Ok. Here we go.
First some background. Dh and I were newlyweds when we found out we were pg and that Michael had issues. We were living in a small one bedroom apartment in Chicago. Michael was born and spent the first six months of his life in the hospital, nearly five of those on life support. He nearly died several times during those six months. When we were discharged out of the Children's Hospital, it was with the recommendation of hospice care as he had six months to live. Therefore, Mick and I bought a house as we wanted a home for Michael. Mick had a great career and I also had a good job. I was on maternity leave and we expected that my leave would get us through Michael's impending situation and then we could "move on" for lack of a better term. Well, life had other plans. The week after we signed on our house, Mick was advised that he would be laid off since he could not travel anymore (wanted to be close to home). We now went from being able to afford our house to 1/3rd of what we were making. But we figured for five months we'd forge ahead. Mick and I stayed home together living on his unemployment for the next couple months while he looked for employment but nothing came close to the medical insurance we needed to keep Michael as healthy and safe as possible. Soon we realized that the doctors were wrong. Michael was not going anywhere and he was actually thriving. He might just make it afterall. I went back to work and we have struggled financially these last five years. In that time, we have not been able to afford the upkeep and repairs of the house.
Enter our community. Picture Pleasantville and you have our "HomeTown" (which is the subdivisions name). They heard of our struggles about six months ago and have vowed to help us rebuild.
The Saturday before our trip, we have over 45 volunteers swarming our house. We have tossed all our furniture, ripped out all the carpet and all the walls have a layer of paint on them. Drywall is repaired. General Chaos. The last volunteer leaves at 10pm that night. Children collapse on the mattress we have in one of the rooms. All four of us sleep on the King size bed.
Oh yes, we have to be up in 6 hours and the kids hadn't napped that day!
I'm too excited to sleep. I toss, I turn and I finally fall asleep only to hear Danae screaming. She is still firmly asleep, screaming. As I pick her up trying to figure out what is wrong, I find out. I am now covered in pee. Lovely. Off we go to the bathroom. I wash her and myself up. She's still asleep, as is Michael. Back in bed. Ahhhhh, peace. I toss, I turn, I fall asleep and 45 mintues later, Danae is up screaming. I toss her at Mick and tell him to take her to the bathroom. She doesn't make it and now we have a puddle on the floor. Back to the bathroom we go. She is still asleep. Now I'm concerned. This is not like her. Back to bed. Toss, turn and you guessed it. Just as I fall asleep, she wakes up screaming again. This time she's wet the bed. Thankfully I had put down a towel this time. Still asleep. Its now 3 am. I'm up. No more sleep. I start getting the bags ready, take a shower, get the kids clothes set up and take the luggage out to the sidewalk. At 4am I wake Mick, who's cranky because he didn't get any sleep last night. Grrrrrr! He showers, dresses and goes to wait outside for the limo. At 420am I wake the kids and dress them. They are exhausted but excited. Limo is to be here any second now. Any second now....
At 440am I call the limo company. They have the wrong phone number and are lost. 10 minutes away. Not bad. Give directions and the driver's here by 450am. We get to the airport and drag our luggage into the terminal at Midway airport. Did you know you have to take your own luggage to the screeners these days?! Ya know how hard that is with a three and five year old and two carseats?! Poor Mick. We take a potty break. We're starving as the kids don't want the bars I got them. I'd take a picture but we want to get to the terminal and then get breakfast. Security is busy but moves at a nice pace. Kids have no problems with the procedure at all. We find the terminal and then the gate sign. Sends us off to this strange corridor that keeps going and going and going. I take a quick pic of the kids (in case they get lost) and Mick goes off with Michael for potty and breakfast at MickeyD's.
Not five minutes later I am frantically calling Mick (and he's not answering) as they have started boarding. I call again about three minutes later as boarding is going much faster then I expected. Where is he and why isn't he answering?!? He really does get there as they call off "final boarding"! Yikes!
We get on. We are at 11ABCD. Not bad and Mick starts installing the two carseats. I'm off to take Danae to the potty before takeoff. As I am pottying her (there is no way she and I would have fit in that tiny potty so the door is open), I am chatting with Danae about our Wish trip. The flight attendant, just behind me asks about our trip. I tell her we are on our son's Wish trip and this is there first time on the plane. I turn back to Danae to help her finish up. When I get back to our seats, Mick is uninstalling our carseats. We have been upgraded to Business class. We are now in 2ABCD! Yeah! I won't have to deal with both kids alone!! We install and sit and off we go! Kids still haven't napped and there is no indication they are ever going to sleep again!
Flight is wonderful. No problems whatsoever. We arrive on time and off we go to find our Wish Trip Escorts. We pass security and there is a big sign with Michael's name. We have found them, or they us. Yeah!
They have a luggage cart and off we go to collect our bags. No problems here. Easy Peasy really and off we go to the car rental. We get a nice car with plenty of trunk space. Again, no issues. We install carseats, say goodbye to our escorts and we go off to Give Kids the World (forevermore referred to as GKTW).