145 Middle Schoolers: Wicked Awesome or Epic Fail???DeParting-Such Sweet Sorrow p. 76

[MEK]

* yes, the same Q who flipped off the Buzz camera and doesn’t take showers




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Yes - I have completely lost all respect for you. Seriously, you must have felt so terrible. I know what its like to be in that "drifting off to sleep" state. It's the absolute worst time to be interrupted.

Glad Q was OK, but he is started to sound a little bit like a strange child. Just sayin.

 

[chaoscent]

Flat Ben is most certainly invited to the pin meet. My DH will be glad to meet him. He will also (if Ben wants to go) take him snake & spider hunting as one of his days he is heading out to find some wild life preserve to look for icky critters. We have 4 tarantulas in our basement bathroom (a room I don't use). We will hit all the rides but he will have to be content to ride on old lady rides. I do however love Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story Mania. Does he collect any special pins so we can be proactive in our pin trading . Seriously, I will pm you my home address. We leave next Saturday. We are staying off property Saturday night but will arrive at the BCV on Sunday (bright & early). I can leave him at a designated spot so he gets to travel with others after we leave.
Penny

btw - tomboy is a bit of an understatement for me. I had more bumps and bruises from doing things no "girl" would do. I even had a few fights with boys (and I won) Penny

 

[eandesmom]

Thank you for that coffee spewing moment Dee!



Aww, poor Q. One does wonder about some attention getting behavior..... Clearly your roomate must have been out of it as well, the words "call housekeeping" and "call the nurse" didn't register with them either.

One would hope in middle school he could figure out the room number. It is on the phone, and the door!

Did he call the nurse?

I know that out of it feeling, I swear kids have radar and know you are in that state and THEN get sick.

 

[ddluvsdisney]

oMG that really made me laugh!! Shame on you! Poor kid. All the kids should have had the nurse's # in case of an emergency.

I got 2 calls today for 2 more interviews next week!!!
I am so excited!!!!!!

I couldn't read your update during b-fast this morning b/c DS11's friend got dropped off at 8 so his mom could get to work. He was going to the beach with us. It was a GREAT day.... The beach AND interviews! Yay!!!

 

[MHTeacher]

Funny!-Not the kid throwing up, but you just practically hanging up on him!

 

[ProudMommyof2]

All caught up! I laughed at your hang up- telling the kid to call the nurse. I thought, "good for you" until I realized on a trip like this I would probably be the nurse/NP . Maybe I should keep that info to myself if I ever chaperone a similar trip

 

[DrMomof3]

OMG! Love the non-bathing story. Yuck! I hope he took a shower after puking!!!
One "advantage" of my job is that I have had hundreds of middle of the night conversations of the years and have learned mental triage.

Amanda

 

[natebenma]

Yes - I have completely lost all respect for you. Seriously, you must have felt so terrible. I know what its like to be in that "drifting off to sleep" state. It's the absolute worst time to be interrupted.

Glad Q was OK, but he is started to sound a little bit like a strange child. Just sayin.

I was HORRIFIED at what I did (didn't do)!

I am usually a very light sleeper and very alert when I am awoken, but it must have been just 25 or 30 minutes after I had fallen into a deep sleep and I was not functioning as usual.

It didn't really occur to me until I started writing, but Q actually appears in a couple of upcoming updates. But he wasn't the most difficult of the boys in our group. There was one kid who literally needed a 1:1 chaperone. I'm not really comfortable writing about some of those things, but just know:

It wasn't easy!!!

Flat Ben is most certainly invited to the pin meet. My DH will be glad to meet him. He will also (if Ben wants to go) take him snake & spider hunting as one of his days he is heading out to find some wild life preserve to look for icky critters. We have 4 tarantulas in our basement bathroom (a room I don't use). We will hit all the rides but he will have to be content to ride on old lady rides. I do however love Buzz Lightyear and Toy Story Mania. Does he collect any special pins so we can be proactive in our pin trading . Seriously, I will pm you my home address. We leave next Saturday. We are staying off property Saturday night but will arrive at the BCV on Sunday (bright & early). I can leave him at a designated spot so he gets to travel with others after we leave.
Penny

btw - tomboy is a bit of an understatement for me. I had more bumps and bruises from doing things no "girl" would do. I even had a few fights with boys (and I won) Penny

Got your info! Thanks. I'll get right on it. I planned on sending Flat Ben to you with a small homemade lanyard with one pin. If you are comfortable trading for him, anything would be fine but his favorite things are food, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Space Ship Earth and dinosaurs. No special pin collections. He has a small, eclectic supply.

OMG, Flat Ben (and real Ben for that matter) would love going hunting for spiders and snakes. We are currently the proud owners of a praying mantis we hatched from a mail-order case and we have to go out hunting for ants, spiders and other bugs daily to feed it because all of the mail order fruit flies we got have been consumed.

If Flat Ben takes after the real thing, he is not a thrill ride junkie, so he will be ok on the milder ones!

I'll let you know if/when I send him out, and whether I have time to get it to your home or to the BC checkin desk. Thanks, again!!!

Thank you for that coffee spewing moment Dee!



Aww, poor Q. One does wonder about some attention getting behavior..... Clearly your roomate must have been out of it as well, the words "call housekeeping" and "call the nurse" didn't register with them either.

One would hope in middle school he could figure out the room number. It is on the phone, and the door!

Did he call the nurse?

I know that out of it feeling, I swear kids have radar and know you are in that state and THEN get sick.

Glad to bring a little humor to your morning!

My roomie was chaperoning a different group of boys, so Q was not one of her charges. She had an idea what was going on. Her actual quote when she handed me the phone was

"Q threw up. Its for you"

The boy (probably) knew his room number, but I'm not sure if the kids were given the nurses room number, or even the chaperones numbers. I think I gave all of the kids in my group a sticky note with my room number on it. Can't remember if I added the nurses room number.

Well, that note I gave to Q proved less than helpful to him.

I think I asked the nurse the next morning if Q had called or came to see her and she said no.

oMG that really made me laugh!! Shame on you! Poor kid. All the kids should have had the nurse's # in case of an emergency.

I got 2 calls today for 2 more interviews next week!!!
I am so excited!!!!!!

I couldn't read your update during b-fast this morning b/c DS11's friend got dropped off at 8 so his mom could get to work. He was going to the beach with us. It was a GREAT day.... The beach AND interviews! Yay!!!

on the calls! And about your trip to the beach. What a perfect day for that! My DH took the day off and I so wanted to go to the beach but instead we went to a Fun Park (go carts, lazer tag, mini golf) with the boys and a couple of friends.

I go back and forth about feeling extreme guilt and wondering what I really could have done. I don't know this kid at all, so would my presence really be comforting? I don't feel I needed to be on the cleanup crew. But still, hanging up on him wasn't the appropriate response to the situation.

Funny!-Not the kid throwing up, but you just practically hanging up on him!

Oh, I didn't practically hang up. I hung up!

I would like to say this was the low point of the trip for me.

But it wasn't!

More coming up on our final park day.

All caught up! I laughed at your hang up- telling the kid to call the nurse. I thought, "good for you" until I realized on a trip like this I would probably be the nurse/NP . Maybe I should keep that info to myself if I ever chaperone a similar trip

We had two nurses on our trip- a mother and daughter team. I'm not sure what their compensation was, but they earned their keep during the trip!

Like I said, I didn't really know this kid, and he had other chaperones in our group he knew better than me, but I think I was the sucker who gave him the info to contact me if needed.

OMG! Love the non-bathing story. Yuck! I hope he took a shower after puking!!!

One "advantage" of my job is that I have had hundreds of middle of the night conversations of the years and have learned mental triage.

Amanda

OK, I'll give the kids your number on the next trip!

Good point about the shower. I didn't ask many questions. Both when he originally called and then when I was fully awake.

 

[chaoscent]

Told Jim about Flat Ben last night and I told him he would be taking Ben on one of his Icky Things trips. He thought for a moment, looked at me and said, "I can hear it now, Officer, honestly, it's Flat Ben and his Mom knows I have him in the middle of the woods taking pictures of him with bugs and snakes. It's ok, really, I am not wierd, just go on my wife's blog (the boards are my blog) and read all about how her imaginary friends and the kids mother thought it was a good idea". He is convinced, for some odd reason, that people he might meet in the middle of the woods would find it odd I on the other hand, find it much odder that a grown man is in the middle of the woods looking for icky things? Go figure?

So Flat Ben will probably travel with me most of the trip.

I look forward to meeting him. However, please be forewarned he will not get a shower every day.

But I do promise to get up and take care of him if he gets sick, no matter what the time. Seriously, I could have done the same thing. The fact that you agreed to be a chaperone to all those teen age boys is beyond my ken. I was a Brownie Asst Leader for many years and we would do camping trips every year. I was ready to shoot my self and these girls were under 10 and listened fairly well?

Just wanted you to know, as I told Jim last night, I love this TR. The sense of humor, witty comments and the kindness of you and your cyber friends is a delight to read. Penny

 

[jenseib]

I got so far behind...and I am so gald you didn't do too many updates, so it was easy to catch up.
I am laughing at Q. I love how he brags that he doesn't shower. Did he at least swim...I'll cut him a little slack if he did at least get in the pool a few times.

And I know the reason you didn't go help him....You didn't want to go help a sick kid who refuses to shower....admit it. I hope he did shower after throwing up though.
I have to admit, I had issues like that with my own kids. They get sick and I say Ok, and roll over. Sometimes it's just hard to get out of the sleep fog.

 

[natebenma]

Told Jim about Flat Ben last night and I told him he would be taking Ben on one of his Icky Things trips. He thought for a moment, looked at me and said, "I can hear it now, Officer, honestly, it's Flat Ben and his Mom knows I have him in the middle of the woods taking pictures of him with bugs and snakes. It's ok, really, I am not wierd, just go on my wife's blog (the boards are my blog) and read all about how her imaginary friends and the kids mother thought it was a good idea". He is convinced, for some odd reason, that people he might meet in the middle of the woods would find it odd I on the other hand, find it much odder that a grown man is in the middle of the woods looking for icky things? Go figure?

So Flat Ben will probably travel with me most of the trip.

I look forward to meeting him. However, please be forewarned he will not get a shower every day.

But I do promise to get up and take care of him if he gets sick, no matter what the time. Seriously, I could have done the same thing. The fact that you agreed to be a chaperone to all those teen age boys is beyond my ken. I was a Brownie Asst Leader for many years and we would do camping trips every year. I was ready to shoot my self and these girls were under 10 and listened fairly well?

Just wanted you to know, as I told Jim last night, I love this TR. The sense of humor, witty comments and the kindness of you and your cyber friends is a delight to read. Penny

OK, Jim has a point there!

You shouldn't worry about the shower thing. You don't want to know "The Showering Habits of 11 year olds"

Fortunately, real Ben does not get sick often, and knock paper, Flat Ben won't give you any late night troubles. Or a paper cut.

Thank you so much for your real upper of a post!

I got so far behind...and I am so gald you didn't do too many updates, so it was easy to catch up.
I am laughing at Q. I love how he brags that he doesn't shower. Did he at least swim...I'll cut him a little slack if he did at least get in the pool a few times.

And I know the reason you didn't go help him....You didn't want to go help a sick kid who refuses to shower....admit it. I hope he did shower after throwing up though.
I have to admit, I had issues like that with my own kids. They get sick and I say Ok, and roll over. Sometimes it's just hard to get out of the sleep fog.

Glad to have you back and all caught up!

I'm pretty sure Q went swimming during the trip. Not sure if the "incident" changed his showering habits or not.

By the way- if anyone is keeping score... That's 2 throw-up episodes for today (the boy who had to leave the park after Star Tours and Q)

Should I be worried about this???

 

[luvpoohandcompany]

OMG Dee you are hilarious Dont feel guilty though! I'm sure all of us have had similar sleep deprived moments of craziness Maybe Q's hygiene or lack thereof led to the puking incident

Cant wait for more

 

[natebenma]

OMG Dee you are hilarious Dont feel guilty though! I'm sure all of us have had similar sleep deprived moments of craziness Maybe Q's hygiene or lack thereof led to the puking incident

Cant wait for more

I tried and I tried to come up with a way to put a spin on this story that puts me in a positive light.

Nope.

It was just wrong!

 

[DisMomAmy]

That's too funny about Q! Not bathing & then throwing up! Maybe that's a sign he should bathe more often?

 

[jwwi]

I found your TR on the beach club thread, and had some time to read the whole thing today. I would not want to go to WDW to be the "nurse", but I guess being compensated for being in my happy place would be ok. Honestly, I like to vacation there instead. Our kids are all grown up now, and insist that I will be the ones taking them to Disney. I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it. What you did was funny, now that we know Q was ok. I'm sure if there was a real problem the situation would have unfolded differently, so don't feel too bad about it. Two kids puking on the same day does not sound good, can you say "Phil" (from Modern Family)?

Can't wait to experience my first stay at the BCV at the end of this week, so excited! Thank you for taking all the time to keep the BC thread updated.

 

[JanetMom]

I'm late on this reply as we've been out of town for the past week (and I'm on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to getting access to things like the ipad, when we are away.)

OMG, I can't believe you fell asleep on the poor child! Thankfully all is well in the end. You must have felt so bad in the morning.

I must admit, when I read the story the first thing I thought about was the fact that it was the non-showerer that threw up. It was only my second thought that you hung up on him.

These stories are why the thought of chaperoning boys makes me too shy to volunteer for chaperone duty (although I'd be way more nervous to chaperone girls.)

We go away for a week every summer and while we sometimes fleetingly consider bringing a friend of our son's along, we always shake our heads and realize we wouldn't be cut out to look after another person's child for a week.

Enjoying the report. Hopefully there are still a few more updates to come!

 

[natebenma]

That's too funny about Q! Not bathing & then throwing up! Maybe that's a sign he should bathe more often?

No, I don't think it was the lack of a shower that made Q sick. But it COULD have been karma from flipping off the Disney ride camera at Buzz.

I found your TR on the beach club thread, and had some time to read the whole thing today. I would not want to go to WDW to be the "nurse", but I guess being compensated for being in my happy place would be ok. Honestly, I like to vacation there instead. Our kids are all grown up now, and insist that I will be the ones taking them to Disney. I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it. What you did was funny, now that we know Q was ok. I'm sure if there was a real problem the situation would have unfolded differently, so don't feel too bad about it. Two kids puking on the same day does not sound good, can you say "Phil" (from Modern Family)?

Can't wait to experience my first stay at the BCV at the end of this week, so excited! Thank you for taking all the time to keep the BC thread updated.

Thanks so much for joining in on my trip report and for your comments about the Beach Club FAQ thread! Have a FANTASTIC trip! I hope you love your stay at the villas.

I knew going in to this trip that it wouldn't be my "typical" vacation to Disney, but there were twists and turns I could not have imagined. I was getting nervous that two different boys in our group had already thrown up, and they weren't even roommates.

Food? Nasty Virus? Coincidence?

I'm late on this reply as we've been out of town for the past week (and I'm on the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to getting access to things like the ipad, when we are away.)

OMG, I can't believe you fell asleep on the poor child! Thankfully all is well in the end. You must have felt so bad in the morning.

I must admit, when I read the story the first thing I thought about was the fact that it was the non-showerer that threw up. It was only my second thought that you hung up on him.

These stories are why the thought of chaperoning boys makes me too shy to volunteer for chaperone duty (although I'd be way more nervous to chaperone girls.)

We go away for a week every summer and while we sometimes fleetingly consider bringing a friend of our son's along, we always shake our heads and realize we wouldn't be cut out to look after another person's child for a week.

Enjoying the report. Hopefully there are still a few more updates to come!

I actually can't believe it either. Normally, it doesn't take much to wake me up, and I can function very well. The phone call must have caught me in that deep sleep state that only lasts for a short time.

One of my friends has a son who went to Disney last year on the class trip and she had a blast chaperoning his group. Her daughter went this year and she refused to go because she didn't want to deal with the girl drama!

Definitely more updates coming! I have written about 2 full park days and we still have 1 to go. Plenty more ups and downs, and I'm not just talking about Expedition Everest!

 

[MickeyT]

I tried and I tried to come up with a way to put a spin on this story that puts me in a positive light.

This is easy for anyone that knows you. It's Dee. It's after midnight....See ya at 5 kid!

 

[natebenma]

This is easy for anyone that knows you. It's Dee. It's after midnight....See ya at 5 kid!

Thanks, Mike!

Good Morning!

 

[natebenma]

Today’s plan was to go to Animal Kingdom in the morning. At first, I thought this was the EMH park, opening at 8. Even though I was the one who had prepared and shared the park hours, I didn’t bother to consult my own list!

So the night before, one of the dads suggested letting everyone sleep in, and since it was EMH, he would take all of the room keys to the park and get FPs for everyone, then we could meet him there.

Dude- that’s not going to work.

Why not?


1) Everyone needs to enter the park in order to activate the tickets to be valid for FP

2) We can’t get FP with our room keys – remember we have paper tickets and those are our park admissions and FP passes. He had a lot of trouble believing that the room keys wouldn’t work because his friend told him on past trips to Disney he used the room keys to get FP. I told him that sometimes a room key has the tickets attached to it, but sometimes a room key is just a room key. Which was the case here, with the paper tickets. Maybe we could add the tickets to the room key, and then use the room keys to get FP, but it still wouldn’t work. (See Point 1 above)

3) I’m not handing over my room key

4) Fortunately, it turned out to be a normal opening at 9 am, so there was no need to make any special plans, or to continue arguing about what would and wouldn’t work.


And if you would indulge me in allowing a small rant before I get into describing the morning.

I get why you are calling Hollywood Studios “MGM”. Habits are hard to break. Heck, even some of Disney’s maps and brochures still have references to MGM.

I have less tolerance for people who call the Magic Kingdom “Disney”. Today we went to EPCOT and tomorrow we are going to Disney.

But I could not believe all of the adults on this trip who said we were going to “Wild Kingdom”. Yes, I watched the Mutual of Omaha show faithfully. But Marlin Perkins passed away in 1986. It’s ANIMAL KINGDOM, people!


**********************************************************


Day 3:

5:30 am- I woke up for the second time that morning.

And unfortunately the memory of the first “wake-up” call from a few hours before haunted me.

I started out my morning as I typically did. Grabbed my ice coffee and slipped out of the room with my phone and camera. Walked around the resort taking early morning pictures- this is one of my favorites:

I encountered this little guy:

I also took pictures of the laundry room. Not because I had any intention of doing laundry, but just because, well, that’s what I do! And I knew jensieb had recently started threads of photos from each of the All Star Resorts so I wanted to be sure I could contribute to that. So I’m not going to post the pictures of the washers and dryers and coin machines and soap dispensers here, but you can go to that thread to see them if you really need to.


At 6:30 I walked by the breakfast room. Nothing was happening there- the teacher’s door was still closed. I continued to walk around and kept checking back periodically. As soon as the teacher started stirring, I helped wash and cut the fruit and set out the breakfast items.

I can’t remember exactly what time this was or when the teachers started waking up the students. But what I do remember is that the skies opened up and a major storm was raging.

I’m a little disappointed that I didn’t take any pictures showing the rain and lightning. It was not looking good for our morning trip to Animal Kingdom.

I went to shower and when I was done, the rain had stopped.

Our trip to AK was on!


I took care of two orders of business.

One was apologizing to Q for hanging up on him earlier. He told me he was fine. He ate some of the fudge from the MK before going to bed and he thinks that was the issue.

On the way to the bus, I caught up with my son who was walking with a friend of his, and told Nate at some point during the day I would like a picture of the two of us together. He scowled, looked at me and said “No”. I answered to him that I’m serious, I want one picture of the two of us from this trip.


I texted Mark:

8:46 So far so good. In bus line for AK. It has poured off and on this morning but right now it is dry. TTYL.


I’ll end my update here. I realize I have not had many pictures in my last few updates. Do you really need visuals for Bad Bad Chaperone? But I promise my upcoming chapters will include lots and lots of photos


Next up: Best.Safari.EVER!

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