I was practically skipping as we got outside. I cannot begin to tell
you how proud of myself I was. We scanned the crowds for grandma and
found her sitting with Alex and Jeffy on a planter. She had let Jeffy
take *Every*Single*Flower* off of the bush within his reach. It looked
like a wedding processional had gone by. The ground, the planter bench,
Grandma and Jeffy himself were COVERED in red flower petals. His fingers
were also bright red.
“Look….. Flowers!” He announced happily, grabbing another handful and letting the petals cascade through his fingers.
Alex immediately told me he had nothing to do with it.
“Oh my!” was all I could say. I had no idea how there wasn’t Disney
security swarming all over, arresting us for flower decimation.
“Jeffy…. You’re supposed to leave flowers ON the bush” I say it to him, but am looking at Grandma.
“Oh…that’s OK” she said “It kept him quiet, and no body cares. He’s just a baby anyway.”
Yes well I’m sure someone DOES care and can we please leave before one of those “caring” people finds us?
I grabbed the kid and headed to the closest bathroom to wash the incriminating evidence off his hands.
When I got out everyone was still standing among the flowers. I called
to them from across the way (no way was I walking back over there) and
we headed off to find some lunch. We decided on the Wonders of Life
Pavilion where we grabbed some sandwiches and Chris lost Jeffrey.
We even have it on film.
Chris had gone off to check out some of the “totally cool” exhibits and
Jeffrey tagged along after him. Chris had one of the video cameras and
was filming absolutely everything. He was checking out the one where you
put your hand into a hole and try to guess what’s inside. He was
filming the exhibit, then Jeffery, then some more exhibit, then some
more Jeffrey. He was talking the whole time. “Wow what’s this…oh look at
that…. Look little Jeffrey.. Oh little Jeffrey, you’re so little,
you’re so little all the time!”
He then took the camera and poked it inside one of the holes to film
what was in there. The soundtrack to his film went something like this.
“Wow... look at that, look inside, whats in here? Jeffrey do you see this?”
He takes the camera out and films Jeffy walking around between his
legs. He puts the camera back inside another hole and continues…“What’s
in THIS one... Oh can you see it... what is that, Jeffy, do you want me to
pick you up and show you?” He pulls the camera out and points it down
to where Jeffy was a second ago. “Jeffrey?….. Little Jeffrey??” The
camera begins to pan quickly side to side, he starts to walk forward,
obviously looking for the kid THROUGH the lens of the camera. “Jeffrey?
Where are you?” Panic is rising in his voice and suddenly the camera
rests on me walking towards him.
“Where’s Jeffy?” I sound very casual
“Ummmm... Ummmmmm”
“Chris? Don’t you have him?” I start to sound less casual.
“Ummmmm… Ummmmmm.. Well..... I swear he was right here a second ago”
He lowers the camera but doesn't turn it off so now we can see the floor as we hear 2 moderately frantic voices calling for the 3 year old.
Moments pass.... it felt like an eternity.
Suddenly you hear a relieved “OH, There he is” and then the camera swinging
up and catching a smiling Little Jeffy swinging from a railing. Then a Jeff’s voice in the background… “Everything OK?” and my voice
“Everything's fine….”
Chris turns the camera to his face looking slightly less stressed and whispers quietly, “OH man was THAT close!”
After that little excitement (OK so only a couple of us had excitement) we headed for the World Showcase.
The grandparents loved Mexico and thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride.
Grandpa had a great time talking to all the nice ladies who were working the kiosks in the
Mexican plaza. Grandma didn’t look amused.
From there we strolled towards Norway where I could hear the School
Bread calling to me from 2 countries away. School bread, for those poor
uneducated folk, is a wonderful sweet bread filled with custard and
topped with coconut. Absolute heaven!! Well to most of us. Alex had
already reminded me that he did NOT like school bread, but was hungrily
looking forward to the chocolate cake he remembered having the last time
we were there.
Jeff and I planted the entire group in the eating area and went in and ordered 3 school breads and a chocolate cake.
We carried everything out and I put the chocolate cake down in front of
Alex and turned to deliver the rest of the goodies. One went to the
older kids, one went to Jeff and I and one went over here to grandma
and………... As I was about to put their bread down, I realized they had
moved.... next to Alex and were devouring his chocolate cake. But
perhaps “devour” isn’t a strong enough word.
Alex was sitting, a single tear in his eye, fork poised, yet unused,
watching his food disappear. Chocolate crumbs were flying everywhere,
their forks were a blur of motion.
“Oh my” cluck cluck “Oh my... this is SO good” cluck cluck... Grandma just couldn’t eat fast enough.
“OH No!” I gasped trying to remain calm. No use getting all hysterical.
I reached out and slowly removed the chocolate cake, both of their forks
following it up and away from the table. I set the cake down on the
table behind me . Alex scrambled off his chair and dove to the next
table.
“I got this for you” I said as I put the school bread down in front of them. “Alex doesn’t like this, he only likes the chocolate”.
“Oh… this looks great” And they dove into the bread without missing a beat.
Alex had crammed 5 bites into his mouth at once. I patted him on the
shoulder and whispered that he could slow down. He just kept stuffing.
After our snack the grandparents decided they had had enough for one day
and wanted to go back to their room. We all walked them back towards
the entrance. Jeff dropped the group off at Test Track and walked his
parents all the way to the buses. With them, you have to worry that they
may get lost somewhere along the way.
After we met back up him, we headed other direction in the world
showcase, strolled around for awhile then began looking for a place to
eat dinner.
We chose Morocco as it was close and they could seat us right away.
WOW! Was it great! A belly dancer entertained us while we ate. We
ordered the Feast where all the food came family style. Lamb, couscous,
chicken. We were totally stuffed.
When we left we were all weaving slightly from the amount of food we had eaten. Jeffrey had passed out and was sleeping peacefully in the stroller. It was beyond cold that night and the girls and I walked hooked together trying to share body heat.
On the way out of the park we decided to hit the big store for a bit of early souvenir shopping. We picked up some jackets and sweatshirts and as we stood at the cash register buying our stuff, Emily, while admiring Christmas ornaments, somehow managed to break one.
SMASH! It burst into about a million pieces as it hit the floor. Emily looked up, her face beet red. For one brief moment, she had absolutely nothing to say. Her mouth was open but there was no sound coming out.
“Oh its OK... Don’t worry” The lady taking care of our order was so sweet. She jumped out from behind the counter and somehow put up a perimeter around the shattered glass and grabbed a broom in 5 seconds flat.
Emily finally found her voice and began apologizing and looking more embarrassed then I think I have ever seen her. The lady kept shushing her and launched into a lengthy explanation about how SO many people break “those dang ornaments” and its just how they are hung up... and please please don’t worry about it.
She got it all cleaned in no time and, still smiling, finished ringing up our order and had us on our way.
Soon enough we were on the bus back to our room. Our first day behind us, but 8 more stretching out ahead.
It promised to be a fun and entertaining trip.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am sad to say this was as far as I got. We had such a great trip but I got a little too wound up in the fun to write every day. I still have my notes so I may try to to finish this up at some point.
The biggest reason I wish I had written more was that Grandpa died a year later and I would have liked to have written more about him.