say, Benoit???”

Me: “Yes”

Dr: “Wow.  Benoit, huh, hmm”

Me “…”

Dr: “Benoit… “

LOL!  She was clearly very impressed with Benoit, based solely on his name, the way Jordan Peele’s character is so taken with a Continental breakfast offered at his hotel, because of its Continental-ness:

Then I had book club at my friend Judith’s gorgeous, detached, GIANT house close to Dufferin Grove park.  A house on the corner of my street recently listed in the $900s.  It had previously sold 2-3 years ago for $640-$700.  The house is the same size as mine, but detached, and a corner lot with two parking spots.  However, it is next to a rooming house and the back side is subsidized housing.  It also faces a main street.  The Dotytron has been very quick to quash  my dreams of capitalizing on my unseemly willingness to invite chaos into our lives with big renovations and real estate speculation, so I don't think it's in the cards for us, given that I refuse to pay a million dollars FOR MY OWN HOUSE.  Basically, if I'm buying a million dollar house, it's going to be for something that is not a detached version of what I'm living in.  I definitely would want a significant space upgrade.  Dotytron is insisting that Lil' Ugmo is the house they're going to wheel him out of when he's 99, so it is what it is.  No real-life Monopoly for me. 

J's house was so gorgeous though.  It is giant, close to Dufferin Grove park, old and untouched but liveable.  There are so many delicious details about it (servants stairs - which are not savory from a supporting-slavery ethical standpoint, but are a lovely architectural detail in a house), stained glass, dark beams on the ceilings. 

Anyway, Thursday was a good night.  Friday I came home to a Micelli Monday in full swing with Lolls and SMckay and baby Sheaslounge and my gaggle of adorable goofs and it was so nice.  I love coming home to a full house.  We made a delicious dinner and then hung out and it was delightful.

We watched the Amy Schumer Friday Night Lights spoof on football rape and about died laughing.  It is incisive, and funny, and cogent:

Saturday was our usual errand morning - dropping off the Big Yam at Chinese School. Two weekends ago he had a recital that we missed because we had no idea and had made other plans (we are the worst).  We felt EXTRA bad when I found out from my neighbour that during the Big Yam's class, a kid PROJECTILE VOMITED on the very last note of the song.  It was classic!  BEST POSSIBLE KID RECITAL OUTCOME!  I saw the video - the kids went screaming off in every direction.  It was chaos.

While the Big Yam is at Chinese school we do the grocery shopping and take the babies to a park where they give us multiple heart attacks.  Quincess Leia is pretty good, Lindsay is fearless.  I caught him mid-step about to go down the fireman pole, completely oblivious, just in the knick of time.  He has no self preservation instincts.  This makes both babies considerably more sure-footed than the Big Yam (who gives a hard no to anything remotely dangerous - see exhibit A, this photo from his first real roller coaster at Disney), but it also makes for a non-relaxing time at the playground:

Side eye to the MAX.
 

Quincess has been so sweet and loving lately, it's the best.  He throws his arms behind him when he runs and frequently runs into a room, arms behind him, gives us a signature Quincess crinkle cut eyes (his expressions are all about his ability to manipulate and scrunch his eyes suggestively) look of mischief, and then turns on his heels and runs out.  He is the sweetest little thing.  I was standing in the kitchen the other day and he came up and flung his little arms around my legs and gave me a knee-height full body hug, and then ran away with his arms behind him.  He's definitely a mama's boy, which is nice, since as far as Lindsay is concerned, the Dotytron is both baba AND mama (he uses both interchangeably to ask for the Dotytron, inquire about his whereabouts, request cuddles).  He's a baba's boy like you wouldn't believe.

Ever since Momma D's birthday party, Joni's "Big Yellow Taxi" has been on heavy rotation.  Lindsay's sweet little voice is the best thing.

This is my 4th baby.  He is the sweetest little goofball.  Look at him!  Those eyebrows!?  That round little noggin.  He kills me.

 The Big Yam is so funny and also filled with sweetness.  He went to a friend's house the other day and his friend's mom relayed this exchange to me:

Big Yam, upon walking into their house, "Whoa. This house is really small. Hey, we have two cats too! Except one is dead."

Mom: "Oh no! What happened?"

Big Yam: "Um. He just went to the vet and died."

LOL!!!

He has this hilarious friend at school, Frank, and the two of them just constantly make up ridiculous in-jokes and weird sayings.  The newest consists of running around singing, "Have a jolly, jolly Christmas!" and then claiming, "Me and Frank made up that song."  Also, there's this:

I'm not sure when "Mama Mia" gets employed and under what context, but as a "bit" it's so random, I love it.

We did an escape room with some of our high school buds on Saturday and then had dinner with them after.  I can't believe it's been TWENTY YEARS since high school.  I was looking around the table at dinner and was kind of floored.  So much history there!  So many experiences.  I still don't feel a day older than I was then.  I don't feel like I'm coming up on forty (!!!) at all.

Good friends, good times.  Sunday was a visit my Poh Poh, Yummy Market, dinner with my mom day.

This weekend is another good one - dinner and a movie with JJ, the Discerning Coyote, et al tomorrow night, then a friend's birthday party on Saturday, then friends over on Sunday for dinner and more hangs involving cute kids and people I've known forever (girls from my cooking days).

Fin.

In Like A Lion

I have many, many back posts either half or three-quarters drafted, or spooling around in my head, and yet, only 5 posts in 2015 to speak of.  Time is a bit precious around here, as you can imagine, and March has been a bit of a doozy.

I started a new job.  The process of getting this job was a bit fraught (I'll explain later).  I'm on loan from my regular job for a 9 month secondment with the Ministry of Magic, doing policy work, for which I had to take a pay cut (which smarts).  On the plus side, I've already stretched myself and learned how to do new things (hello, finessing a cost-sharing model in Excel, when you don't have access to Youtube tutorials or the data sets on which the model was based? All the fun!).  I've also felt stupid almost every day that I've been there and there has been more than one occasion where I've been left squirming under the steely gaze of my director, giving me feedback on a briefing note I produced that's been marked up beyond all recognition, as she waits for me to explain why something is "germane" to the paper.  All the fun!  Starting a new job, it's not nothing.  New work environment, new colleagues, new administrative and operational processes (where's the lunch room?  What time do people eat?  Is it okay to leave at 5 when I got there at 8:30?) ALL THE FUN!

It's probably a contributing factor to the eczema flare ups on my face?  Just guessing?  After 8 years at one job, it was easy to be a rock star.  My days were predictable, as were expectations, and I was in a comfortable position.  Having to "fight" (in a sense) again - to figure out my position and how to be good at something requiring a whole new skill set is good for me in the long run, which is why I took this job, even with an inopportunely timed pay cut (did I mention that 3 months into 2015, we are on track to spend FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on childcare? All the fun!)

So there's that.  Then, Captain Save-A-Ho finally kicked the bucket.  After saving many hoes, true, but also AFTER we spent $500 putting a new muffler on him.  So now we have to buy a new (used) car.  On the same day we made that fateful decision, I was replacing the windshield wipers on Eddie Van Halen, and cracked the windshield and we had to replace that (did I mention I took a pay cut?  And FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS on childcare?)

On that same day (yes, this series of unfortunate events is still going), I took Boddington into the veterinarian because he had been looking unwell, and it turns out we had to put him down. He had lost 7 lbs since his last visit (almost 2 years ago), and the doctor said she would run up a quote for diagnostics (almost $2000), but that there was a likelihood that what she found wasn't going to be treatable.

Imagine how I felt.  Imagine what it feels like that this member of your family (for 12 years!) had gotten so sick and you didn't notice until it was too late.  The vet did her best to make me feel better (cats try to hide illness, it's common for the pet owner not to notice gradual weight loss, etc), but when you're holding that little furry body and they're listless and you're trying to comfort this creature in its last moments, you feel like total hell.

RIP, Boddington.  You were the cat that the Dotytron and I got when we first moved in together.  We called you "Big Nose."  You had already been adopted out and then someone brought you back and for some reason, we decided to take you even knowing that.  You were super affectionate and had a poor sense of boundaries (the Roomie called your signature move "face rape").  You were possibly on the spectrum and you did gross things like obsessively like the back of the toilet, lick the tub scum after a shower, and lick the corner of a window repeatedly until we could hear the squeak of your dry tongue on the dry glass.  You were also endlessly forgiving of the torment of three children over the last years of your life, and you gave Smudge (who loves being a father figure) something to dote over.  You were a greedy goomba who was very particular about how full your food bowl was, and you were riddled with anxiety.  You are missed.

After my second week on the job, we went to Disney World.  With two toddlers.  And a four year old (that's three under 4, if you're keeping track).  Our flight over was direct (from Buffalo).  What I didn't know about flying Southwest is that it's "open seating."  You can't reserve seats and you pay an extra $20/ticket/direction in order to get on in the first grouping to get the best pick of seats.  Families and people who require special assistance are seated between the A group and the B group.  We managed to get all five of us in a 3-seat row (babies were going to be on our laps), but then we found out that we're not allowed to have 5 in a 3 seat row as there's only 4 masks.  Gah!  Our flight attendant was kind enough to occupy the extra seat in the 3 seat row while the Dotytron moved across the aisle with the Quincess.  We ended up having that seat extra so the flight there was pretty smooth, all things considered:

We arrived in the afternoon.  We stayed on-resort (the only way to do it, IMO), and got picked up by the Disney shuttle.  We rented a stroller and picked it up at our hotel and then headed off to our first park, the Animal Kingdom, where we had planned a 1/2 day.  The good thing about staying on-resort is that Disney has special buses to transport you from the hotel, and they'll drop off your luggage at your hotel for you.  All we had to do was pick up our "magic bands" (which is linked to my credit card and has all our itinerary/dining information linked to it) and head off.

The Animal Kingdom is one of the weaker of the various parks within Disney World.  It's pretty much a big zoo.  There's some thrill rides (a roller coaster, a Jurassic-park-type dinosaur experience) that were too intense for our crew, so we went on their wilderness safari, had a Dole whip, and called it a day.  The safari was super fun - The animals are pretty much free to wander around (the docile ones at any point) and we saw cheetahs, wildebeast, giant bull type things (which had Lindsey shouting "PIIIIIIIIIG!" in ecstasy) and lions, zebras, etc.  It's pretty cool and was a nice way to ease into the experience.  

Here's the thing with people who don't stay on resort to save a few bucks - you're honestly better off saving money for a longer period of time, until you can afford to stay on resort.  And get the meal plan!  Paying for food on the park is so expensive!  $12 for a tuna sandwich?!  There are many, many ways to maximize your meal plan credits (and so many blogs from Disney psychos to guide you through the process), that it's well worth it in the end.  Travel from the resorts to the parks, on the Disney buses, can often take 30-45 minutes.  If you had to park your car?!?  And walk to it?  And then had to stay at the park ALL DAY (without a hotel break) to maximize your dollars?!?  Why would you do that to yourself?  YOLO.  

Day 2 was a day at the Magic Kingdom.  Going into this trip, the Dotytron and I made a solemn pact that we WEREN'T GOING TO BE CRAZY.  That meant that we would be chill - whatever happened, happened.  The money was spent - there was no going back, so there was no point stressing about the trip.  Knowing the Big Yam and knowing that he's a bit of a scaredy cat, and also is not into meeting characters, allowed us to book our "fast passes" (which allow you to jump the queue at particular attractions during hour-long blocks of time) in advance, knowing what would give us the best ROI.  We would eat a snack at our hotel, go to the parks as close to opening time as possible, then either go on rides we already had later fast passes for (but that we knew would have a big pay-off for the Big Yam, so he would want to ride it twice, and would be able to with the fast pass) or would have epic line-ups later.  Then we would do our fast pass schedule and hit some things that were more low key, then eat lunch at the park.  We would return back to the hotel for a mid-day swim (when Orlando is at it's most blistering), a nap, and then back out for dinner and a walk before a late bedtime.  It was the best possible way we could have managed things.

We discovered a place that had LOBSTER ROLLS as a counter service meal on our meal plan, and we hit that up (twice).  Other people were using their meal credits for the aforementioned tuna sandwich (why?!).  We obviously had Dole pineapple whips (twice!)

Despite making the best of the trip, it was challenging travelling with this many kids and in this age range.  It is an incredibly overstimulating environment - for them and us.  Then you add the heat, and the disruption of the routine, and the fact that the Dotytron and I hadn't been full-time parents to all three for this duration in months, and it was exhausting.  You don't go to Disney for a break, that's for sure.  I saw parents who seemed to be having a wonderful time and I'd ask how old their kids were and they'd say "12 and 9" - which makes sense.  Two toddlers and a 4 year old?  It's insanity.  We were getting side-eye from like, Mormon families with 12 kids, because all their kids were older.  

Orlando department of transportation says you have to fold up strollers on the buses, which meant every time we went to a park, we would stroll over to the bus stop, then I'd wear a baby, hold another baby while the Dotytron folded up the stroller and grabbed all the crap we had stowed underneath, and I would hustle the Big Yam onto the bus while the Dotytron tried to find a place to put the stroller.  I'd say that 60% of the time, people were kind enough to give up a seat for us or the Big Yam.  The overwhelming obesity problem in the US means that very often, people weren't giving up their seats because they actually needed it more than us (sorta).  I met another woman who was saying that they'd been to Disney about 5 or 6 times and they loved it.  It had apparently gotten to the point where her kids were old enough so that she and her husband went out and had a "nice dinner and a glass of wine" and she was saying how wonderful it was.  I just thought to myself, if you're idea of living it up is a nice dinner and glass of wine at Disney, then lady, you need to expand your definition of travel.

The food is good, FOR DISNEY.  As far as theme parks go, I can say unequivocally that it's the best.  It's so family friendly, and they set up all these smart things to make your trip as nice as possible.  The people they hire are very nice and have the patience of saints, even when they're treated abysmally by the guests.  But would I go there if I didn't have kids?  Hells, no.  We've been there, done that.  It is ONLY worth it for the kids.  Even at that, when the Dotytron and I were tallying things up at the end of the trip, it was only reasonably affordable because we didn't have to pay for the babies' flights/park tickets/most meals.  If we factored that in, we would have spend almost 10K, at which point, I would rather go someplace that's more stimulating for ME.  Picturing Disney as an adult escape is very, very odd to me, even if I did get to eat a cronut!  

Big Yam had no interest in meeting characters, but for some reason, the Dotytron was so enthralled at the fact that we were positioned so close to Belle from Beauty and the Beast that I came back to a camera with more than a few Belle back-side shots.

Look at how haggard having kids has made the Dotytron! 

Sunglasses hide everything!

Quincess turning it on at 10pm for the money shot.

 

Our flight home was a nightmare.  We flew out of Orlando at 6pm to Baltimore.  We'd already had a full day of the Magic Kingdom and the flight straddled baby bed time.  The Quincess dropped a deuce around 7pm and then we hit turbulence so the fasten seatbelt light was on and I couldn't go anywhere and he wailed for a solid hour.  I got some nasty looks from this lady in front of us.  Listen - if you're on a flight with someone with a crying baby, THEY ALREADY FEEL BAD ENOUGH.  Glaring doesn't help!  Also, WE PAID THE EXACT SAME FOR OUR SEATS, YOUR HIGHNESS, so can it.  Then, our connecting flight from Baltimore to Buffalo was delayed by 2+ hours.  We didn't end up arriving in Buffalo until close to 2 in the morning, and we didn't get home to Toronto until around 4am.  It was brutal and made the Dotytron swear off flying anywhere for the next 10 years.

That was my March in a nutshell.  I'm waiting for some out like a lamb action any time soon.

Fin.