Stop Dressing Your Six-year-old Like a Skank And Other Words of Delicate Southern Wisdom

Chapter One There's Always Tomorrow(land) "If You Really Loved Me, You'd Buy Me Pal Mickey" Studies say that children don't remember all that much, and certainly nothing good, until they are at least six years old. So there was no way we were going to waste hundreds, perhaps millions, of dollars on a family trip to Disney World until Sophie could remember in minute detail what wonderful, generous parents we were. That said, the trip was finally scheduled, and we began to anticipate five days and four nights of fabulous forced family fun, fun, fun! When I told another mom of our plans at a birthday party, she beamed. "Did you get the early seating at Cinderella's Gala Feast?" "Say who?" "The Gala Feast! What about your character breakfast? Did you book Pooh at the Crystal Palace or Pluto and Goofy at Liberty Square or Donald and Mickey at Restaurantosaurus?" "Huh?" "Oh, for heaven's sake," she huffed. Turning away from me, she summoned a few of the other moms over. "She's going to Disney and she hasn't booked her character breakfasts yet." Some of them laughed so hard, they turned inside out. My friend Lisa whipped out her dog-eared copy of the 475-page Katie Couricendorsed Walt Disney World with Kids, a book that I have since discovered is more valuable than a dime-store poncho for the wacky waterfall rides. (Sure, you could buy the officially sanctioned Disney poncho, for approximately twenty-six dollars, but why not pack the ninety-nine-cent version from Eckerd?) "You must book these things ninety to a hundred and twenty days in advance," she said. "Do you think that tickets to the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue just fall out of the sky?" Hoop-Dee-Do-What? As it turns out, you mustand I am not making this upcall the Disney dining hotline at exactly 7:00 a.m. exactly ninety days ahead of time. At that moment, mommies across this great land are groggily poised over their phones in hopes of getting these in-demand seats. "Why can't I just call at nine?" I moaned. "I'm not really a morning person." "Well, you can," said Lisa, "but you'll end up eating chicken out of a bucket with Sneezy. Is that what you want? Is it?" I was so ashamed. Who knew? Thank goodness I'd had this whole conversation in time to right the wrong. I hovered over my phone exactly sixty days before our trip, just as I had been told during an exploratory call to the Disney dining folks. "Sorry, that event is ninety days out. We have nothing left," said the chirpy Disney rep. "No, no! You told me sixty days, not ninety!" "I'm sorry, but these things change according to season and demand. I'm afraid you'll have to eat chicken out of a bucket with Sneezy." Good thing we've got the ponchos, I thought to myself. The Disney wars had been raging in my little family for two years, ever since that fateful school holiday when we were the only family that didn't leave town. When I first learned that my daughter would have a week off of kindergarten because of "spring break," I laughed so hard, I almost choked on my McRib. (Motto: "Back but still alarmingly mediocre!") "Spring break!" I snorted.Rivenbark, Celia is the author of 'Stop Dressing Your Six-year-old Like a Skank And Other Words of Delicate Southern Wisdom', published 2006 under ISBN 9780312339937 and ISBN 0312339933.