Disneyland Paris!!

Frankly, I am shocked we went. I have spent much of the last year trying to talk Tim into this and I had all but given up. Suddenly our landlords announced that they'd like to replace our kitchen floor and wouldn't it be more convenient for everyone if it could be done whilst we were on holiday? Yes! Our kitchen floor is still crumbling and orange but we did make it to Disneyland. The floor sitch is TBD. Don't worry, I'll let you all know.

So, its about 2 1/2 hours by high speed train to Paris from London. The train travels under the Channel (though in a tunnel, as opposed to just in the open water like Abby guessed) and the trip goes pretty fast, particularly if you are on the Disney Express as the train drops you off right at Disneyland. They took our luggage right from the station to our hotel room for us which freed us up to go directly to the park and start spending money...

Above is a picture of the Disneyland Hotel where we stayed. It was a fantastic hotel with Disney characters around much of the time, pools and, most importantly, is right at the gates of the park!
First stop, Sleeping Beauty's castle. This building is the centerpiece of the park and the story of Aurora is told through stained glass windows and tapestries along the interior walls of the castle. Besides Sophie, Tim and Abby, our friends Charlotte and her daddy Mike are also posing in front of the evil fairy, Maleficent.

Sophie wasn't big enough to go on the Peter Pan ride. However, she was big enough to know that she was missing out on something - totally different than last summer when she was happy enough to sit in her stroller and watch Abby on all the rides at the local carnivals that rolled through town. So, to keep with the spoil-the-kids-rotten theme of the three day weekend, I bought Sophie a Minnie Mouse lollipop the size of her head. Believe me, it only caused more problems later. Did I honestly think that Abby would think that a stilly Peter Pan ride was a fair trade for the biggest lolly in the world? Hmmm... sometimes I shock myself at my stupidity.

Here is Abby and I in front of the afore mentioned Sleeping Beauty castle. We had a little time to kill while we were waiting for a princess autograph and photo opportunity. Taking pictures and eating some popcorn was our strategy to deal with the 90 minute wait. Even worse, and to Abby, far more tragic, Belle (from Beauty and The Beast) was the princess up to bat when it was finally our turn. She had been the first out there, followed by Snow White (who was substantially more exciting to Abby and Charlotte). I made the mistake of saying that surely there would be a third princess out by the time we were at the front of the line such as Cinderella or Ariel. Nope. Belle had a short break and kicked Snow White off the stage. Abby refused to meet her (something to do with a storyline on her Disney Princess Leapster) so Sophie was shoved up on stage against her will to get a picture and autograph. We were not leaving empty-handed after and hour and a half and I wasn't about to be the creepy adult getting a princess autograph by myself (and yes, we actually saw that! Yikes!)

There is our Snow White. And Dopey. If only she could have held out another 15 minutes.

Good job Sophie!

Wait! What is Mommy doing in the Disney parade?

The parade was a fantastic way to see all of our favorite characters - they even had a villain float (that's Baddies to you Brits). Maleficent was looking especially evil that day, don't you think?

Here are the kids getting ready to go out to dinner on Saturday night. Sophie had her Marie shirt on from Aristocats, Charlotte was decked out in Sleeping Beauty garb, Abby got to wear her Easter dress with some new Cinderella accessories and little James had on his manly electric guitar shirt! During dinner at the hotel we were able to meet Chip and Dale, Goofy, Pluto, Eyeore, Perla and Suzy from Cinderella (mice).

Of course Minnie and Mickey were in high demand. Sophie got to meet them both several times (Abby too!). It was just Donald and Daisy that we really didn't see. They must have been on vacation in Florida for the weekend I guess.

We got to see Minnie in her iconic polka dot dress too!

We decided to have one more go at a character meal on Sunday. We sauntered over to Frontierland for our meal at the Lucky Nugget. Mickey, Pluto and Goofy joined us. They did a great job of spending time with us. However, Mickey did traumatize Sophie briefly when he was teasing her and stole her milk cup. If that's one thing that you don't do to Sophie is screw with her milk!! She eventually forgave him though. How can you really stay mad at Mickey?

That's about as close as we got to the elusive Mary Poppins and Burt. Oh, I can't tell you how much she is loved in our house. Sophie even has a plush doll version of her. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is ONLY Sophie's most favorite song in the ENTIRE world. At least we did get this guy's picture and autograph:

He cleverly signed the autograph book: PENGUIN

This picture is my one moment of parental lunacy at Disneyland. Princess Ariel, aka Most Beloved Of All Disney Characters And Also The Most Difficult to Hunt Down. I spotted her as we were walking to another part of the park. She was being whisked away by one of her handlers, nearing a gate, never to be seen again. I ran ahead, tried to politely block her exit and begged, along with Abby for her autograph and a picture. She had to ever so sweetly decline our request but I did snap this pic anyway. In the end, Abby and Charlotte were a bit heart broken since there is no one more exciting thatn Ariel. They did get right up to her though and as we walked away, Abby said: "Mommy, she was SO beautiful!" Off the group went with heavy hearts but the mommies went back to try to find Ariel again to ask one last time for her signature in the books. And what do you know (wink, wink) we were able to talk her into signing the books for our girls. Voila! Broken hearts were mended.

Here's our big girl waiting to change tubes at 10:30 at night on Sunday back in London. She's a pro, isn't she?

Here is what our other sweetheart was doing. She stayed awake the entire time on the train back to England and within 3 minutes of settling back in her stroller, perhaps before even clearing customs at Saint Pancras she was passed out from shear exhaustion. She had 3 napless days and short on sleep nights. How many minutes of fussing at Disneyland? Zero. What a good girl!

The trip finally wore down Tim too. Just a quick catnap while we were waiting for the District Line. Back to Chiswick and our own beds!

So I Thought This Was My Biggest Problem

I mean really... I thought this was going to be the challenge for the day. I took these pictures early in the morning last Friday (March 5th) because even I was amazed at Sophie's hair. We are used to crazy hair in the mornings here, but this was spectacular! I was gearing up for detangler, several brushes and determining my distraction method for the 20 minutes I was going to need to get through that rat's nest.

Little did I know that this would be the least of my problems! As soon as I got the kids dressed for the day, teeth brushed and, of course, hair tamed we set out for Sainsbury's. I had the car that day and so I wanted to take full advantage and drive there so I could get a good amound of groceries. It is always best to stay out of the grocery stores over the weekend and it is my personal rule to limit my trips during the week as well, since everyone knows that going shopping with two kids is akin to going to the dentist.

So we were off. I had a plan. I was going to bribe the children with sugar (a lolly from Starbuck's) and get in and out in 45 minutes. I wanted to buy things that were annoying (yet, unfortunately, not impossible, as I know too well) to get home while pushing a stroller such as toilet paper, paper towels, cat litter, cat food, a giant package of diapers. At the entrance to Sainsbury's we ran into a neighbor and a classmate of Abby's: Joe and his mom and brother. (As a sidenote, Abby mentioned to Tim last weekend that Joe was officially her boyfriend at school.) Naturally Joe and Abby wanted to hang out and Sophie was placated by the sweet fruitiness of the sucker slime drooling out of her mouth so I quickly (and calmly) shopped as fast as I could with a sticky 2 year old and two four year olds running somewhat under control through the isles. In no time I was done, found Joe's mom and dropped him off and got in the line to check out. This is where my day changed. I was bagging my groceries, listening to my kids being good, entertaining themselves (but not seeing them) and putting in my PIN for my debit card when suddenly I heard the worst noise I have ever heard: a giant crash and both my girls screaming and crying hysterically. I turned around to see that the metal and full cart had tipped over on its side and had landed on Abby's face. Sophie was also in the cart but was relatively unhurt (later we found some nasty bruises on the top of her thighs) but was completely tramatized. A woman from behind me in the line helped be lift up the cart off of Abby and I think another person helped Abby off the ground. I looked down to see blood pouring from her face. She had the beginnins of a black eye and a gash that went down to the bone. The paramedics were called, paper towels were handed to me to me to press onto Abby's face, Joe's mom took Sophie from the cart and it was all I could do to figure out how to get ahold of Tim (which I did poorly, since I wasn't fully functioning - sorry Tim!). Two sets of paramedics cleared Abby at the store to travel to the hospital by way of car versus ambulance so we decided that would be the least traumatic. After getting sorted out and my brain working again, the girls and I made it out to the car to grab Tim from work and head to the hospital. Another mom/aquaintance that was at Sainsbury's helped me get the postcode for the hospital into the navigation system while I was buckling in the girls in. After the mom went on her way, I realized that the gps had drained our severely shoddy car battery and the car was dead! The stress of the situation overcame me and I finally started crying while I called Tim to get someone to drive over to jump the car. About 30 minutes later we were soon on the way after dropping Sophie and Tim off at the house.

Abby and I went to West Middlesex Hospital in Islesworth Twickenham (West London) and were able to see a pediatric emergency doctor in a fairly short amount of time. Luckily, he agreed that a shot to numb her in the face wouldn't go over very well, so he opted to order glue and steri strips. Abby was a brave girl and only cried when the glue stung her. This is a picture of her while she was waiting to get x-rayed. No broken facial bones and it could have been substantially worse, should she have gotten hit and inch higher. Each day the bruise gets a little more nasty and the cut looks better. Sophie still talks about the trauma and hopefully will forget it someday. Probably only to be undug at some future therapy session, right?

Abby was so excited to go back to school today to see her friends that she missed on Friday (and get a new library book!) but they sent her back home with me because they didn't want to have to worry about her reinjuring herself. Oh, she was sad (I wasn't, is that bad?). I was worried too. Now her next trauma is that we have big plans to go to Disneyland in Paris this weekend and she is disturbed that the princesses will see her like this. I tell her, they'll be just glad she is ok.