The Magic Kingdom

You know how there are things in everyone’s past that they aren’t particularly proud of or wish to admit. Those parenting moments for instance when we didn’t necessarily use our best judgment. Well, one of my less than stellar moments as a parent occurred when my girls were four years old.

When my children were young they were not good little travelers like some children who are instantly lulled to sleep by the purring of a car engine. Oh no, my children never slept in the car not even as babies. Due to this fact it goes without saying I wasn’t that thrilled when my husband decided he wanted to take a family trip from Oklahoma to California with our pre-school age twin daughters. I started out with the greatest intention to remain optimistic but we had hardly left the driveway when I realized my optimism was not based on known fact. We had barely reached the end of the block before the fighting began. Twin one snatched something away from twin two and twin two being unwilling to tolerate such a blatant disrespect of personal space and property retaliated by biting twin one on the arm like a starving wolf cub. As soon as twin one became of aware of the blood drawn by twin two she began to scream at a decibel rate equivalent to the sound of a jet leaving the tarmac. At this point all I could think about was that we had 1,342.46 miles of road trip ahead. By the time we reached Amarillo, Texas a mere 286 miles from our house, I had begun the downward descent into a catatonic state. My husband, not wanting to have to raise two little girls on his own, made an executive decision to abandon the Magic Kingdom in favor of a shorter route to Arlington, Texas and Six Flags Over Texas. As he exited Interstate 40 and turned south I looked at him with more adoration and love than I had shown on our wedding night. Using Pig Latin to communicate we concocted the scheme to pass off Six Flags as Disneyland seeing as how our two passengers couldn’t read anyway. I fully intended to tell them the truth when they had children of their own and after they had traveled say 500 miles to visit Grandma at Christmas time.

We arrived in Arlington sometime that evening. The girls didn’t know California from Texas so the disparagement in travel time didn’t raise their suspicions. We checked into our motel to get a good night’s sleep before going to the “Magic Kingdom” the following day. I hadn’t been asleep 3 hours when I was startled into consciousness by the sound of gagging from the next bed. I barely opened my eyes before twin one began throwing up all over the bed immediately followed by the convulsive heaving of twin two. Holding back my own urge to expel the contents of my stomach I managed to get trashcans for all and cold rags on necks. By now I figured the “Magic Kingdom” wasn’t going to be on our itinerary but I didn’t count on the one-track mind of a four year old times two. It was apparent that if we didn’t go we were going to witness a full blown fit that would make Super Nanny run for the hills.

So, bright and early armed with ice buckets stolen, I mean borrowed, from the motel and wet rags we ventured toward “Mickey’s Magic Kingdom”. Fortunately, the girls didn’t get sick again but we had to battle temperatures I’m sure were not being experienced in Anaheim. Texas in July is about 110 in the shade. We stood in lines for rides with water misters spraying overhead only to have the water evaporate long before it hit our scorched and searing flesh. The girls kept asking where Mickey Mouse and Snow White were hiding out and their father’s creative answer was to tell them Mickey was in jail for DUI (my husband was a police officer) and that Snow White was on an extended vacation. Fortunately there were a few Looney Tunes characters skulking about so that seemed to satisfy the kids.

The girls requested toy swords at the souvenir stand and on our way to the parking lot we had them pose in front of the Six Flags sign. It had a picture of Bugs Bunny waving a sword over his head so we thought it would be cute to get a picture of our own sword waving children. The shot was snapped and our vacation to the "Magic Kingdom" came to an end.

Long after the trip was a faint memory and my children had been in school for a couple of years they happened upon our vacation snapshot of them in front of the “Disneyland”…..sign. I heard a wail from the other room and was soon confronted by two enraged second graders demanding answers.

All I could think of was who’s idea was it to teach them to read anyway?