The very first teacher my daughter ever had in school was Miss Shahara. When I think back on the first day I met her, I can clearly remember everything about it. I was in a million pieces at the prospect of leaving my four month old all day, even if it was only three days a week. She made me feel immediately at ease. She has such a kind and gentle demeanor, it's sort of a miracle, being that she's surrounded by a bunch of infants all day.

About a month ago I took some photos of Shahara and her son Keyshawn on a very mild and amazingly warm afternoon on December 27. We went to a new spot for me, off 29 near the winery. It had been an extremely busy and taxing season for me. I was booked every weekend, some times two sessions a day. My husband joked that my pictures were good, but my price point was incredible. He's so funny. I spent most of my evenings editing. Everyone wanted their images in time for cards or presents. Of course it was the very first season ever for me and my little Orson Street Photography. With each shoot, I got a little less nervous. A little less paralyzed by the fear that NONE of the images would work out. This was the last booked session in my first year. It had been rescheduled from before the holiday, so the pressure was off. I was still nervous.

I wonder if I will ever not be. 

Thanks for looking. 

Jessica

Magical Purgatory. Not quite heaven; coming in hot at over $5K not including the $20 Thumper and the $80 Elsa gown. Not quite hell; there were moments between the unfaltering loud music and body odor when I saw pure delight and unmatched happiness in my 3 year old's eyes, arms outstretched hugging a stranger in a large duck suit wearing a small cap. 

WDW is purgatory for parents. It is where we're sent when the universe hasn't decided yet if we are good parents or bad parents. The Litmus test, if you will, of true self (still talking about parents here). Oh you thought you were hot stuff because you took your kid to Disney World? Parent of the year... and then. Well, we'll get to that in a minute.

When I booked our little family Disney trip for the first week in December, I excitedly looked forward to a vacation. Naively I thought, like most adults who hadn't been in 30 years, that it would be a family vacation like going to the Outer Banks, or Rehoboth. We would get to relax, be warm, and I was especially excited for the giraffes we were going to see off our balcony at Animal Kingdom Lodge! The magic! The amazement! THE PICTURES.

Like many other things in life and parenting, what I thought was to be, was not the case at all. WDW is not a vacation. It is an event. It is an experience. It is sweating and running and crying and some intermittent laughing but mostly crying. It's skipping naps and coffee at a time when your family needs you to do those things the most. It's dodging exhausted parents with even more children than you, cutting them off and then having to stand in front of them for 40 minutes (not making eye contact) in line for a ride that is probably going to make you seriously consider a vasectomy. I'm not going to lie to you. There were moments during this TRIP when I wondered aloud what I could have possibly done to create a small version of Donald Trump. Very late one evening, on a shuttle bus back to ANK (that's Disney speak for Animal Kingdom Lodge) Liv was melting down and I'm pretty sure I growled at audible levels for my husband to, "Give it Sponge Bob NOW!"  If you take nothing valuable away from this post, please expect to see some of the worst behavior from your children EVER at WDW. Plan for it. Don't let them suck you in. They know you won't just leave, they are smart little suckers. Have a back up plan. For those of you first-timers going soon, I highly encourage you to allow a few weeks to pass after you've gotten home before you assess the trip and it's worth. 

It's worth. That's a very interesting concept. And now that the clothes have all been washed, the magic bands surgically removed from our appendages, weeks distance have come between those people who were there and those living here now, I have a slightly different perspective. Now that I have looked at all the photos, rehashed some of the seemingly ridiculous events of our time in Orlando, I do believe without a doubt that it was worth it. But will we do it again? Probably not on purpose. Am I glad that we did it? Resoundingly, yes. Go ahead and call it a metaphor for family life. I won't tell.

But since I find myself in the camp of the more pragmatic and dare I say honest group of Moms in the world today, I have put together a list of tips for those of you brave souls that have a trip planned or those who are considering it. These may not all apply to you. If you have different questions, go ahead and message me for more details. I'm happy to save any one of you 3 - 10 minutes of WTF did I just spend money on?

• Hire a Disney person to plan your trip. I mean, unless you have more than 900 hours to learn and understand this experience we call Disney, in which case go ahead and do it on your own. But here's the deal: There are 4 parks roughly the size of Boston: MK (magic kingdom), AK (Animal Kingdom), Epcot, and Hollywood Studios. It's not expensive (when compared to the trip costs) and worth every. single. dollar. I hired Megan Keebaugh at Living with The Magic Vacations. This person understood immediately what I was looking for and planned my entire trip. I received an itinerary that detailed which park we were going to, on which day, all based on how old my child was, and more importantly she understood and planned our fast passes, days we were there and which parks we should visit, dining credits (by far the most confounding of all), height requirements for rides, etc. You arrive and you do not think. You just move. Before I hired this person (who is NOT expensive BTW) I joined a closed group on facebook so that I could feel stupider than any other point in my life, even over those times my toddler told strangers in the Home Goods that I wouldn't let her go poop. FP stands for fast pass. One million acronyms. I'm not going to list them here because you'll throw your face into the phone. Plus I gave up trying to figure them out. I will level with you, I work and I drink. If you do too, hire this person. Be done. Megank@livingwiththemagic.com 

• You can probably save a lot of money if you are flexible with which resort you're staying in. I had a sort of preconceived notion (go figure) that we NEEDED to stay at Animal Kingdom so we could see Giraffes and Zebras from our balcony. I was in LOVE with this notion. Here's the news. The resort is fantastic. If you stay here you will with out a doubt be impressed and happy with your choice. If you go after daylight savings ends? Well, you'll be seeing (with your eyes in daylight) LESS of the wildlife you would see if you go during the time of year when daylight hits the planet earth in our hemisphere for longer periods of time. In other words, if you go in less crowded times, i.e., during the winter (early Dec., etc like we did) be prepared to see darkness after 4:45 pm, oh BTW, you will still be in a park at 4:45 pm. Don't think your day in the park ends when the sun goes down you ignorant fool. There are fireworks, light shows, whatever. Still, this property is not going to disappoint you, ever, at all. If you are going with littles, this resort does rely on the shuttles - which do come very frequently but are generally over-crowded even in off peak times like when we went. We didn't tour any of the other properties, but I'm hazarding a guess that they're all probably pretty darn good. And for the short amount of time we were actually IN THE ROOM...

• Plan for downtime. I didn't do this. I wish I had. We gave our dates to our planner, and like a good planner, she filled every slot. I felt very VERY obligated to do all, and see all, and scratch it off the list. We arrived for every fast pass. We did everything that was written down. After all, 5K. Am I right? We hit the ground running as soon as we arrived and we did not stop until we boarded our flight home. If you are staying for more than four days, please, for the love of all things lovely and holy, plan a few hours, half a day, or a full day even if you can, to just stay on your property, or hang back and just have no plans. Your kids will thank you. You will thank me. We didn't do this and we were RAGGED. We were tired. We were a little miserable. If we'd planned one day to stay on property (and there IS TONS TO DO THERE no matter where it is) we would have been so much better off. Our resort had nights with movies by the pool, A bar (multiple on property) very close by, stuff for kids. One down day is all you need. Go to the pool. Do whatever. Consider it.

• This next tip is on strollers and booze. That'll be my next blog title, Strollerz & Booze. Seriously, you'll need both to get through your Disney Experience. Please bring your strollers. Even if your offspring doesn't use one, they will here. I don't care if they are 8 years old. That may be an exaggeration. I know nothing about 8 year olds. You can rent one if you don't want to bring!  For booze: What worked for my family may not work for yours. I needed wine in the night. We went to the "store/restaurant" on our resort that sold food and snacks. We purchased a six pack and a bottle of wine and kept it in our fridge. It was not THAT expensive. That worked for us for the week we were there. Beats paying at the bar and subjecting the other patrons to Calliou on the ipad. 

• If you can, do the Hoop dee do Revue. I doubt I even spelled that correctly. Just look it up or ask your Disney person about it. Very fun and worth it. Food at Disney isn't king. Not even close. But this was good food. You'll need the oasis of a good meal at some point on your tour.

• If you have a girl: Do the Akershus. Princesses abound. Good food. But if you hire Megan, you don't need to worry about princesses. Even if she can't set up a meeting with Anna & Elsa, she can tell you how to get there. We did. It was good.

Those are my tips. I have more I could share, so message me if you're going. Thanks for reading. And thanks for looking. 

Will we go back? We will go back if our child turns out to be one of those Disney cult members. Then I guess we'll go. For the weekend.