Monorails, Meltdowns, and Mickey Mouse.. Oh my...

 Parenting Can be Magically Disgusting

    About this time last year my family and I went to Walt Disney World.  At the time my younger son, Tommy was about 2, and my older son Johnny was about 3.  Well, after an excruciatingly long 18 hour non-stop, white-knuckled, all-night drive we were finally there.  The all-night drive is never a bad idea if you want to save money on a hotel, and makes sense if you are with like-minded individuals who plan on sleeping a lot when you finally reach your destination.  It IS a terrible idea, if you plan on hanging out with a toddler and a preschooler at a hotel pool.

     Well, luckily our in-laws were meeting us at the pool, my usefulness as a parent was in question and honestly lackluster at best.  My head was pounding.  All of the coffee and 5 hour energy I had shoved down my throat through the night had rendered me as tweaky as any crackhead from my old neighborhood.  I felt like total hell.

     After relaxing, coming down off my caffeine/vitamin induced rage, I was finally beginning to enjoy my vacation.  Things were beginning to go well.  I went to sleep.

     Well, the next day we were going to the Magic Kingdom.  I was as giddy as the boys, possibly even more so.  As an adult, I understand you are supposed to lose some of your excitement for things like this, but I hadn't been there since kindergarten.  You see, as a kid my family didn't travel much.  I mean my aunt, uncle and cousins lived in Orlando for christsake.  We only visited them once.  LAME!  I was bugging out with pure joy.  It reminded me of those kids you see who live their lives deprived of candy, chips or anything that's not wholesome, nutritious, and comprised of at least 70 percent kale.  I was like one of those kids drinking a coke and eating a Snickers bar for the first time.

     My kids were excited, but in a different way.  We were waiting for the monorail.  First off, a little background.  My kids both love trains, not in a normal way either.  They are obsessed with them.  They have a four foot by two foot bin filled to the brim with wooden railroad track pieces and buildings.  In a pinch, we could probably pawn all of it and have enough to cover rent (the spoils of being both sides of the family's first grandkids).  When we are driving to the toy store, they become more excited about the railroad crossing sign they see out the window on the way there, than anything they see in the store.  The older one dances around and flails his arms when in the presence of a train.  They LOVE trains, got it?

     Well, the monorail did not go over so well.  It's presence caused an immediate bad jolt.  Tommy (the younger) was in the grips of fear and panic.  Johnny was already denying that he was even going to go on it in a whiny sing-song squeek.  "Nooo, I don't wanna to go on that.  Nooo, I don't wanna go on that."  After the gate opened, signaling that the other people had gotten off and we were ready to board, Johnny planted his feet, ready to create a scene.  he had decided now was as good a time as any to test my parenting skills in front of this vast cross section of other parents from all walks of life.  It was getting ugly quick.

     When one kid starts a full-on meltdown, the other catches the virus like wildfire.  We were right in the middle of a friggin episode.  Luckily Tommy was in a stroller, he is a captive audience.  I picked up Johnny, dragging him on.  Tommy flailed while my wife wrestled the stroller onto the monorail to Disney.  I would love to tell you that this was the end of the issue.  It wasn't.

     We were jammed into the monorail car with a large, a little too perfect-looking to be for real, goody-little-two-shoes type of family.  Tommy was crying so piercingly that an outsider would be tempted to examine his fingers and toes for fear that one or five had been lopped off in the monorail door.  Then it happened, Tommy's throat revolted.  Suddenly a geyser of vomit was spewing out of Tommy's mouth like a bad luck oil strike.  Before my eyes puke splattered all over Tommy, his jeans, the monorail floor, and the metal handrail in front of him.

     It happened in fast motion, hardly even a millisecond.  The aftermath was worse.  Quickly the smell completely permeated the entire monorail car.  The goody-little-two-shoes family starred on in complete shock and horror.  They would never fully recover from this one.  The fear etched on the two pig-tailed girl's faces was honestly priceless.  A part of my rapidly down-spiraling mental state nearly started cackling in their face.  Scanning over the rest of their faces, I saw various levels of disgust.  The young boy had a sickly look on his face, his slightly puffed out cheeks telling me all I needed to know about the swallowing motion of his throat.  The grandmother was staring vacantly into the distance, trying to consciously forget the memory through not processing it.

     It was at this moment that Johnny finally weighed in on the commotion.  "Tommy puked!!!" Johnny yelled, pointing at the vomit flowing across the monorail floor.  My mother-in-law was frantically trying to clean the copious amount of vomit off the handrail, Tommy, and the floor with about 7 Starbucks napkins she had nestled in her purse for emergencies.  Good effort, although a mop and an entire roll of paper towels may not have cleaned this mess up well enough.  The smell was becoming increasingly unbearable by the minute.  It was early in the ride.

     After the absolute peak of horrible kid behavior, both Johnny and Tommy were cool calm and collected.  The following ten minutes of the ride were smelly and silent.  A lot of looking at my feet, and tons of good-natured reflection.  Just as the smell in the monorail was reaching panic status we got to the ticket booths.  I didn't have the guts to venture another look at the suffering goody-two-shoes family.  They knew we were sorry.

     The rest of the night was magical, seriously.  My initial reaction had been to bail out of the day, catch the first monorail back, and try again the next day.  It would have been a mistake.  It turned out we had one of the best times our collective family has had to date, during that week.  We went back again the following November, even though we couldn't afford it.  We had a great time again.   I guess it just goes to show that no matter how terribly things can be going, sometimes if you stick it out you can turn things around completely.  Also, I am eternally grateful we didn't see that poor family we shared the monorail car with again.