Two words – Olive Oil. We had this unfortunate experience when my youngest daughter had her first play date with a friend from school at our house. My daughter has two little dwarf hamsters which weren’t the best pet pick for a 6 year old. They are super fast and don’t even come close to ever sitting still.

The only way she can hold them is by squeezing them in her fist with only their eyes showing. So, needless to say, they frequently escape and “Catch the Hamster” is the game they end up playing. Well, it was no different when she had this play date. The Catch the Hamster game started. But this time they were having a whole lot of trouble finding her.

So, I called my husband to come down and help. He ended up reclining all the recliners so we could see better under the couches. I laid down on the floor in front of the recliners just to see if I could see her running back and forth. That’s when I see this white box vibrating. The recliners have these white boxes underneath them that hold some of the mechanics of the chairs.

But this box looked different than the other white boxes so I mentioned it to my husband. He reached under the couch and pulled the box out and said yep she’s in here. It was a glue trap! Apparently, our pest control company put this there to catch spiders but they never told us they put it there and really they should’ve known better than to put that there b/c we have hamsters. 🙁  They could’ve easily put that up higher on the window sills or something.  Oh well – too late now.

Immediately, my daughter starts screaming and freaking out. Nooooo, not Marshmalloooow!!!! Aaaaaaah!!!! And it looks like she melts into the ground like the Wicked Witch of the West did in the Wizard of Oz.  I try to tell her we have to stay calm to be able to help her. And her friend tries to calm her down too. My husband asks me to get the scissors so I grab the heavy duty kitchen shears. He gets to work trying to cut the box apart so we can have better access to her.

We move to the bathroom and are all watching him cutting the box apart. Meanwhile, I’m thinking the girls shouldn’t be watching this but how do I get them out of here since they were so concerned.  She had gotten stuck to the bottom and the side of the box so when he opened the box up she was literally splayed out on the box on her side/back and totally helplessly stuck. At this point, I tell the girls to run up to the bedroom and play in there while we give Marshmallow a bath. I told them she was going to be fine. But I was pretty sure she was going to die. She was so stretched out and not moving AT ALL.  That glue is strong!

My husband struggles to cut the box apart b/c the scissors are sticking to the glue so he asks me to help him. But I was kind of freaking out b/c I was worried that he was going to try to pull this little hamster off the box and she was going to rip in two. Or he was going to get some of his tools from the toolbox and try to saw her off the box or something. So I take off running upstairs and tell him I’ll be right back.

I run to the computer and google, “How To Rescue A Hamster From A Glue Trap” and multiple articles pop up surprisingly enough. Basically, they said Baby Oil, Olive Oil, many different types of oils. The first thing I could find was Olive Oil so I ran downstairs and doused the hamster in Olive Oil being careful to avoid her eyes. Then ran back up to see if I can find any other types of oil in case that didn’t work. Then I hear Bryon yelling for me to help him again.

So, I run back downstairs and see little Marshmallow sitting in the sink and cleaning herself. I think – it’s a miracle!!!! I did not think she was going to come out of that unscathed. At that point, the girls come back down and I tell them they can see Marshmallow now. They were so relieved that she was alive. And I was relieved that this play date didn’t end with an animal dying – talk about traumatic. They run off to go play again.

Bryon told me that all he had to do was massage the oil in a bit and he was able to pretty easily release her – it’s like the oil dissolved the sticking properties of the glue. We then decide we need to wash some of this oil off of her. So, we got the water coming out of the tap to be luke warm and put some baby shampoo on her. She was sitting in Bryon’s hands so still under the running water and moving her head back and forth like she was Stevie Wonder.

It was the cutest thing but at the same time it was alarming to me because she normally doesn’t sit that still. I was starting to wonder if that glue trap had poison in it or something because she wasn’t acting right. But turns out she just liked the warm water because she is fine now.

She was greasy for about a week and we joked that we were going to now have to call her Smore because much of her white fur got ripped off and she was now more black than white. She is now white and fluffy again. All’s well that ends well.

We finally did it!  We did what I said we’d never do!  We went to Disney!  🙂  And it was actually fun!  I don’t know why but I just envisioned waiting in lines and hot and whining, etc.  But the kids were such troopers.

I thought Disney vacations were only for Type A people, but we managed just fine – though I did get some advice beforehand from my Type A friend and a thorough list of rides to get fast passes for.  🙂  Therefore, we had fast passes for all the main rides with typically long waits so we were able to get right on.  That saved the day for sure.  I would recommend not going if you don’t have those. 

The kids tried to complain about the minimal wait we had in the fast pass line but when I told them – seriously, look at all the people in that other line (who were also looking at us rather grouchily) – it shut them right up.  Boom!  I did tell the kids that it’s a once in a lifetime trip so hopefully they get the hint or brainwashing that I don’t want to ever go back.

Next vacation, we’re hitting the beach – though I can imagine with kids even the beach is going to be high stress – maybe, especially the beach.  Whatever, details.

We did the quick service dining plan which was amazing although I definitely gained 10 lbs.  We had so much food with that plan.  There was definitely no worry about going hungry even with kids – they were stuffed the whole time – we made sure of it.  The goal was to not hear, “I’m hungry!” the whole vacation.  We were more like – oh look!  There’s another snack cart!  Get whatever you want!  Boom!  That boom sound is for a parenting win.  

If you plan Disney right there’s lots of parenting wins.  🙂  And make sure you take lots of pictures so the kids know you did all this work when they were little.  :-p  We did order the picture package they offer, but we sometimes forgot to upload the pictures after the rides (remember that I’m not Type A and neither is my husband), so I didn’t find it to be that worthwhile.  There wasn’t many pictures on there.

We ended up having about 30 snacks leftover at the end so we went to the hotel cafe and got a bunch of snacks for the road.  Our favorite hotels to eat at were the Contemporary and Port Orleans – French Quarter.  Although we only ate at the Contemporary and Port Orleans – just kidding, we also ate at Port Riverside.  :-p  Port Riverside was also good just found the others to be better.  I personally LOVE Cajun food so that’s why I liked Port Orleans so much.  I ate so much gumbo while there I honestly felt like I was in New Orleans.

The food was so good or maybe I was just so grateful to not have to cook that I thought everything was delicious.  The French Quarter hotel has beignets with chocolate (it’s called coffee sauce but it tastes like chocolate) or you can get caramel dipping sauce.  They were good.  And 3 of them only count as 1 snack – can’t beat that.  I guess that’s how we gained so much weight – er, had so many snacks leftover.

I do have to say that if you get the Quick Service dining plan, you will feel like a second class citizen. You will walk by the people sitting in the fancy restaurants sipping their wine in their nice seats at their nice table – all cozy and not at all frazzled.

And meanwhile, you will have to either physically fight someone for a seat at a quick service restaurant or eat on the curb b/c there is no seating for the quick service diners. Well, there is but it’s limited. And if you go when  everyone in the world is there like we did, then you will not find a seat. But I would do the quick service dining again b/c it was cheaper and we were still well fed. :-p

We booked a 6-day park pass and stayed at Port Riverside hotel which is on site.  The reason we decided to stay on site is because we were driving from Missouri to Florida and didn’t want to have to worry about driving and parking once we got there.  They had shuttles to take us to the park, etc.  And they have extra magic hours which I thought we were going to use but we didn’t.

Before the trip, I was really motivated thinking about all we were going to do from 8AM to 11PM (including the extra magic hours) but when it came down to actually doing all the things, it was a little too exhausting.  :-p  I witnessed many couples arguing – they were probably trying to take advantage of magic hours – it’s definitely not the happiest place on Earth for adults at times, but overall it can be good.  :-p

Just pace yourself and don’t try to do everything.  That’s why we booked a 6-day park pass b/c we figured if we didn’t fit something in then we could cover it on the last 2 days or just hang out at the hotel pool for those 2 days – either way.  The most important thing is to be flexible so you don’t kill each other.  :-p

This was our itinerary:

Day 1: Magic Kingdom

Fast Passes:

Space Mountain: 10:25AM to 11:25AM

Splash Mountain: 12:55PM to 1:55PM

Seven Dwarfs Mine Train Roller Coaster: 3:20 to 4:20PM

Day 2: Epcot

Fast Passes:

Soarin: 10:35AM to 11:35AM

Mission Space: 12:45AM to 1:45PM

Spaceship Earth: 2PM to 3PM

Ate at the Contemporary for dinner (the best).

Day 3: Hollywood Studios

Fast Passes:

Star Tours: 9:55AM to 10:55AM

Toy Story Mania: 11:25AM to 12:25PM

Rockin Roller Coaster: 1:10PM to 2:10PM

Day 4 (July 4th):  We were tired and it was rainy so we just went up to Disney Springs and shopped.  We watched Solo the Star Wars movie.  Went back up to Magic Kingdom at night to try to see the fireworks.  This was a bad idea.  It was way too crowded.  We ended up leaving before fireworks started.

Day 5: Animal Kingdom

Fast Passes:

Avatar Flight of Passage: 11:15AM to 12:15PM (our favorite ride of the whole trip)

Kilimanjaro Safari: 3:05PM to 4:05PM

Festival of the Lion King: 4:30 to 5:30PM arrival (wouldn’t do this one again)

Day 6: Typhoon Lagoon (water park) – got rained out.  The rain was sporadic there.  It would rain one minute and the sun would be shining the next.  But this day, there was lightning and they kept closing the rides so it didn’t work out.  My oldest daughter got to go down one slide and then they closed it.  🙁  So, we just went back to the hotel pool and played there.

We are now bike training experts.  Two kids down and one to go.  I’ve got the expert tutorial on how to train your kids to ride their bike right here.  And I do hope you know that I am joking.

#1: Make sure you have a proper, functioning bike. The first bike we tried with on the first kid, someone gave to her as a gift and they got it from the secondhand store. Turned out, it wasn’t functioning properly. My husband spent a year using that to teach our child until he realized the bike was the problem. Talk about frustrating for both kid and parent.  I’m sure our kid probably thought – bikes suck.  So, don’t try with second hand bikes is my recommendation.  And also try to make sure that the bike is a proper fit – if the bike is too big then that will intimidate them as well.

#2: Have Fun. This is the hardest part b/c bike training will break you, especially if you have multiple kids. I remember when I was a kid and my dad was bike training me. I didn’t realize it then, but now I know he had the patience of a saint.  He just stayed silent instead of saying what he was really thinking – I never knew how hard that was until I had kids.

I remember being so proud of myself that I was riding a bike without training wheels that I wanted to show my mom. I rode around the front yard in the grass, my head swollen with pride, and promptly ran smack into a low lying tree branch with my forehead.  I was lucky it was my forehead b/c that’s made of steel and pretty expansive. :-p I landed flat on my back.  My mom just turned around slowly and went back inside – I could tell my Dad was going to get it.

My roller blading experience wasn’t any better..  My husband broke his wrist b/c of my roller blading skills or lack thereof.  I have a strategy of throwing myself in the grass instead of using that rubber knob that doesn’t stop anyone. I’m convinced people stop by magic on roller blades.  My husband didn’t realize my strategy of drop and roll instead of using magic and tried to catch me – thereby breaking his wrist. Good thing the kids only get half their athletic genes from me. :-p   

#3: Demonstrate. Don’t be afraid to get on that kid’s bike and show them how it’s done with lots of horsing around. This helps break up some of the tension. If you can fake a fall without hurting yourself, you get extra credit points. :-p

#4: Try, try again.  If they don’t get it this year, they’ll get it next year.  Don’t be afraid to stop for the year and try again next year if things aren’t going well.  Sometimes, they just aren’t ready yet or you just aren’t ready yet ;-).

How you know you are winning? You do so well with the first child that the second child asks you not to bike train her.  She wants her older sister to do it or anybody but you. That’s a win win.  Below is a small video clip of my husband demonstrating to my daughter how not to ride a bike.  For some reason, she kept throwing herself off the bike to stop instead of using the brakes.  It was really scary, I thought she was going to break a bone – good thing kids are made of rubber.  So, of course, my husband had to give a demonstration of what not to do.

Here’s a video of my daughter dive bombing off her bike for no reason (this was about the 20th time she did it):

And here’s a video of my husband (I think he’d lost his mind by this point in the day) and trying to demonstrate what not to do.  I couldn’t look at him without laughing for the rest of the weekend:

Here’s a video of my oldest daughter becoming the newest instructor to her sister:

And now, years later, we have our final bike rider in the family and we were able to achieve our dream of biking the Katy trail as a family last summer. It started out rough because although our daughter had learned to ride in a parking lot, riding on a trail was a different experience. It was a two-way trail which she hadn’t experienced before, so every time bike riders were coming toward her, she threw herself into a ditch – hmmm, wonder where she got that from?

My husband was a bit frazzled so I had to step in here. Sometimes you have to save the other parent. Eventually, we were able to talk to her and figured out why she was throwing herself off the trail and I had her follow directly behind me and focus on me and not the people coming towards her. She was so brave and didn’t give up. Knees all scraped up and frazzled, she made it all the way to the restaurants in downtown St Charles and we had a nice lunch at a Mexican restaurant and some ice cream at an ice cream shop. Super proud that day, but best of all I could see my daughter was beaming with pride herself. So, it was all worth it. This gravel trail does instill some grit in you.

Ever get reminded of adult problems when your kids are having kid problems? Ever get that feeling while you are lecturing your child about something that you are actually lecturing yourself? This blog post is starting to sound like an ad for a prescription.  :-p  But it’s not, unfortunately.  I’ll call these Freaky Friday moments, like the movie.  I get that feeling quite often as well as my children frequently turn the tables on me mid-lecture or even lecture me themselves now.  In this way, we keep each other in check. I can’t get away with anything anymore and neither can they – not without a good lecture, that is. I even have a little box I like to stand on – just kidding. Here are some of our Freaky Friday moments:

Getting injured:
One morning my daughter got hurt while monkeying around with her sister. She hurt her bum. So, I unwisely, decide to lecture her after her other sisters head to school. She was complaining about her bum hurting and I told her she has to be careful when monkeying around because that’s when she usually gets hurt (not my best logic, I know, b/c monkeying around implies not being careful, but whatever – details..). Her response: ya, well you need to be careful in the shower because you could be hurt in there – I saw a commercial about it. Really?!? Was it one of those fallen and can’t get up commercials? B/c that’s not funny.. Touche.. Don’t mess with that one – she’s got ammo.

Words of wisdom:
Words of wisdom from my child one morning when I was particularly grouchy: “You just have to be like Frosty the Snowman!”. She begins singing in a cute, chipper, and loud 4 year old voice before I’d had my coffee: “Frosty the snowman was a jolly happy soul…” I had to keep myself from explaining, “but he was a fairy tale they say..” and even if he wasn’t he probably had an entire pot of coffee or something else before he was that jolly. I mean, why’d he have a pipe? Now that song is back in my head – thumpetty, thump, thump, thumpetty, thump, thump is the sound of kids upstairs..

Shopping:
I was feeling very low energy one day so I decided we would just take a field trip to Wal-Mart and kill two birds with one stone.  I get some groceries and play it off like it’s a fun outing to “Wally-mart”.  Turns out Wal-Mart shopping with the kids takes the most energy.

I spent most of my time asking them if they are in someone’s way. I feel like I should pay someone to run them over with a shopping cart one day so that they will have an impactful moment in their life that will help them to remember to check if they are in someone’s way. Ok, that’s a little harsh – maybe just bump into them with a shopping cart and give them a dirty look or something. I’m surprised that hasn’t happened already – what usually happens is the inconvenienced customer gives me a dirty look. And I want to tell people, you don’t know how I’ve tried – trust me I feel your pain. :-p I feel like me reminding them constantly to get out of people’s way saves them from the consequences that would actually help them think for themselves. 

But I digress – as I was saying – then we pass by the toy aisle and of course they NEED to spend some of their allowance money. One child was seriously considering this poop emoji stuffed pillow for her room.. Well, technically, it would match b/c her room colors are pink and brown.. I had this thought that maybe I could find some more poop themed decor for her room and make it look real put together.

This definitely parallels to adult hood. When I feel like spending some money, I spend a whole lot of time in the colored box aisle looking for the perfectly colored storage boxes or decorative pillows. I will stand there for hours staring at the pillows – it’s kind of crazy-making like shopping for toys is. And do I really need them? – no. The girls remind me of that everytime we go shopping for home decor just like I remind them of that everytime we go near a toy aisle.  They are like, ugh – Mommy, you aren’t even going to put anything in the boxes!  Which is true, in fact, I like the way the boxes look but I never actually get around to organizing.  :-p  I just like to stage the house like I’m organized but really everything is hidden in closets inside Wal-mart bags and completely unlabeled.

Making the Bed:
One night, my child’s idea of making the bed is covering it in 4 blankets and 5 strategically placed stuffed animals-and by strategically placed I mean they looked like they were set up to have a tea party. When I ask her to get in the bed she says, “How do I get in?”. Um I don’t know – very carefully.. Then, everytime a stuffed animal got knocked over she proceeded to have what appeared to be a seizure or some kind of possession for which I might need to call an exorcist.. Poor toddlers- why do they have to make life so hard for themselves? It was actually painful to watch..

But then I got to thinking that this is why I don’t actually make my bed because I sort of feel the same way with all the decorative pillows, throws,etc..😛 Now, how do I get in? I don’t want to mess this up. Maybe I’ll go sleep on the couch. We do the same thing to ourselves as adults, eh?

We promised our kids we’d take them to a water park one last time before school starts and wanted to try some place new.  So, we went to Raging Rivers in Grafton,IL.  It was our first time there.  The scenery was beautiful.  It’s built on a hill so you get nice views of the Mississippi river.  The food is also good.  We had some Mexican food.  $5.99 for tacos – be still my heart!

I have to say though, we do know how to make an entrance.  Upon arrival, as we are walking into the water park, a huge bee lands on my daughter’s bathing suit bottoms.  My other daughter comes over laughing telling me there’s a bee on her sister.  I’m like what?!? -you need to get it off her!  I turn around and there’s my daughter petrified and shaking holding her swim suit bottoms out away from her.  That’s when I see the biggest bee I’ve ever seen in my life crawling around on her bathing suit.  It was yellow and black striped with lots of fur.  My eyes turn into giant saucers.

I screamed a bunch of stuff like holy crap that’s the biggest bee I’ve ever seen in my life and some other things that did not make my daughter feel any better but luckily I didn’t curse.  When parenting intersects with a parent’s fear = bad parenting moments.  So, I pick up our beach bag full of stuff and swing it at her bottoms like I’m Wonder Woman and the beach bag is my sword.  Because there was no way I was touching that monster bee and there was no way I was going to let it stay on her.  The bag knocks the bee off of her but flies out of my hand and hits a lady walking by.

I profusely apologize to the lady for throwing my bag at her.  She had no idea why I was even throwing a bag in the first place so I guess I just looked like a crazy woman.  She’s like I’m fine – is your daughter ok?  Oh ya, my daughter.  So, then I try to comfort my daughter.  She’s relieved she didn’t get stung by the bee but kind of shaken because she saw Mommy lose her mind.  :-p  My other daughter gives me a high-five and is hysterically laughing (at me).

Later, I come to the revelation that my daughter’s swimsuit has flowers all over it.  The bee just thought that it was pollinating a flower.  Poor bee.  I’m sure it’s still out there somewhere just a little more misshapen and possibly more scary looking.  Remind me never to wear anything with flowers on it outside.  That’s how we roll y’all-just another day in the life with kids, knocking out our fears one by one.

The highlight ride of the day was the one my kids call the toilet.  It looks like an intestinal tube which has a giant toilet bowl contraption at the bottom in which the kids get swirled around like they are being flushed down the toilet and then they get spit out into a deep pool of water.  Not everyday the kids get to experience what it would be flushed down the toilet.  They loved this ride.  Let’s hope this experience encourages them to start flushing the toilet more often!

After we left the water park, we went to main street in Grafton for some ice cream.  They had several ice cream shops to choose from.  We checked out all of them and ended up at the last one we visited – Grafton Fudge and Ice Cream.  It was really good.  I had black cherry, the girls had birthday cake and cookies and cream, and my husband got the chocolate shake – all very good.

Anyway, I highly recommend this place to families.  Most of the rides are for all ages, except the toilet bowl one.   There’s a wave pool, lazy river, several slides, and nice scenery for the adults so you feel like you are on vacation-that’s my favorite!  The food is reasonably priced as well-winning! 🙂  But now I want to go back because after we left we saw several neat looking restaurants overlooking the river – looks like a great place for a date night.  We got to take the ferry home – another new experience.  Here’s the river view while eating: