I flew Jet Blue with the kids this week. My kids are frequent Jet Blue flyers, and usually consider the time spent aboard munching animal crackers and gorging on the Cartoon Network at 30,000 feet at least as exciting as anything we ever do once we actually get where we are going. Sure, there is always that pause in programming when they push back from the gate and tell us how to fasten our seatbelts, but my kids have learned not to panic. Television shall return.

Until this flight. Ten minutes passed, then twenty. By the time the seatbelt sign went off, and the kids had started to ask me when the TVs would come on again approximately four times a minute, I noticed one flight attendant pushing a button on the ceiling, then running to check the TVs in the first row, then throwing up his hands, then doing it again. And again.

“We have attempted a manual restart of our DirectTV,” he finally announced over the loudspeaker. “And… we will attempt it again.”

The kids all looked at me, stricken.

“Did that man say no TV?” Maggie hissed.

“He said maybe no TV,” I admitted, stomach in shoes.

“But…” Maggie struggled with her words. “But Mom! I’m… BORED!”

My kids don’t know how to be bored. I don’t think any of our kids do. When there’s DVDs at the dentist, and in the back seat of the minivan, and a 3DS or seven at every sleepover, how are they supposed to know? My daughter gets a healthy dose of nothing-to-do every weekend at her brothers’ two 2-hour-plus Little League games (especially since she does not yet understand baseball). But after twenty minutes, tops, she weasels my smartphone out of my purse and sits on a park bench playing Toca Tailor. (Great app, by the way.)

There’s no moment that can’t be filled by a screen, and I’m no better at resisting its call. When I was at Maggie’s two-hour-plus tap recital two weeks ago- in which she appeared for all of ninety seconds with another girl standing directly in front of her-  I was just SO BORED sitting there that I became physically uncomfortable. When the Lollipop Guild launched into their third reprise, I sneaked out to “use the restroom,” which really meant checking Facebook in the lobby. With about twenty-five other parents doing the same thing.

But on Jet Blue this week, it was my kids’ unfamiliarity with boredom that struck me. It was less that they were scared of it- more like they had never had this strange sensation before and were not sure what would happen next. What did happen? Some Hangman, some coloring with Mom, some reading of actual paper books. My two boys played “Pokemon Uno,” and when I said, “I didn’t know that was a thing,” Connor said, “It wasn’t. Until just now.”

No one was more annoyed than I that Jet Blue jammed us with the broken TVs. But it was a reminder that boredom-coping is a skill, and if our modern age does not often ask it of our children, my own skills have become a little rusty as well.

Do you ever worry that your kids don’t know how to be bored?

This morning, my friend’s 8-year-old daughter told him that “I wish school would hurry up and end so I can move on with my life.”

Preach it, sister.

A fair part of me is dreading school’s end next Tuesday. (Really next Monday, since Tuesday’s “closing ceremonies” involve wrestling everyone into their Sunday best only to have them all home again by 10:30 a.m.) But the crush of year-end activities requiring our attendance is so great that at this point I am yearning for next week, with its three hot and bored children. It’s kind of like the 39th week of pregnancy: uncomfortable enough that you can’t wait to go into labor, because at least then you’ll be done.

Here are just a few of my children’s events I have attended in the last two weeks:

• brass band concert
• science fair
• Little League game (4th grader)
• Little League game (2nd grader)
• first communion
• tap recital
• fleadh (Irish step dancing)
• chorus concert
• chorus concert awards ceremony, which was an another hour-long event separate from the concert itself. 60 minutes to hand out paper certificates to about forty children, which is impressive.  I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to make saying a kid’s name and handing her a piece of paper take more than a minute per child, but they did it.

I had new respect for my own mother after sitting through Maggie’s tap recital. Maggie was a monkey. Her class was eleventh.

Eleventh out of thirty-eight.

I never realized how mind-numbing a three-hour dance recital in which your daughter only appeared for ninety seconds (with someone standing directly in front of her) could be. Lucky me, now I know.

Today I face my personal Sophie’s choice: Maggie’s gymnastics “parents visiting day” and Seamus’ first piano recital, occurring at the same time this afternoon- one on 12th Avenue, one on 5th. During New York City rush hour. Three miles and infinity minutes apart. It is not possible for me to attend both of these events unless I can get Molly Weasley to lend me some of her floo powder. But the tears of both my children this morning mean that I shall, nay must, attempt it.

Is it summer yet?

How’s your year-end going?

After four months of dog ownership, I am sure of one thing: getting a dog does not automatically make one a dog person. I give you Exhibit A: Marshmallow.

Yeah, she’s cute, whatever. While walking her in the pre-dawn these past few months, I have heard from people far more “dog person” than I that I “must be taking tons of pictures.”  Uh, no.  The last picture I took of Marshmallow? According to iPhoto it was eleven weeks ago, and it’s really a picture of my child in which the dog happens to appear. (The above photo was taken by a friend of a friend whom I have never met but who is, apparently, a dog person, since she is taking photos of a dog not even hers.)

One dog lover actually suggested to me that I take Marshmallow’s picture in the same place every day, and then do a hallway panorama of her absolutely adorable growth. For just a moment, I felt guilty that I had been doing nothing of the kind- until I remembered that there was no such record of the growth of my children, either, and no one had called Protective Services on me yet.

This has been the one rule that has saved my sanity during the daily trials of puppy ownership: do nothing for a baby animal that I had not done for my baby humans.

When one “expert”  told me I couldn’t possibly make the puppy sleep down the hall in an confined environment, I reminded myself that all three of my babies had done no less.

When another told me to reject heartworm pills as the work of some veterinary devil, I reminded myself that I had heard these same arguments with my fully-vaccinated children.

So no, I won’t walk her twice an hour and bathe her in pressed lavender water. No, I won’t take her picture every single day.

I’m not saying that it’s not a fully valid choice to co-sleep with your baby, or to delay vaccinations. But if I have learned anything from ten years of parenting, it is that five experts will give you five opinions, and when you toss them all out the window and do what works right for you, that’s when you’ll start living. So we’ve been winging this puppy thing, and while there are a few more presents on the carpet than I’d like, she can “sit” and “stay” and I have managed to keep my “when did I get like this” moments to a handful.

But if my childrearing experience has caused me to cast a gimlet eye upon the Dog Whisperers of our world, those same canine experts have cast new light on a few ways my parenting of humans might yet be improved.  ”Down,” my husband was saying to Marshmallow last night. “Down, I said. Get down.”

“You can’t do that,” I scolded, suddenly channeling Cesar Millan. “You give a dog a command just once. If you repeat it like that, you’re teaching her that THAT is the command, and then she’ll never listen.”

“Kind of like our kids?” he retorted.

Touché. It seems that my children think “Brush your teeth brush your teeth I said GO BRUSH YOUR TEETH” is the absolute minimum requiring any sort of response, and even that with a great roll of the eyes and an “I heard you the first time,” which is enough to send me around the bend.

But they better watch out, because starting tonight, I’m going to take a page from the Canine Catechism:

• Give the command once, and only once. (Once is enough when you are the alpha dog.)
• Don’t give the cue when disobedience is an option. When training a dog, don’t tell her  to “come” unless you can give a leash a tug to make it happen, if necessary. (If I’m yelling “brush your teeth!” at my kids- while they are wrestling in their room- disobedience is way too easy.)
• If the command is not obeyed, gently but firmly place the dog into the correct position. (To do this, it seems I’m supposed to call my kids to the bathroom, THEN tell them to brush their teeth. This kind of sucks- I prefer to yell it from the couch where I’m figuring out what I want to watch after they go to sleep- but I have to admit that approach has a high failure rate.)
• Give lavish praise when command is obeyed. (“What a good fourth grader! You brushed your teeth like your Mommy said!”)

I’ll let you know how it goes.

What has pet ownership taught you about parenting the human sort?

Our neighbors across the hall recently confessed to me that they had a good laugh one morning after hearing me yell my kids onto the elevator and out the door to school. I’m assuming it sounded something like this.

“Come on. COME ON. Do you seriously not have your shoes on? The elevator is COMING! Wait, is today flag football? Did you pack your water bottle? Get it! GET IT! We will MISS THE BUS and heaven help you BECAUSE I WILL NOT, SO HELP ME SWEET GOD.”

The reason this made my neighbors laugh was not because it was unusual– that’s the Apartment 12A Morning Zoo Soundtrack  most days. What made them laugh was that they had just the night before see me perform in an off-Broadway play that had received rave reviews, a real dream come true for me. “And then there you were pulling your hair out the next morning,” they said, still chuckling. “How far the mighty fall.”

Which all just goes to show: being a mom is really great! Whenever Mom has a moment of glory, she can count on her family to bring her right back down to earth.  Like Carrie, as soon as a mom has a prom queen moment, someone will dump a bucket of pig blood on her just so she remembers who she is. Only difference: even if Mom gets the fire-eyes, she won’t burn anything down or anything, she’ll just holler a little. Or perhaps weep.

So I wasn’t surprised when several bodily fluids conspired to sully my incipient triumph at the second annual Listen to Your Mother: NYC last weekend. But I kept on smiling. Not Maggie’s stomach flu that had her vomiting the night before, on the hour, from two to seven a.m.; not the diarrhea of our puppy, Marshmallow, whose new brand of chewy bone upset her tender stomach; no, not even an entire morning of deep-Cinderella disinfecting of our kitchen and both bathrooms could stop this moment from being just the. BEST.

This moment was pretty good too.

And then the next morning, we were all back to yelling at our kids that they were about to miss the bus. We each suffered our own get-off-your-pedestal indignities: my fellow cast member Kim Forde’s reveries were interrupted when some cashier  asked for her Price Plus card. The nerve! Plus, Kim’s son started projectile vomiting. So I guess it’s not just me.

But I fear I might be the only one mining the horror movies of my childhood as metaphors for my recent motherhood experiences. That’s a little weird.

_________________________________________

Sure, you can text $10 to the Red Cross. But if you want to know your dollars will have maximum immediate impact on those devastated by Oklahoma’s tornado, here’s some smaller charities that are there on the ground:

Team Rubicon , which has deployed teams of military veterans to assist the first responders on site

Samaritan’s Purse, recommended by Oklahoma native The Pioneer Woman, has disaster relief units and volunteers on site

And Infant Crisis Services, the OKC charity supported by this year’s Listen to Your Mother: Oklahoma City, will be providing formula, diapers, and food to all the displaced infants and toddlers.

Please consider these charities as you consider how to help. And keep in mind, as FEMA director Craig Fugate just explained during the latest OKC press conference: “Stuff isn’t as good as cash when it comes to the needs of people who have lost everything.” 

Three years ago, I went to my very first blogging conference- Blissdom. If you read the “Mommy Business Trip” story in the Wall Street Journal last week, you might think that blogging conferences are about staying in your hotel room and eating everything in the minibar, then hitting happy hour and on to oblivion.  Cause all us “mommy bloggers” are so silly, right?

Not exactly.

At my first night at that first blogging conference, I met fellow blogger Ann Imig. “I have this idea,” she said.

My first reaction: That is the best idea I have ever heard.

My second reaction: Why couldn’t I have thought of that?

My third reaction: Okay, I didn’t think of it… but come hell or high water, I *will* be part of it. 

That idea was Listen to Your Mother, a reading series in celebration of Mother’s Day that Ann brought to one city (Madison,WI) in 2010, and which will play in 24 cities this year. That’s right,  twenty-four cities! Washington, DC kicked things off this past weekend. Here’s this weekend’s schedule (click for show and ticket info):

Indianapolis May 2, 2013 at Indiana Historical Society

Providence May 4, 2013 at Providence Public Library Auditorium

Chicago May 5, 2013 at Athenaeum Theatre

Milwaukee May 5, 2013, Wehr Hall at Alverno College

Oklahoma City May 5, 2013 at Will Rogers Theatre

And on Mother’s Day itself- May 12, 2013- New York will present its second annual Listen to Your Mother show, directed by? Me.

Our cast is amazing. Our cast tells stories of motherhood that are hilarious and heartbreaking and everything in between. Our cast hails from Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts (yes, we have a cast member commuting FOUR HOURS to be in this show). Our cast is mothers, daughters, grandmothers, and a son. Our cast has published authors and “you look familiar” actors and stand-up comedians, but also people who have never done anything like this before.

And I am privileged beyond words to be a part of it.

My fellow cast member (and blogger) Kizz took this picture of me last night at rehearsal. It’s up on her blog today, with this caption:

“It’s a rare talent to honestly enjoy watching a show you’re directing instead of listening to your mind racing around all the things you still have to do. Fortunately, Amy has that talent.”

The thing is, I DON’T. I do not have the talent of enjoying the moment. And we have tons to do before our show day. But when I sit and listen to these incredible stories, nothing else matters.

When I had two children in two years, I mourned the certain death of my professionally creative self. I had taken the exit ramp from my acting career, and I was sure I’d never get it back. 

“Your work is not over,” my husband told me then. “Your work might have to be different now. But I know that your best work is still ahead of you.”

He was right. (FOR ONCE.) He was right.

LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER: NYC

Sunday, May 12th (Mother’s Day) at 5 pm

Symphony Space, 95th and Broadway

tickets $25 and available here ($30 at the door)

“It changes the way you look at people for a while. When you look at people as if everyone has a story, you will walk away forever changed.”- Ann Imig

Thank you, Ann.

I had our biannual conference with our fourth-grader’s teacher last week. My husband didn’t even come. What was the point of him taking off work to hear once again that our son displays malice toward none, good sportsmanship toward all, and penmanship almost freakishly neat? Connor is nothing if not predictable.

And indeed, this past week’s conference reconfirmed my son’s good humor, conscientiousness, and respect for all his teachers. Which made it, well, sort of a surprise when this occurred last weekend:

DAD: Connor, put those dishes in the dishwasher.

CONNOR: Why do I have to do it?

DAD: Because I told you to.

CONNOR: (under his breath) Shut up.

Pause.

DAD: What?

This wasn’t the sarcastic sort of I-couldn’t-have-heard-that-right “What”. My husband was being literal: clearly he misunderstood. Because our son had never spoken those words to an adult in his entire life.

Perhaps he had been addressing the dishwasher?

But our son did not respond.

David looked at me. I looked at him. We looked at our ten-year-old.

ME: What did you say?

Connor still wouldn’t answer. We had heard right, after all

DAD: Young man, if you think that that’s an acceptable way to speak to your father, let me tell you—

And then he stopped mid-sentence. Because our darling Boy Scout of a son? Was SMIRKING.

Now we were completely thrown. David stammered. I stammered. “Get to your room,” we said, and “good luck getting screen time this weekend,“ we said, and a few other choice phrases of parenting that seemed suddenly, newly, feeble.

When we heard his bedroom door slam behind him, we were dumbfounded.  Something’s going on, we whispered to each other. That’s not him. Is it? Was that some blood sugar thing? WHO WAS THAT KID?

Two hours later, my husband had gone out and Connor had returned to his sunny and chatty self. There must have been some tiny momentary rip in the universe, I told myself. Or maybe it was just my imagination. Just to finish shrugging it off, though, I asked:

ME:  So Connor. Can I assume you’re done talking to your parents like that?

CONNOR: (shrugs) We’ll see.

ME: “We’ll see?” Are you KIDDING me?

CONNOR: I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

And he walked out of the room.

I swear to God, it was “Danny isn’t here right now, Mrs. Torrance.”

It was that moment about halfway through anyway horror movie when the female protagonist realizes she hasn’t been imagining things, after all.

Which is always followed by another twenty minutes where nothing bad happens really, only now the female protagonist cannot shake the feeling that sh*t’s about to get REAL.

This was five days ago. No sign of the demon since then. I just had a fellow mother tell me yesterday that my son is “so polite it’s almost disgusting.”

And I nodded politely. But my eyes were all Shelley Duvall when she said it.

Parents of pre-teens, please tell me: is this how it all begins? With flashes of the dark unholy so quick you wonder if you imagined them?

Something tells me it’s about to get real.

Six months ago, I got up early to hide the NYC newspaper headlines before my kids could see them, before they could learn there was evil in the world great enough to harm two innocent children.

Four months ago, on December 15th, I turned off the television and hid the front pages again.

This morning I did it again, with the heaviest of hearts. Another child, eight-year-old Martin Richard, taken away from his parents for reasons that will never make sense to any of us.

As I typed those previous sentences, my ten-year-old looked over my shoulder at Martin’s photograph and asked me who it was.

“A little boy who really loves peace,” I said. How can I tell my sweet son, who cries over spelling tests (for which he knows all the words), about this strange new world that we live in, where children can no longer feel safe?

I don’t mean that I’m avoiding the coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings myself. I’ve done nothing all day but look at pictures of Martin, of his family, and reflect on how the unthinkable could possibly have become their new reality. This from the boston.com metro desk:

At the Adams Corner General Store, Dotty Willett, a cousin of the boy’s mother, said that when she first heard the news that a child had died in the explosions, her heart broke to think of the poor family. “Then I found out we were the family,” she said, her voice choked with emotion.

Those of us parenting young children in 2013 can imagine that happening for any of us, all too easily.  David Wheeler, parent of 6-year-old Newtown victim Ben Wheeler, told us just last week:

It’s going to happen again. Every time, it’s somebody else’s school, it’s somebody else’s community, it’s somebody else’s town. Until one day, you wake up and it’s not.

It doesn’t make sense that this could happen, ever. But now it feels like it’s happening all the time.

I know I can’t keep all three of my kids in the same bubble. My five-year-old doesn’t have to know anything about this, and if I have anything to do with it, won’t have to. But that ten-year-old… I knew someone would be talking on the school bus this morning, and I wanted him to have some baseline version of the truth from me first.

“Something bad happened in Boston,” I told him this morning, after not changing the TV channel quickly enough when he entered the kitchen.

Yes, it was a bomb. No, they don’t know who did it. Hopefully they will find out. No, they don’t know why.

The whole time I was telling him, I was trying so hard to hold it together, to not show him how sad and scared I was. But even greater than my fear of scaring him was my fear that this would  fit into his developing world view all too easily. Over at The Broad Side, Joanne Bamberger wrote today about her own daughter’s seemingly nonplussed reaction:

I don’t know how to process the fact that our kids — or, at least, my kid — takes the initial news of a horrific tragedy like the one in Boston as something that is just a matter of course in her life as she knows it.

I couldn’t tell my son who this beautiful eight-year-old child was, and see the devastation on his face. I also couldn’t face the possibility of seeing any sort of acceptance in his eyes, that this is how we live now.

It just can’t be.

Have you told your children about what has happened in Boston? How do their ages affect what you think they should know?

Here are a few ways to support the Richard family- Bill and Denise, and their children Jane and Henry- in the coming days and weeks:

• send a sympathy card to them c/o St Ann Parish Neponset, 243 Neponset Ave, Dorchester, MA 02122.
• send a check to The Richard Family Fund, Meetinghouse Bank, 2250 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester Ctr, MA 20124.
• leave a message of support on this Facebook page.

Almost four months later.

I can’t believe that there’s still any debate about what needs to be done.

I can’t believe that these children’s deaths haven’t been enough to change the conversation.

If we can’t enact sensible gun controls in this country now, then when? They deserve a vote. That’s so incredibly reasonable, so nothing to ask- and even now, we’re supposed to accept that Congress will pander and dither and give us half-measures that will change nothing?

I have the privilege of knowing Francine and David Wheeler, the parents of Ben Wheeler, who died on December 14th. After having this unthinkable tragedy thrust upon them, they have been speaking for all of us- for all of our children- with incredible clarity and grace. They are in Washington, DC this week. They were on 60 Minutes last week. Here’s what David said then.

“I would like every parent in this country—that’s 150 million people. I would like them to look in the mirror and that’s not a figure of speech. I mean find a mirror in your house and look in it and look in your eyes and say ‘this will never happen to me, this will never happen in my school, this will never happen in my community,’ and see if you actually believe that. And if there’s a shadow, the slightest shadow of doubt in what you’ve said? Think about what you can do to change that. It is going to happen again. It’s going to happen again. Every time, it’s somebody else’s school, it’s somebody else’s community, it’s somebody else’s town. Until one day, you wake up and it’s not.”

I don’t need that mirror: it’s the certainty that this could have happened to any of us that made THIS tragedy so different for anyone who is a parent. When any one of us brought our children to school that next Monday, we were terrified. (At the time, I thought I was alone in feeling that way. So I wrote about it. No: not alone at all.)

As time has gone by, I have felt increasing frustration that there’s nothing I can *do* to make things different this time, that the donating and the marching- and the tears- are not making a difference at all.

But the only change that can’t occur is the change that is never sought.

This week, Francine has asked everyone she knows to share this message. Here’s a way to change things. Today. It will take you less than half an hour. I’m going to do it as soon as I publish this post.

The time has come. Please pass this on to your friends and family, and ask them to either write and/or call their Senator over the next 7-10 days. We expect the discussion on the bill to start Monday, April 8th and go for 2 weeks. 

You can call or write or email multiple times — as many requests as you are comfortable making. 

Use this template for a letter to Congress.

Use this template for a phone call to Congress (all you do is call one central number and ask to be connected to your rep’s office.)

 Below are key States we would love to get engaged into the Senate voting process:

• Alaska
• Colorado
• Illinois
• Iowa
• Maine
• New Mexico
• Oklahoma
• West Virginia
• Arizona
• Georgia
• Indiana
• Louisiana
• Maine
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Mexico
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Tennessee
• Utah
• Arkansas
• Montana
• South Carolina

Please take a moment to consider and understand how important you are to this process.  We are the foundation of the government we’ve elected and we can make our voices heard.

Please join me in doing this: for Francine, for David, for Nate, for Ben.

When last I posted here, I pledged that I would have a hot, inefficient, and imperfect trip to Disney World with my three children, sprinkled with managed expectations.

How it turned out: not hot. Quite imperfect. And– despite my pledge– completely and totally efficient.

Disney World is probably not the right place to cure oneself of overplanneritis, because the truth is, the better you plan, the more you’ll see. Things like Fast Passes only work because the majority of Magic Kingdom-goers do seem to wander about, getting in line for whatever ride they happen upon next. Ninety minute wait? With three cranky children in tow and no place to sit down? Oh well.

Perhaps I would be a better person if I could happily tolerate ninety minutes in a line, but I’d seriously rather stab a knitting needle in my eye. And my kids are no better. And so, yes, I admit it, my absolutely favorite part of our trip to Disney World was gaming the system to maximize times on rides and minimize waits in line. Here’s what worked:

• go early. Going late probably works too– I wouldn’t know, since we were all in our beds by 9:30 every night. But if your kids are up at dawn like mine are, you can ride Expedition Everest at Animal Kingdom three times in a row before the families with teenagers have their teeth brushed back at their hotels. Oh, and you’ll park ten steps from the entrance- another major boon. Go early.
• eat early. If you’re on rides by 9 a.m., you’ll be ready for lunch at 11:30- while the restaurants are just starting to fill up. You’ll be leaving when the 12:30 crush is just arriving- and that means all the lines for rides will be shorter.
• plan ahead. A little. Before we entered the parks each day each member of our family came up with one ride or attraction they really wanted to experience. We got those five things done. Anything on top was gravy because we’d already done what we wanted the most.
• get this app, which not only tells you the current wait time for each ride, but also predicts which parks will be the most and least crowded on any given day. Walt Disney World has its own app, and it will get better- but on this trip I only used that one to make dining reservations. The unofficial “Lines” app may be one of those ”free” apps that then costs you $11.99 to use with anything nearing full usefulness- but it’s totally worth it.
• don’t wait in line for the parade. People stake out seats an hour before it starts- but we happened upon one as it was starting and stood directly behind those people, who had been wilting in the sun for some time. You’ll be able to see it fine.
• use Fast Pass early and often. Only chumps wait an hour in line for a ride that has Fast Pass. My husband and I took turns being Fast Pass couriers- the rest of the family would get in line for a non-Fast Pass attraction, the other would dart across the Magic Kingdom to get the passes for Splash Mountain or whatever, then join the rest of the family in the line where they’d been waiting. It sounds crazy to criss-cross the park like that, but doing it without the kids is easy. (And despite my childhood conception of the Magic Kingdom as absolutely enormous, it is in actuality one-seventh the size of Central Park. Get some exercise.)
• use the Ride Swap whenever you have a Fast Pass for a ride with a height requirement. This allows parents to ride one at a time with just the children who are old enough to ride. But the money part is, those kids get to ride twice, once with each parent. All you have to do is ask.

It might not be possible to do Disney in a laid-back way. Or at least, it’s not possible for me. But I did get to savor moments like this.

Maggie met “the REAL Tangled.”

And that’s why any of us are crazy enough to do Disney in the first place, right?

In the past, I have said there’s no greener garden than motherhood in which perfectionism can grow like kudzu.

Still true. But there may be a close secondary Paradise of Perfectionists: a trip to Disney World.

We are off to Orlando for three days tomorrow morning. The kids are excited but not vomiting-excited. We planned this trip at the last minute, mostly because we were already going to be in Florida for ten days, and by the next time we get here, Maggie may be too big for princesses once and for all. If she’s not too big already. As I tucked her in last night:

ME: Maggie, are you getting excited to see the princesses?

Maggie looks at me with pity. She gestures for me to bend so she can whisper in my ear.

MAGGIE: **They’re really just girls wearing costumes Mommy.**

Deny, deny, deny.

ME: What? No way! I mean sometimes princesses are just people in costumes. But Disney World is the place where they’re all actually real!

Maggie ponders this. Finally:

MAGGIE: Okay. There’s like a one percent chance they’ll be real.

This was a lesson for me in pre-setting expectations. If I stand in line with Maggie for ninety minutes so she can experience the wonders of Ariel’s Grotto Fantasy Meet & Greet in the New Fantasyland, and if, upon our exit, Maggie goes with the girl-in-costume verdict, I am hereby declaring that I will not die a little inside.

Nor will I snap at my eight-year-old when he says he’s hot.

Nor will I tell my ten-year-old we’re not riding Space Mountain AGAIN if 1) my other kids are fine with that and 2) it’s making him happy.

This will be hard for me, because I am a planner. I am a researcher. After I entered the Disney 1-800 customer service vortex and booked a hotel, I checked TripAdvisor, and thanks to Jesse D. of Rockport, ME, willingly re-entered said vortex to find a new hotel. The “main pool” at the first hotel I had chosen was under construction, and while I will probably be really pissed if we spend more than twenty minutes of our seventy-two Disney hours in a swimming pool, the idea of not having the OPTION to swim, at Disney prices, was not something I was about to tolerate. That would not be Disney magic. That would not be perfect.

See, that’s much more my style. I have downloaded not one but two iPhone apps that estimate wait times for rides, enabling one to plan a Magical Day with maximum efficiency. And I could have those apps open every minute we’re in those parks, planning the most important, crowd-zig-zagging thing we should be doing at that moment, rather than just be.

I am telling myself today that we’re better off going on four rides a day, waiting in lines that are for chumps, eating at our fifth choice restaurant and staying up way past our kids’ bedtimes, rather than have a “perfect” trip with me in drill sergeant mode. That’s what my kids want, and heaven knows that’s what my husband wants (although he will be asking me where’s the best place near the Haunted Mansion for some salmon and steamed vegetables, very little oil. He will have to manage his expectations as well.)

Most of all, it’s what I want.

I hereby declare I will have an hot, inefficient, imperfect trip to Disney World, and that I will enjoy it thoroughly.

That being said give me your tips below.

Or at least wish me luck.