We were in the home stretch of our vacation. All the stressful epic parts were over. We thought we might shoehorn a trip to the beach between our last couple days, but it turned out Emma had developed a 'beach phobia'. Well...a shark phobia.
And before you say, "Jim...this is because you forced her to watch Sharknado with you!" ...it so has nothing to do with how I forced her to watch Sharknado with me. At all. The only link at all between her new shark phobia and Sharknado is all the sharks that were eating people. And also the nightmares of sharks eating her that she had the night we watched it. But...but...it was just that one night!
Fine, maybe there was something to that, but what we think happened is this...a couple weeks prior to going on the trip, Emma's cousins had been at the beach on vacation. They got a great picture of a huge hammerhead shark sitting just off the beach in the water. The beach had been evacuated...adventures ensued, doubtless, but the idea of that shark in shallow water took root in Emma's imagination and no amount of logic or reason could weed away the terror she had that sharks would eat one or more of our family if we ventured onto the white sandy beaches or worse...waded into shark infested shallows.
We said, "Let's not talk about it tonight, let's just see how you feel tomorrow."
This reminds me of a George Thoroughgood song, "One Whiskey, One Shot, One Beer". I don't know why. I sort of do. Anyway, apparently George is having difficulty paying his rent and his landlady keeps kicking him out of the apartment.
"She said that don't confront me,
Long as I get my money next Friday
Now next Friday come I didn't get the rent,
And out the door I went."
So tomorrow came and she was still terrified of sharks...out of our plans it went.
This left our pristine schedule looking something like this:
Day 6 (Thursday): Sea World changed to beach day cancelled due to shark attack changed to rest/recuperate/pool day.
Day 7 (Friday): Pool day/pack up/clean up/travel home.
And although we would never make it to Florida's beaches...also on the plus side, none of us were eaten by sharks.
So we had another day of play. And it was good. Leslie had tasked me with eating and drinking everything that was left in the fridge from our original grocery shopping, which meant I had to drink beer after beer after beer...like a chain smoker lighting the next cigarette off the still-burning cherry of the one dangling from his mouth...I drank and drank and drank until I completed her labor of Heracles. No accolades accompanied this success, as Leslie was fast asleep.
this is what happens when you're told to finish everything in the cupboard. |
We packed most of our things the previous night, but realized we'd read the fine print regarding checkout incorrectly, and had to scramble to get our stuff set up for the next day. The biggest issue was that checkout was officially 11:00, and our flight wasn't scheduled until 4:00. That left five hours to kill. I asked Leslie to call the rental agency to see if we could checkout later (2:00) and they said yes, which made the trip to the airport a bit less stressful...until...
A huge thunderstorm rolled into Orlando. Torrential rain accompanied by lightning and...the bane of Lily's existence..."Scary Funder". And this thunder WAS scary, and loud. And she was scared and upset and difficult to calm. And we sort of suffered through our few hours at the airport (planes were all delayed because of lightning) but we hung in there and got on the plane to fly home.
And Lily was mostly good until descent...and then we think her ears started hurting and she couldn't understand what to do, and the fruit snacks must not have cut it because she had another accident when we checked her after landing despite not being really "scheduled" to go for a while.
It must have been very scary for her to start feeling that pain and pressure building in her ears and not understand how to deal with it. Emma's own problems with it on the way in had ended with her going to bed early and she'd understood.
The flight was over. The trip was over. My dad picked us up at the airport and we made it home safe and sound, just in time to watch the Steelers play their final preseason game.
It started the day before our trip to Orlando with Lily throwing up. It ended the day we got back with the Steelers doing the metaphoric football equivalent.
Seven days in Orlando...nobody eaten, and no with vomit!*
*Sidebar: My nephew, who follows me on Instagram was reading comments on one of the pics I posted of Lily while we were on vacation. When we got back we were all celebrating my parent's birthdays together and got on the subject of Instagram. He was like, "Some of the people who follow you leave the most bizarre comments." I nodded...because...well some do...but I asked him for an example.
He said, "There was a picture of you guys in the airport, and one of the commenters said, 'and with no vomit!'"
I explained why the comment had occurred, and we laughed about it, but now every so often he'll see my Instagram feed and post a comment, "And no vomit!" regardless of picture. I should post a picture of vomit and see what he says. Maybe not.
I'm coming over at Halloween in my 'nado suit so we can work on Emma's desensitization, FYI.
ReplyDeleteokay...but I did buy her mace...so wear goggles.
Deletewhat a great ending to a summer to remember.
ReplyDeletebest summer ever!
DeleteOh my goodness... I think that I'M the one the said "and with no vomit!" I swear it made sense in the context of other things you'd said though! I'm not ONLY just a weirdo. I'm a weirdo IN CONTEXT!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad that your vacation went so well. Thanks for sharing about it here. It gives me a heads up in terms of what to do with our 4 peeps (1 Aspie) if we ever get brave enough to tackle Orlando. Kudos for getting so much RIGHT and having fun with the girls!