The diaper cycle.

Babies wear diapers.  In case you hadn't noticed.  And in the beginning, they wear a lot of diapers, on account of all the pooping.  When your first baby comes along, you buy very nice cushy diapers for your sweet little angel's delicate hind quarters, but soon enough, you discover that these sweet little biscuits can do some serious damage, and frequently.  So, since diapers are pricey and you have realized you are changing baby's diapers far more often than you had thought (like a dozen a day!), you switch to the cheaper brand to compensate for the rate of usage.  Besides, the baby poops in it and you throw it away - why spend more than you have to?  Gradually, because baby is now eating some solid foods, the pooping slows to a comfortable four to five diapers a day.  Much more manageable, both in the finance department and in in the amount of time spend wiping up body fluids side of things.  This is great!  You can anticipate that baby will need a change in the morning, poop before lunch, change after nap, poop before dinner (because babies always poop before a meal to make room, right?), and a change before bed.  An excellent diaper routine, and you can pretty accurately predict how many diapers you need and how often you need to stock up.  It's wonderful.  Predictability is hard to come by in child rearing, but for a few, all too short months, the diaper situation is nice and easy.  And then one day, baby asks to go potty.  Well, some kids might.  My oldest had to be begged to use the toilet, but we'll run with baby wants to potty, since it helps my story, and in truth, this is how my littlest started her "toilet journey".  Anyways, baby wants to go potty.  Ok!  Here it is, the next milestone, potty training!  And baby is so eager!  Yes, baby, let's go potty!  The tiny toilet comes out, baby's diaper comes off, she sits, she giggles, she chatters with you about sitting on the potty, she is generally cute, especially because she is just tiny and sitting on the toilet.  Precious.  Baby most likely does not actually make use of the toilet, but that's ok!  She sat there!  She liked it!  Of course, the diaper she had been wearing is a little wet, so it gets tossed and baby gets a fresh diaper.  You cheer, you dance, it was a good toilet experience.  Then, an hour later, baby wants to use the toilet again.  Yes!  Potty time!  Diaper off, baby sits, baby giggles, no actual pottying is done, baby wants down.  The diaper is slightly wet, ever so slightly wet, but you can't put a wet diaper back onto baby, so you get a new one.  Over the next few days, as baby proves to be eager enough to want to go potty several times throughout the day, you come to realize that the diaper rotation has been radically thrown off course.  You are going through dozens of diapers!  It's newborn diaper usage all over again, only this time around, the diapers are barely soiled!  Of course you know it is wasteful to throw away a diaper that has mere drops of baby tinkle on it, but when you try to put it back on baby's darling behind, you feel the universe staring at you, judging you, "did you REALLY just put a dirty diaper back on your baby?".  You can't do it.  And you can't deny baby a trip to the toilet, either.  She asks for the third time in an hour, and you really want to say no, because you can tell her diaper might be a little wet.  You don't want to have to throw away a diaper with at least one more hour left of good wear time, and you are pretty sure she won't really go on the toilet anyways, but you have to take her or she'll fear the toilet and will never be potty trained!  Plus, she cries when you suggest she wait a little while!  She knows you are denying her a basic right to toilet!  It's irrational!  It's annoying!  You can't stand yourself!  And forget training pants - those cost twice as much as diapers.  Underwear?  Maybe, but then you'd be doing a lot of floor scrubbing, and sorry, but my whole house is carpeted - it is not time for underwear.  And so here you are, stuck in the last and most frustrating turn of the diaper cycle, where the diapers are not being used fully, but are certainly being used up.  All you can say is, at least we buy the cheap diapers.

The vandals.

It seems like anytime there is an illustration of children being naughty, four out of five times it will depict said naughty child drawing on the wall.  The child has maliciously scribbled all over the hallways, thus prompting the mother to deliver a stern spanking and a bucket of sudsy water for the child to erase his or her terrible offense.  Whether or not this is true of most households, I don't know, but it is true of ours.  Of course they know that drawing on the walls is not permitted, and yet, I find myself filling up the proverbial sudsy bucket more frequently than I would like to.  You see, the blonde has an affinity for writing and illustrating.  She draws wonderful pictures of herself and her sisters going down curly slides, picking flowers from a meadow, and often she'll add a few "words" to describe the scene at hand.  It is glorious.  Especially because I was the same way.  I loved to draw and write little stories, so naturally, I see her interest and both relate to and appreciate and encourage it.  However, she also has an affinity for secrecy.  And vandalism.  Recently, as I was preparing a fabulous meal for my family, I went to open the pantry door and noticed a peculiar marking on the door.  Upon closer inspection, I found it to be a tiny, pencil drawn heart and the letter "A".  Seeing as the blonde is the only child in our house who knows how to maneuver a pencil delicately enough to draw a microscopic picture, I approached her about it.  "Did you write a little 'A' and a heart on the pantry door?"  She contemplates, perhaps trying to remember, "Yes."  I make the disappointed mother face, but not so much to emotionally wound her and gently remind "Well, do you know that we are not supposed to write on anything except for coloring paper?"  She appears remorseful, and replies "Yes, I'm sorry."  This is going well.  I tell the blonde that since she has done something naughty, she must take responsibility and clean it up, and so she scrubs without complaint, and the tiny scribble is erased.  I feel a bit of satisfaction over the success of this disciplinary interaction.  Well done!  As I continue cooking and going about the house, I notice another tiny mark.  And another, and another.  Only these are in pink marker, and slightly more elaborate than the "A" and heart on the pantry door.  There are actual tiny people, and names, and other shapes on every door in the house.  Granted, they are small drawings, but tiny things have a tendency to get bigger when left unaddressed.  I call the blonde, and coyly ask if she had happened to draw any other little pictures similar to the one on the pantry door.  She silently shakes her head yes, and proceeds to point them out to me, including a few I had missed along baseboards and under counter tops (when was all of this happening?).  Slightly agitated at the prolific nature of her secret taggings, I again remind the blonde that drawing and writing must only be done on appropriate surfaces, such as paper and only paper.  She again scrubs without a fight, and the house is restored to original graffiti-free splendor.  Over the next few weeks, I periodically come across a fresh offense, and reprimand the blonde accordingly, this time elaborating that the rules are the same as they had been the first time she got in trouble for drawing on the walls.  As irritating as it is, I am glad that it is only tiny marks and scribbles, and that it cleans fairly easily.  But of course, it is never that easy.  The blonde asks me today, "Is it ok to draw a smiley face on the lamp shade?"  Um, what?  "No it's not ok.  Did you already do it?"  She smiles, and stands awkwardly with her hand "resting" on the lamp shade.  Out comes the sudsy bucket.

Catch phrase

As a parent, one of the best perks of being the primary language teacher in your child's formative years is that you can make them say really funny things.  Even funnier, is that they usually don't even know what they are saying, but you are laughing, so they continue to say it.  Soon, they say it on their own, knowing it will elicit rounds of laughter from all the world.  Now, I'm not talking about making your baby shout profanities (although, when discovered accidentally on their own, can be amusing, but one must use vast amounts of self control to not laugh and encourage swearing as a habit); I'm thinking more along the lines of "shake and bake, baby" or "oh Phillip, I think I farted".  For instance, when the blonde was a baby and started talking, my husband and I went crazy with the funny baby catchphrase routine.  We'd think of something hilarious, make the blonde say it in her tiny baby voice, it would be even more hilarious than we had ever hoped for, and we'd inevitably call our friends and make them listen to her saying it on the phone.  "Did you hear?  She said 'how you doin'!"  Maybe only slightly amusing for them, but for us, our baby was a comic natural.  Soon enough, she caught on and became choosy with her act, and settled on one phrase - "I want my baby back baby back baby back ribs."  Admittedly, it's not the most hilarious thing a baby could say, but the blonde thought it was funny, and who can argue with a baby cracking herself up?  As her language developed, so did her sense of humor, and soon the blonde started throwing out variations of the catch phrase to maintain a fresh act.  By the time the brunette was learning to talk, it had morphed into "I want my bigga baby back," which was both weird and a little funny.  Both girls would shout it back and forth, falling into hysterical laughter over how comically genius they were, and as a duo, even better.  We, too, thought they were pretty funny, but then again we also brought them forth into this world, so obviously everything they do is amazing.  The phrase would show up quite frequently, and would continue to change, eventually becoming "I wanna bigga back baby."  Um, yes, weird.  Recently, a lip-popping "poo" has somehow been tacked onto the end, so now all the girls, even the baby, sit in the back of the car chanting "I wanna bigga back baby *poo*", followed by rolling laughter and red faces.  And of course, their dad and I think it's hilarious and make them say it whenever we see anyone who may or may not be up for some homespun comedy.

Lovey dovey

Many children have a special little toy or blanket that they are particularly attached to, and while all of my girls were pacifier kids, none of the older two were very attached to any one of their millions of soft fluffy comforting things.  The baby, however, has the lovey.  The lovey is a small, square, brown blanket with a plush owl's head.  It is not one of the little blankets with the satin edges; it is just brown and soft, and big enough to cover the baby's face when she's getting sleepy.  While these features may be enough to snuggle any other child into a dreaming stupor, they were useless to the baby without the tag. There is a small tag in one corner, just like a t-shirt tag, and this was what made the lovey special, magical, even.  In her itty bitty days, I noticed the baby held onto my shirt when she slept, and as it impossible (as much as I'd have loved for it to be otherwise) to accomplish much of anything while holding a sleeping baby, I thought I'd give her something else to hold onto - enter the lovey.  It had been a gift to one of the other girls in their baby days, and as it was clean and within reach, this was what I gave the baby to hold onto.  Gradually, she began to look for and expect the lovey come sleepy time, and as it made laying her down for naps SOOOO much easier, I didn't fight it.  Lots of babies have special blankets, and now so did mine.  Over time, the baby began to explore the lovey - looking at it's head, rubbing it on her cheeks, putting it in her mouth -and it was on one of these occasions that the baby found the tag.  She rubbed it between her fingers, sucked on it a little, and then... jabbed it in her eye.  And liked it.  At first I thought it was kind of funny, like she was doing it on accident and couldn't get it to do what she really wanted, but I soon came to realize that being stuffed in her eyeball (eyelids open, people!) was exactly what she wanted the lovey's tag to be doing.  It was weird, but by now, she loved the lovey and it came everywhere, and was washed often.  Anytime the baby started getting tired, she'd search out the lovey, plop down somewhere, and rub the tag all over her eye, humming softly on her pacifier (they became a unit, team pacer-lovey).  I got used to it, as creepy as it was to see an infant intentionally impaling herself in the eye with a slobbery blanket tag (it frequently pulled double duty as eye jabber and substitute pacifier), but what parent can deny their child their most treasured possession?  As she got a bit older and started saying a few little words, she even began to generously offer the lovey tag for you to poke your own eye with by smashing it on your face saying "eye, eye, eye?".  Very sweet, but I'll pass.  Now, the baby is 18 months old, and I have to say, I have done an excellent job caring for the lovey.  It is washed regularly, has never been left at anyone's house, and is always nearby come bedtime.  The baby brings it everywhere, and it has never been lost.  Until last week.  Upon returning from a quick trip for toilet paper, I realize the lovey is not accounted for.  I check the car seats, check the sidewalk, check under the car, check in the car door, storage cubbies, trunk, glove compartment, stroller (which wasn't even used), and find no lovey.  A bit of panic wells up, as nap time is in the very near future, and I have made the mistake of putting the lovey in the washing machine too close to naptime and it does not go well.  No lovey generally means no nap.  The store is just across the street, so I call first to see if anyone has turned in a nasty brown rag that is very special to my daughter, and have no luck, so I decide to just go back and look myself.  I cruise the parking lot scanning the spaces for a brown lump under one of the cars, no doubt looking like some scary stalker lady to the shoppers who are oblivious to my real distress.  No lovey.  Park the car, go inside, up and down every aisle, behind registers, in the bathroom, customer service, no dice.  Go home, double check every place that has already been torn apart in search of the lovey and come up both empty handed, and now super panicked as I remember that we leave in two days to fly back to Denver.  This is not looking good.  How will I survive a plane ride (by myself with the kids) without the lovey to comfort and quiet the baby?  A new sense of urgency wells up and I turn the whole house and car upside down looking for that stupid dirty owl thing!  Call the store!  No lovey!  Call a few other places I may or may not have been to in the last few days!  No lovey!  Panic!  Go to the store and buy a sort of similar but not really NEW lovey!  This will have to do.  We leave in two days.  I try my best to make the new lovey seem as exciting and soft and wonderful as I can, and the baby buys it - until she is tired, and then it is just another thing that is not the real lovey.  She even calls for the lovey and looks for it (my heart is cracking and little chips are falling out here).  She cries, and I do too, a little, but eventually, she falls asleep.  For the next two days before we leave I am on a continuous hunt for the lovey, and before I know it, travel day has arrived, and I have to give up on finding the lovey in time.  Of course, the baby screams on the plane and sleeps terribly while we are away, but then, finally, a little respite comes on the flight home when she actually snuggles the new lovey and falls asleep.  I sigh to myself, happy that she is ok with the new lovey, but also a little sad inside that the real lovey, a piece of her little babyhood, is gone.  She carried it everywhere - to bed, to church, across the country when we moved - and I lose it on a trip to buy toilet paper at the store across the street.  A tiny part of me is actually mourning over the loss of the lovey.  After our trip, we do the routine unpacking and laundry, and as we are out of all food except for saltines and pickles, I head across the street for some grocery shopping.  As we are about to leave the store, we pass customer service and I think to myself that I might as well ask if a little brown owl blanket has been turned in.  It has been a week and a half by now, but I figure this will be my last effort, and then I'll forget about the lovey.  The lady at the counter sad frowns, as I am sure she has her own children with smelly objects of affection, and disappears into the back.  I sigh, thinking "oh, well, I guess that's it", when she emerges with a soft, brown, owl blanket.  The baby recognizes the lovey and reaches for it right away, and I swear tiny hearts were coming out of her eyes.  She snuggles in, finds the tag, and ever so lovingly, jabs it right in her eye.

Have a seat.

My daily routine is pretty much exactly that.  Daily.  Routine.  Our family does pretty much the same thing every day, which, I am told, is good for kids.  They should have consistency; know who they are going to be with, know what to expect from each day, thus allowing them to live without fear of emotional upset.  Well, we have taken this to heart, so much so, in fact, that the girls have developed their own special breakfast routine, and as consistency is the backbone to stability, they are careful not to pass this particular routine up on a day to day basis.  It happens every morning, without fail, in the exact same way.  And try as I may to disrupt or redirect it, the girls are holding fast to this routine that they so desperately need to ensure their stability.  It begins, I'm sure, from the moment they wake up.  While they may not be actively engaged in this routine at this moment, I know at least one of them is already thinking about it in her tiny little groggy morning head.  We do they normal morning things - go potty, get dressed, put pajamas away - and then, as I call for the children to gather at the table for our normal morning meal of hot waffles, scrambled eggs and fresh squeezed orange juice (or cold cereal and the rest of any open juice boxes left in the fridge, but that's not the point), the spectacle begins.  There are five chairs at our table, as there are five people in our home.  One has a booster seat strapped to it, so this chair is perpetually dibsed by the baby.  The brunette has tried on occasion to oust the baby from her rightful place in the booster seat, but she usual ends up getting stuck and conceding.  So now, we are left with four chairs remaining, an ample amount of fine seating for two children to choose from.  This, however, is not the case.  There is one chair with a clear view of the television, and unbeknownst to me, it also has magical powers and is made of gilded fairy wings and can fly.  And this is the chair of choice.  It must be said, that we do not watch TV while we eat.  Rarely, it will be on during a snack, but not ever during meals, so it surely must be the mystical qualities of this chair that make so desired by my children.  The brunette wastes no time in the mornings; she is often awake first, dresses herself, and even has already gotten a jump on the Barbie bucket before the rest of us have managed to drag ourselves out of bed.  The blonde, however, requires maximum assistance in the morning, and the brunette is fully aware of this.  As soon as the blonde rounds the hallway corner, slightly disoriented and still a little asleep, the brunette, in waiting, leaps into the magical chair.  The blonde, roused now by the glare of the fluorescent kitchen light sees her sister sitting the chair of choice and howls "NO(OOOO)!  I wanted to sit there!" as she collapses in anguish to the floor.  As a fair minded mother, I tell her "Blonde, your sister was there first, maybe tomorrow if you move a little quicker you can sit there."  Now, this happens every morning, so you'd think I'd just stop trying, but I say it anyways, just so I don't feel like I haven't used an opportunity to teach fairness.  "But I wanted to sit there!  She always sits there!  I never get to sit there!  I wanted it first!" cry cry cry.  The brunette bides her time quietly, soaking in her sister's misery.  I remind the blonde that we have such and such today, so please just sit somewhere so we can eat breakfast.  The blonde crawls, heaving herself to the table, and manages to get herself into the chair beside the chosen one.  Big sniffles, muttering under her breath, general melodramatics.  "Brunette, " she says beseechingly, "I really wanted to sit there."  The brunette ignores the plea and busies herself with the baby.  "MOM!" the blonde cries out, "I really wanted to sit there!"  I, in the interest of upholding my previous statement, and also because I don't really like this much whining before my coffee is ready, reiterate to the blonde that her sister was there first, it's just a chair, deal with it.  More howling, fading to whimpers and a quivering lip.  Then, the climax and simultaneous finale to the routine, the brunette turns to her sister in her time of desperation and cheerfully says "you can sit here if you want."  The blonde meekly thanks the sister, and they trade seats.  Every morning.

Huh?

Let's talk about listening skills.  Listening skills are crucial for...well, probably anything.  You have to listen to your boss at work so you know what job needs to be done, you have to listen to your teacher at school so you know what is expected in the classroom, you have to listen to the weather report to know if it is safe for you to stand in your yard with a flagpole.  Basically, being able to listen to people is important for gaining understanding of what you should or should not be doing, whether for your safety, or for productivity.  My problem is that my children have yet to acquire this skill set.  Frankly, I'm not even sure if they have mastered hearing, let alone listening.  A glimpse, if you will.  A trip to the store is in order.  I say (calmly in a regular voice) "We are getting ready to leave, please put your shoes on."  Simple instruction, simple task.  I was audible, I was clear, the statement was obviously directed to the children, as I was both standing in front of and looking right at them.  And yet, no response.  They continue to put Barbie's shoes on and off, rather then their own.  I take it in, and adjust, this time squatting closely, and speaking louder (not shouting, just commanding) "Blonde and Brunette (I use names so there is no confusion as to who I am talking to), we will be leaving the house soon, please put your shoes on."  I even try to help out by placing the shoes in the line of play, so that on the off chance my stern voice was still not loud enough, they may see the shoes and get the hint.  I wait, they pause, see the shoes, and cleverly twist their bodies so the shoes are hidden from sight without having had actually acknowledged their being there.  Hmm, I am now beginning to feel the bubbling of frustration creeping up in my neck, that kink that shifts your face from patient mommy look to stiff, but not quite scary look.  New tactic, I remove the toys from the immediate area so there may be no distraction, turn their faces with my hands (nicely!) so that even if they are not looking at me, they can still at least see me, and say again, this time through loosely clenched teeth "Blonde.  Brunette.  Shoes.  Feet.  Now.  Please."  Of course I still say please.  "Ok."  Yes!  They put their shoes on, albeit leisurely, but at least they are completing the task at hand.  The blonde, now aware we are going somewhere, asks me "Where are we going?"  I reply (in a regular, clear voice) "Just to the grocery store for some milk and stuff for dinner."  Easy reply, clear voice, uncomplicated information.  "Huh?" she says.  "The grocery store for some milk and stuff."  I streamline, as well as up the volume to a louder, but reasonably indoor voice.  "Huh?"  Are you kidding?  You asked a question, you should listen for the answer, I just told you twice.  The kink.  "The grocery store."  There.  "Huh?"  What!?  Now I just skip over trying to collect myself and respond appropriately and say "GROCERY STORE" in the voice you use to talk to either a 95 year old or a Japanese tourist.  I even nod my head a little and make hand motions to allude to pushing a grocery cart.  Satisfied?  "Oh. Ok."  We get in the car, everyone is buckled, make it to the store and get what we need.  My husband calls while we are here, and he asks if I will pick up some ice cream for later. (Here I need to explain that my husband and I like fancy ice cream, and we like it by ourselves after the kids are in bed.  It is delicious and unwasted on slurping hooligans who only eat two bites and leave the rest to melt.  Don't worry, they still get ice cream, just not fancy ice cream.)  I I discreetly reply to him in hushed tones that I am with the kids and if they see me go down the ice cream aisle to the fancy ice cream case they will freak out.  I even back away from the cart a bit and park it in front of some coloring books so they will surely not be paying attention to what I am saying.  He understands, and we agree it will be retrieved by him at a later time (judge me if you want for being this sneaky, but I do NOT want to share Ben and Jerry's, and neither would you if you saw how my kids eat ice cream), and I hang up.  We get in line, load the conveyor belt and the blonde says "Mom, you forgot to get the fancy ice cream that Dad called to ask you for."  Well, I guess her actual hearing is fine, after all.

The happiest place in the world

Last week our family wrapped up a seven day vacation in Disney World with my husband's family.  Now, I love a vacation, but as anyone with children, well, let me rephrase that, as any mother knows, a vacation with small children is no easy feat.  There is the packing - an outfit for each day, plus extras for accidents, spills, and all the other unforeseen yet somehow unavoidable messes children tend to get themselves into.  Then there are the pool accessories, which alone use up a good half of the suitcase (inflatable anythings NEVER fold up as small as they came in the package), and the myriad of toiletries and diapering items.  If you can manage to get all of this into one suitcase (ha, good luck), you are still left with the backpack/diaper bag, which gets filled to the brim with snacks and sippy cups, spare pacifiers (which will be lost on the second day anyways), and as many wipes as you can shove into one of those travel cases and still keep it mostly closed.  Oh, and of course, the stroller(s).  A lot of stuff, but with some packing finesse (and a huge sigh of relief that we get to drive all this junk in our car instead of trying to check it and claim it at the airport like we had thought back in Colorado - bonus for moving to Florida!) you get it and most of the kids in the car and on the road.  Wait, where's the baby?  Just kidding, but you should know that, because who actually forgets their baby?  Right?  Anyways, you make it to the hotel, get the key, dump the junk in the room, do the potty rounds (you always do the potty rounds before you leave a place with a clean potty), gather the backpack junk, spray sunscreen flames into the kids' faces (noting that next time you will spray it in your hands first and then rub it on), load the stroller and head to the parks.  Awesome!  We made it!  The castle!  The balloons!  A princess!  Happy music!  Happy children!  Yes, let's get in line to ride our first ride!  In line!  It's moving!  "Mom, I have to go potty."  Hmm, we did the potty round before we got here, but it's the first day, and they were probably just excited to get here, so you exit the line, locate a bathroom, do the bathroom thing, jump back in line.  On the ride!  So much fun!  Girls love it!  Exit the ride, head towards the next attraction, and the other child pipes up "I have to go potty."  You gently remind the child that the next time she sees you taking her sister to the bathroom, she should ask to come too so you don't have to go back twice.  Child nods, back to the bathroom (you have already mentally noted it's location and proximity to attractions for future visits) and back to the rest of the family.  Little do you know, this bathroom dance has set the tone for the rest of your vacation.  Any time you get in line for anything, someone will need to go, so you try to stay ahead of it by asking if there is a need any time you pass a bathroom, but of course, no one needs to go until the bathroom is four miles behind you.  You try to stay positive, thinking you'd much rather make a few trips to the bathroom than change clothes because of accidents, but soon, it is getting ridiculous.  The bathroom trips are showing up before and after every attraction, and at least four times during meals.  Like, take a bite, take a kid to the bathroom, come back, take a bite, take the same or another kid to the bathroom, come back, take another bite, and so on.  You have found exit paths out of half of the rides, and know where every single toilet in every single park is located, as well as which ones have a short sink for kids because "that is so cool!  A sink my size!", which is cool, as it cuts out the balancing-your-child-on-your-knee-to-reach-soap-and-wash-hands dance.  The husband offers to take over a trip or two, but you know he does not like bringing the girls into the men's restroom ("men are gross, I can't take our daughters in there!") so instead you decide to push through knowing this will give you great leverage over many battles to come ("remember how often I had to take all the girls to the bathroom?").  By the fourth day, you are starting to feel like you are on a tour of Disney bathroom extravaganza, and contemplate "forgetting" the water bottles in hopes of eliminating a bathroom stop or five, but no, it is hot outside and you are a good mom, so you fill up the water bottles and review bathroom locations for the park of the day.  You have accepted it.  It will be happening.  Frequently.  On the upside, you have not had to use any of the spare clothes, and frequent hand washing may not be such a bad thing, given you have seen at least eight children with their fingers in their noses (one of which was your own) and a few questionable sticky bits on ride railings.  Not so bad.  The vacation continues smoothly, bathroom breaks and all, and everyone has a good time.  Before you know it, the last day has come and all of the junk you brought, plus all of the new junk you have acquired, miraculously fits back into the car and you are on your way back home.  You ask the kids if they had a good time - "Yes!  I liked the princesses!  I liked the rides!  I liked the ice cream!  It was so fun!"  Good, you think to yourself, a successful family vacation leaving everyone with happy memories.  "And mom, I liked the little sinks in the bathrooms, too!"  Disney never disappoints.