October 22

Today was lovely. Absolutely lovely.

Oh, except for the whole “getting up at 4 a.m.” thing. That wasn’t so lovely.

And the part with the mom from Long Island who watched her rambunctious daughter run around the airport screaming as we waited (for an hour!) for our “magical” Disney transportation to take us to our resort. The mom would occasionally shout out “Suzie! You get back in your stroller!” “Get back in your stroller NOW!” and, my personal favorite “Suzie, if you don’t get back into your stroller right now, you can’t go to Disney World with us!” Really, Susie’s mom? How exactly are you going to deliver on that one? Leave your devil child in the hotel room while the rest of you traipse off to see Mickey? I think not.

And when the child jumped in front of an innocent woman who was trying to get in line and refused to let her pass, and when that woman smiled uncomfortably at the lazy mother, hoping that maybe, just maybe, she would, I don’t know, control her child, it was no surprise when the mother gave a half-hearted “Suzie! Move out of the way! Get back in your stroller!” and the poor woman who was trying to get in her line had to physically move the unruly child herself, since the child had no incentive to actually obey her mother.

But really. Other than that, it’s been lovely.

Jack had his physical fitness test this afternoon. Basically, in order for black belts to test, they have to do a minute of pushups, a minute of sit-ups, a minute of punches on a bag, a minute of kicks, and a minute of punches and kicks. All the punches and kicks have to actually move the heavy bag, and the judges are very strict on the quality of pushups and sit-ups that they will actually count. It’s pretty hard core. The total count for all of these things must be 300 or above. Jack just about died after he had finished (actually, he couldn’t breathe and I was concerned he might pass out on our way back to the bus), but he passed and has resolved to be in better shape for the next one.

After his test (and the subsequent recovery from the test), we headed to “Downtown Disney,” a big boardwalk with overpriced Disney shops and restaurants. We had So. Freaking. Much. Fun!! We ate at a little seafood restaurant on the dock, where we could watch the people strolling on the boardwalk, the sun setting over the water, and the little boats driving in and out of the area.

The food was overpriced and subpar, and the menu was limited, but the margaritas were good and the company was flawless. Sometimes, during the long weeks in which we only see a few hours of each other, I forget how much I love being around my husband. I forget how much we laugh. I forget how well we fit. Thank God for vacations.

Jack ordered the shrimp and chicken ettoufee, and when it arrived, he began picking all the tiny pieces of green garnish off the top (this is a very common occurrence around our house, since Jack is so darn picky about the green things he eats).

“Sweetheart, why don’t you just eat the green things?” I asked, always amazed that he would go to that much trouble to remove something he wouldn’t even taste in the first place. He stared back at me.

“You’re not supposed to eat that,” he said, as if he were telling me that the sky was blue. “That’s grass.” I laughed as I looked down at it. It did look like grass.

When he had finished removing all the “grass,” he stabbed the biggest shrimp on his plate with his fork and held it up, making a really impressed yummy noise as he anticipated eating it. Then, without a second thought, he put it on my plate.

“That’s for you!” he said, smiling. I stared at him, stunned. Jack is an only child. Jack does not share food. He gets upset when I take a French fry or a sip of his Dr. Pepper. He hates sharing.

“Are you serious?” I asked, dumbfounded.

“Sure!” he replied, as he looked back down at his plate. “I have other ones!”

I thanked him, and a few minutes later, he asked me how many points that got him.

“Oh, that was definitely a four-pointer,” I replied.

“Woah!” he said, excitedly. “That’s almost as much as a present!”

Later in the meal, as I was eating, Jack opened one side of his straw wrapper and blew the other half at me with the straw. It hit me in the face, and I looked up, surprised.

“Oh no, Jack!” I said, feigning disappointment in him. “You just lost two points! That’s half the points you earned with the shrimp!”

Jack’s face fell as he considered the “points” he had just lost. (In case you couldn’t tell, Jack is pretty competitive, even if the game is pretend and there is no opponent.) Suddenly, his eyes lit up with an idea and he looked down at his plate.

“What about if I eat some of the grass?” he asked.

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Of course, no walk down the boardwalk at Disney would be complete without ice cream at Ghirardelli.

When we got to that table, Jack and I both looked at it and hesitated. All of the tables were made to look like different Ghiradelli Chocolate Squares, and the "wrapper" on ours said dark chocolate mint. The first thing each of us thought when deciding whether to sit there was "but I don't like dark chocolate mint."

Fortunately, they didn't make us eat the table.