Gertrude goes to the "Happiest Place on Earth"

Last fall my family took a trip to Disney World in Orlando, FL. By my family, I mean myself, my husband, our two daughters, my mother and, of course, Gertrude. After our LONG drive (flying is not an option when anxiety-ridden Gertie comes along) we made it to our super-fun Finding Nemo room at Disney World and met up with my sister, her husband and their three children who traveled from Houston, TX.

Though we had lots of fun, things rarely went as planned, so here are some lessons I learned:

Take things at your own pace. Is it worth seeing everything and riding every ride if the majority of your family is miserable? Though it would have been nice to spend the entire vacation with my niece and nephews, our families are very different. My girls are as timid as my sister’s children are adventurous. Where Gertie requires time to warm up to things, the Casarez family wanted to get the most out of their time at Disney World. Luckily, my family is very understanding and knew we had to find our own rhythm. Once we stopped stressing out about what we thought we HAD to do or see, we were able to really enjoy what we were doing in the moment.

Pick your battles. Did we eat healthy, well-balanced meals while we were on vacation? No, but that just wasn’t a battle I wanted to fight. With all the other issues we had to deal with, as long as no one became dehydrated or malnourished, I knew we’d be just fine.

Control what you can, let go of what you can’t. A sea of people and crowds of tourists all wanting to see and do the same things at virtually the same time is something you just have to deal with at Disney World. Is it fun? No. Certainly not for someone like myself who can hardly tolerate your garden-variety “superstore” on a Saturday afternoon. It was definitely a needed lesson in learning to go with the flow.

Remember why you went on vacation in the first place. It was to spend time together in a different environment, having FUN! It took a minute for our family to adjust, but once we did we had so many new and fun experiences together. Gertie loves her routine, so anytime we found ourselves doing something new and enjoying it, those were moments to celebrate!

People (and not just children) will stare and judge, but that is their problem. I think that’s pretty self-explanatory.

Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. This is just life in general with Gertrude. “The best laid plans of mice and men...” and all that.

Disney World is not necessarily the “Happiest Place on Earth” for everyone. Certainly not for Gertrude. It is an assault on the senses for even a neurotypical person.

We are not the worst parents in the world! Even though we have children on the spectrum and frequently dealt with meltdowns and tantrums (and I’d like to say they were all from our daughters, but that would be a lie), we found that we were certainly not alone. Everyday you would find children (and their parents) behaving badly. We have all had those not-so-proud moments when our child pushes our very last button and we snap. Parents angrily grabbing hands, upper arms and even ears, was a relatively common sight at Disney World. Moms frequently barked at dads and vice-versa.

And probably the most important lesson for me, personally:

Enjoy the little things. My husband and I had several “what were we thinking?!” moments while on vacation. When considering all the things that our daughters struggle with (our youngest doesn’t even enjoy our yearly small town carnival, so why would we think she’d like Disney World??) it seemed like a ridiculous choice to bring them to such a crowded, noisy and unfamiliar place. Truth be told, we may have been slightly guilty of projecting our childhood dreams of the perfect vacation onto our unassuming daughters... maybe. But here’s the thing, I realized during our trip that we are a family that has to enjoy the little things. Will our daughters have fond, life-long memories of that first moment when they walked into Magic Kingdom and saw Cinderella’s castle? No. Unfortunately that was a really stressful and overwhelming moment for us. But what they still talk about is the fun pool and splash pad on one side of our hotel and the lake on the other side. And the giant seagull sculptures that sat on top of the building and said, “mine, mine, mine” every hour. And the huge chocolate cupcake with purple frosting that came from the restaurant at the hotel. And the rest area in Tennessee where we learned a little about the Civil War and took pictures sitting on a turtle sculpture. These aren’t the stereotypical memories that you think you’re kids are going to take away from a trip to see Mickey at Disney World, but they are my kids’ memories.

And why would I ever think there would be anything typical about a vacation with Gertrude?