Overall I count today as a success. Sure things could have went better but they also could have went a lot worse! We had planned a big breakfast for the kids with Mickey shaped pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs, and orange juice. Lonnie got up super early this morning and did it. It was alright. The food was great but between the kids' excitement and trying to make sure the car was completely loaded and nothing was left behind, it really didn't get eaten that much. Noah had a meltdown literally 2 minutes after being in the car then 5 minutes later he wanted to know if we were at Disney yet, lol. I won't even lie or exaggerate, the car ride was complete HELL. Noah was having meltdowns frequently and often, he didn't want to be touched which was hard considering our entire family was squished in a small car, and literally every 3 minutes he was asking if we were at Disney World. Lonnie Jr decided now would be a good time to start teasing his brother in which Noah punched him. Then Danielle was crying about having to pee every 5 minutes. Thankfully it was only 3.5 hours so it was short lived (would have been 2.5 hours but somehow we got lost once we were inside Disney World). Noah's hardest time today was adjusting to the idea of staying in a hotel and that we weren't living there. The constant meltdown of the day is that we were inside Disney World but we weren't at the parks. He absolutely couldn't get this concept. He kept wanting to ride rides when there was in fact no rides. Once we got inside the hotel and fed the kids lunch, things were much much better. We forced the boys to take a nap and that gave us time to unpack the luggage, groceries, and just relax from the stressful car ride.
After the kids woke up, we wanted to go do something but it was 52 degrees with 20 mph winds so even with heated pools and a hot tub, there's just no way we were going to do the pool. Everything else they had to do was outside oriented so we decided that going to the gift shops, grabbing a bite to eat, and playing in the arcade was a great way to spend our first evening! This caused even more problems with Noah because he saw all the Disney-like souvenirs and so forth but no rides so there was a few meltdowns during the course of the evening. The worst was over milk, we regretted leaving his autism cape at home because the looks we were getting but it was okay. I just told myself that I was here to make a vacation for my family not to justify my parenting to complete strangers. He really didn't eat hardly anything. He ate some of our burger, some fries, and the plate of pickles we got for him! However, with Noah I have learned that whenever we have a hard time with him, he makes up for it in someway. We went to probably about 3 gift shops with little to no issues with him! He looked at toys, found things he loved, and we hardly had to hold his hand. He was near breakable things and still, no issue really. We actually had to get onto our older neurotypical children more than we did him. It was so nice. The arcade was fun and overall no complaints. He really wasn't interested in any games (except taking photos with me at the booth! LOL) but he pretended he could play them or he just followed my mom around. He was a joy and he smiled and laughed. That's all I want! He came home and crashed without his nighttime medicine so after my bath I had to wake him up to give him his medicine. Tomorrow is Hollywood Studios. We are hoping the weather has improved where we can maybe come back for an hour or so to use the pool but we don't have any expectations except for our kids especially Noah to have the time of his life :)
