Back on Track (maybe)

I’m baaack! We have safely arrived home from Disney World – the most stressful, I mean happiest place on Earth. We had a great time, but this was not the typical relax by the beach type of vacation. This was balls to the wall go-go-go the entire time. 

Let me first say that one does not go to Disney unprepared. That, my friends is a death sentence. And I don’t mean book hotel, flight, transportation and show up kind of prepared. No no no. I mean research every square inch of rides and attractions at all four parks for up to a year before arrival kind of prepared. You need to know what rides your kid meets the height requirements for, what rides they may be afraid of, what characters will be at what place at what time and what you are going to wear for the weather. You also need to know what places you could possibly patronize for meals, which parks are most crowded on which days, what time the shuttle to the parks will run and which reservations you need to make while your child is still in utero for the trip you plan to make when he or she is five. This is no joke people. 

All that being said, we arrived in one piece with minimal disruption to our fellow passengers on the plane. We made it to our hotel and were even allowed early check-in. Only when the hotel clerk mentioned purchasing tickets to the parks did I almost pass out. All this planning and preparation and I had left our park tickets on the counter at home. Seriously. $800+ worth of tickets hundreds of miles away. Thankfully my mom was able to photograph them and email them to me and Hussania at Disney Guest Services was able to cancel and reissue the tickets. Not until after multiple nervous breakdowns on my part, but the day was saved nonetheless. If I am ever to bear another daughter, I hereby swear that she will be named Hussania.  (Thank goodness I’m neutered).

Having ignored the projected crowd volume on Monday, we visited Magic Kingdom (along with every other human being on the planet). Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios, home of the Tower of Terror. Camille is still upset that we did not let her ride it. Wednesday was Epcot – or as Camille says “Effcot”. And Thursday was Animal Kingdom. To all non-English-speaking patrons of Disney World: it will heretofore be required that you learn and understand one English phrase before being allowed admission. That phrase is “Excuse me” which translates to “Get the Effcot out of the way of my double stroller before I run over your sock and sandal covered foot”. 

On to diet news: I had brownies for breakfast this morning. I also had a beer-battered-deep-fried hamburger while on vacation (All hail Dublin!). I had been religiously in the gym until the week prior – I missed the second half of the week due to illness and despite walking literally hundreds of miles through Disney parks, I did not formally work out on the trip. Sadly, it seemed I was getting something that resembled muscles in the weeks I had been training but with only a week and a half of no exercise I have gone soft again.

This makes me wonder how anyone can stay in shape if all it takes is 10 days off to throw you right back into fat-ville. Am I in for a life sentence of constant dieting and exercise? It seems so. Sorry, Dublin. I constantly struggle between a desperate need to be thin again and thinking that it could be worse and I’m not thaaat fat so I should just eat wheat I want and be happy. I see pics of me from Disney and I say I HAVE to lose weight (then I delete the pics where I wasn’t smart enough to hide my body behind my kids and just have my face showing). Then I see pics of other people and I think to myself at least I’m not that big and the size I am is really not that bad since I pretty much eat nothing but garbage and I still don’t have to shop at the fat girl store. 

I swore I’d be back on the wagon come Monday (today). Unfortunately there are Ghirardelli brownies in my house and with starving children in Africa I cannot let them go to waste. My social consciousness has once again foiled my healthful attempts. At this rate they will be gone before the end of the day so that’s good news, right? 

I am going to go to the gym this afternoon and get back into the routine. If I’m lucky and consistent in two weeks I’ll have some semblance of muscle again. I’ll give myself this much credit – since I joined the gym in July, this has been the best attendance record I have ever had (which isn’t saying much, but still). 

I thought I’d start sending the twins to the nursery again now that the trip is over but that place is a zoo in the mornings. All the skinnys are there with their skinny mom-friends. At least in the evenings it’s the people who work and are there to work out and go home rather than have a grown-up playdate near some exercise equipment. I think the new years resolution rush is still happening (hurry up and just give up already! You know it’s coming!) so hopefully come March the crowd will thin. 

Well, I’m off to feed the kids lunch and spend some time on Pinterest pinning craft ideas I know I’ll never actually execute.