As mentioned, I "slept" on a 4.5-foot loveseat all night to try and avoid full-blown nightmares (by comforting Emmersyn before she could (quickly) escalate). It worked for the rest of the family, anyway! Up and at 'em early as usual and off to the Magic Kingdom for our last Annual Pass day. Boo!
On our walk from BLT to the MK, we randomly ran into our friends Chuck & Vicki, who were heading to the hotel for a DVC function. It was so wonderful to catch up for a few minutes, even if in the last place we would have expected to see them! :-P
This particular day, our family made it to the park in plenty of time for the Welcome Show, which got the day off to a great start. I LOVE this show, and watching my girls love it makes my heart sing.
We entered the park without a real plan (what!?) and just took our time heading to Tomorrowland so Zach could ride Space Mountain. While he was getting a fastpass, the girls and I picked up a new favorite snack we had discovered on the previous trip, the Sweet Cream Cheese pretzel from the Lunching Pad.
From here, we parked the stroller in Fantasyland and rode a few things there (Snow White's Scary Adventures, Peter Pan's Flight, and - of course - "it's a small world"). The girls loved walking around Liberty Square next, including playing with the mini-sized stocks that I had never noticed! :)
Next we cut through to Pirates of the Caribbean because we hadn't ridden in a while, and somehow it was already nearing lunchtime!
As I have probably mentioned, one of our favorite dining spots in the Magic Kingdom is Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe. The food is great (though I very much missed the glazed carrots I've had there for years, over the flavorless green beans I got this time!), and we all just adore Sonny Eclipse! :)
We enjoyed lunch, then put the girls down for a nap. They fell asleep in less than 10 minutes, and I sat and chatted with a DVC rep while Zach rode Space Mountain. In the sun (and a light jacket), the day was absolutely GORGEOUS for the first time this trip. Even when Zach returned, we didn't really feel like going anywhere. Instead, we just sat on a bench in the Magic Kingdom soaking up the sun and chatting. After a little while, the love of my life and I moved over to Adventureland for one more Dole Whip, and found a new bench to sit on and chat while our beautiful girls slept. In the sun. In the Magic Kingdom. Seriously, couldn't have been happier.
Eventually, we left the park for the afternoon. We were hoping to catch a few quick (read: 150mph) laps around a banked track at the Richard Petty Driving Experience - highest value free Annual Pass perk I recall in, well, ever ($110 each, give or take a few bucks). Both of us pretty much can't stand NASCAR but can't say no to thrills, so we were totally in! The experience was a little less thrilling than I expected, but definitely worth the price of admission. Ours, anyway. Besides, the girls ran around outside on a beautiful, sunny afternoon watching cars zoom by, the driver and crew were very cool, and everyone had a good time.
When we finally made it back to the hotel, we decided we should probably swim now if we were going to. The original plan was Saturday morning since we had no park tickets anyway, but since the weather was even remotely close to being warm enough (only with heated pools, mind you!), we didn't want to take a chance. Good thing, too, given what our night would look like. If we were about 9 years old, it would have been fine weather for a swim. The water was warm (as it always is at WDW), and we could have swam enough and stayed low enough to stay warm. Since our girls are great "swimmers" but still just 1, we weren't as lucky. The air was NOT heated, though I think maybe Disney should work on that. We lasted about 15 minutes, but scored two cute rubber duckies out of it! The girls did great again, while they lasted. :)
The change of plans allowed for some nice downtime in the room, and around 4pm we headed back to the Magic Kingdom one last time. We shopped some, saw the Country Bear Jamboree (which the girls enjoyed a lot), and ate at Liberty Tree Tavern. For the record, this used to be one of our favorite restaurants. Even without characters, I thought it would be. In fact, since we had done a few great character meals this trip, I was actually looking forward to the meal sans characters even more. I was sorely disappointed. While I remember this being great comfort food (and really have had VERY few bad food experiences at WDW), none of it was very good. Add to that the fact that Hartley was a DISASTER, freaking out (so. freaking. loudly) when we'd try to offer her anything (from the menu that included only her favorite foods, mind you). Loud. Screaming. Practically tipping her chair over. And after a good nap! Perhaps this should have been a clue she wasn't feeling well, but let's be honest. It's Hartley. She is sweet as can be, until she's tired and/or overstimulated. This wasn't terribly out of the ordinary, though perhaps a little larger than life.
The wait staff was GREAT in helping us calm her down quickly (with a "Tinkerbell Intervention" - so wonderful!), and we enjoyed the rest of our meal in peace. Eventually, she even agreed to try some of the food. And ended up eating nearly half of the [family-sized serving] bowl of Mac & Cheese.
After an evening like that, we decided it would just be best to say goodbye to the park for the night. Well, and for the trip. Back at the hotel, everyone was in much higher spirits! Zach and the girls were going to play for a while and then hit the sack, and I ran to Downtown Disney to try and pick up a few more things we had yet to find. My biggest reason for going out was actually to keep myself awake until the Electrical Water Pageant passed by around 10pm. Sadly, I'm too old to stay out that late when it's freezing ;) Instead I checked out the view from the Top of the World Lounge (how I regret not having caught Wishes from up here at least once!) and headed back down to the room for an earlier-than-planned night. Or so I thought...
When I got back to the room, Hartley and Zach were up. Apparently she had JUST (as I was walking in) puked. No crying, no acting odd before, just puked in her sleep. Random GI bug? Too much Mac & Cheese? Or, however unlikely, something related to her bonking her head on the wooden couch arm earlier in the evening? The "injury" was not even noteworthy - from the bed over to the couch, about 1.5 feet. NOTHING a toddler head isn't made to handle. But then the vomiting continued. Five separate times in an hour, 7 times in 90 minutes. Increasing, not decreasing, in frequency. She was otherwise acting fine, which truthfully was more concerning. She didn't even appear to have any nausea, as she'd just be half asleep (or eventually awake, as she kept getting interrupted by her own illness) and barf. Violently. No matter what the events of the evening would have looked like, this was concerning and something we wanted checked out.
You have to realize that we put ourselves in weird predicaments as healthcare professionals. We so don't freak out easily, which is nice. We would probably rock in a trauma (and of course freak out after, hopefully we'll never have to know). But this in between stuff is so frustrating. Instead of worrying easily, we sometimes tend to assume things can't be as bad as they seem. This was bad, but SO frustrating because it just didn't make sense. Still, we love our children and aren't stupid - so we called to get information about emergency rooms.
I have known several people who have visited Celebration Hospital (practically on WDW property), and have raved about it. It's a community hospital and not a pediatric hospital, but let's be honest - they see their fair share of kids in a given year! Still, if she needed a scan, they'd ship her to Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital (in Orlando, about 40 minutes away) anyway... so what to do, what to do? Obviously only one of us would be going, the other staying with Emmersyn. This was a logistical nightmare, since Hartley wouldn't stop vomiting. But we know the difference in pediatric care among various types of hospitals (and were growing increasingly concerned as things got worse), so the decision was made for Zach to take her to Orlando.
At the hospital, the resident and attending obviously had a nice rapport with Zach, which was helpful I'm sure. They both agreed that they would have brought Hartley in, however unlikely any injury would be, just because of the nature, onset, and frequency of the vomiting. Long story (slightly) shorter, when Zofran helped her keep Pedialyte down, they were comfortable just monitoring her for another hour or so without doing a CT scan. If the Zofran hadn't helped completely, it would have likely been something more serious. Since it did, they sent Zach out with obvious instructions on what to watch for, and everyone parted ways equally baffled as to what in the world she was dealing with. It ultimately didn't matter though, so long as it wasn't more threatening! ;)
They got home around 4:15am, so you know that 3/4 of our family didn't sleep much that night. Ironically, of course, Emmersyn had THE quietest night she had had in months, including at home. We would have all been able to sleep as soundly as ever. Go figure!
Oh - and after the weirdest conversation ever with a Cast Member at about 2:30am (who I think really might have had special needs? at least one can hope), I had received a late check-out of 1pm. I wasn't sure we'd need it, but didn't want to be rushing to pack and leave by 10am with no sleep and potentially 1 or 2 violently ill children.
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