The Happiest Place on Earth?

I decided to take my two boys (two and four years old) to Disney World by myself because I am an idiot. I mean, the original plan wasn’t so dumb, but the ultimate outcome was just stupid.

My 4 year old, Jacob, had been asking for several days to go to Disney. He was very subtle about it, but I picked up on the hints he kept dropping. For example, pretty much every morning when he came downstairs, the first thing he did was position himself by the sliding glass door, place his hands on his hips, gaze outside longingly, and say something like, “It’s a pretty day today. It would be a nice day to go to Disney World or something.” So, because I am an amazing detective, father, and person, I told him I would take him soon and suggested that just he and I go without his brother, Bennett, because Mommy wouldn’t be able to go with us right now (she’s quite pregnant at the moment). I thought this was gold, but he said no, Bennett would want to go to. Curse his unselfishness.

So, this is where we ended up, the three of us in the car driving happily toward Disney World on a hot, sunny day. Well, Jacob and Bennett were driving happily, I was panicking a little. As it turns out, though, I really had nothing to worry about. Everything went fine.

Sure, the temperature was about a thousand degrees when we arrived at the park at 11 a.m. and we had to wait in line for about twenty minutes just to get onto the monorail. But, on the plus side, we did eventually get to ride some of our favorite rides, such as standing in line for fifteen minutes before leaving through the emergency exit door.

And yes, we did have a bit of a crying fit after exiting our favorite ride, but at least we didn’t have to get on it in the first place. That saved us some time.

And one could complain about all the walking around pushing a double stroller in the blazing sun for several hours, but I looked at it as a great opportunity to log some solid step numbers on my Fitbit. Even if I did find out later that my Fitbit battery died at some point during the day and thus none of this means anything or ever even happened really.

And while some people might have been annoyed by the lines of park visitors that kept spontaneously queuing up to get their picture taken with me and hand me gray tails with little pink bows on them, I was just flattered to get some attention.

And yes, one of my children was crying so persistently when we finally got back on the monorail at the end of the day that the gentleman sitting across from us just nodded to me when we got on board and said, “Happiest place on earth, huh?” But, glass half full, the other child was asleep in the stroller!

Sure, the crying child did continue crying on the drive home until he fell asleep, but when he woke up, he was happy as could be and couldn’t wait to tell Mommy how neat it was that his socks were glowing on the Little Mermaid ride. It was, for him, almost like none of the bad stuff happened and all of the fun stuff was really, really fun! Not just the glowing socks, but the carousel and the French fries and the walking around and the boats in the water and the sun and the tea cups.

So yes, if anyone asks, everything went fine. Better than fine, even. It’s really all a matter of perspective.