New Cousin

Tucker has a new baby cousin, Kinley Ann. He has been very sweet and soft with her, but he is not quite sure what to make of her yet! ;) He can't boss her around, and can't really play with her, but he certainly loves all of her fun baby stuff! (her musical mobile is his favorite).

Chris's sister Alexis and the baby are doing very well, our family has been blessed to welcome this sweet baby to the world last week.

Asking for Help

I will post about the last few days of the Dreams Come True trip soon. We have several huge events coming up, and I wanted to mention them. Next Saturday (less than a week away!!) our family is holding a Bass Fishing Tournament to raise money for Tucker's medical expenses. My cousins (Ryan, Amy, Jenny, & Eddie) asked last summer if they could hold a benefit for Tucker, and Chris and I said yes. The dates haven't worked out until now, and it is turning out to be a perfect weekend for fishing. There will be fishermen from all over Louisiana, and then they will all come to the Cabela's in Gonzales to weigh in and see who wins. Well I have never been to a fishing tournament before, but I think this one is going to be pretty fun! Family members have gone all over and got great door prizes, along with Cabela's donating a big prize pack as a door prize, so even if the fishermen don't win they have a chance to get great prizes. They have gotten all food, drinks, supplies, entertainment (Zydeco band), and advertisement donated. There are 5 billboards up around Baton Rouge with Tucker's face on them!! I posted the picture at the top of the blog, but it came out kind of small. I finally saw the billboard yesterday, as I don't usually travel the main highways to avoid traffic. All I can say is "wow." That is what I have been saying a lot, as they tell me about the checks that are coming in, the people who have donated their time and services....Tucker has been discussed in two sermons at local churches around town, and has become more famous than he will ever realize! Chris and I are good at many things....but asking for help is NOT one of them. Chris and I are both the oldest child in our families (except for my sister Jessica of course;) ), and our natural response to most things is to offer help, not ask for it. Editing papers, fixing resume's, finding jobs, helping with kids, parties, or showers, we are the go-to people for this kind of stuff. We like helping, and we are used to it. For almost 5 years now (yes, Tucker is almost that old!), people have been offering us help, and we don't really know how to accept it. We both have this "super parent" complex for some reason, maybe because for so long we didn't get to do anything for Tucker in the NICU, so once he was home, we wanted to do as much for him as possible. So thankfully, Chris and I didn't have to ask for help, our family is doing that for us. When it comes to raising money, I don't even know where to start. They have gone out to local businesses, been on TV shows, and planned an amazing event. They hope to make it an annual event (generally fishing tournaments are held every year.) I have seen some typically shy people go way out of their comfort zones for us and for Tucker, and I am just amazed at what people have been willing to do and to give for our family. People may wonder where all the money will go, and the true answer is I don't know exactly. There are deductibles, co-insurance, out of pocket costs for over the counter meds and supplements (the mito cocktail gets expensive!), trips to Houston (a 2-day trip costs us about $400, and that's without hotel costs), and then the therapies-I think we spent $2,000 on therapies last summer, and that is with Chris's insurance covering 80%. Tucker always seem to come up with expenses when we least expect it! A good friend of mine told me the other day "It doesn't matter how much money y'all have, you and Chris will always put 100% into helping Tucker. If y'all had $1000 you would spend it on him; if you had $100,000 y'all would spend it on him. There are probably feeding therapies and other ideas y'all haven't even considered because of the cost, so the more money you have, the more opportunities will open up to him." We are hoping to have a great day. My biggest concern right now is how Tucker will act on that day! I just never know what to expect out of him. For example, yesterday morning he and I rocked and rested all morning, so he was in the best mood yesterday for Mrs. Mia in the afternoon when she watched him. If that is the case next Saturday, I would bring him to more of the tournament. But if he is having an "off" day, my goodness, we might only make it to 30 minutes of the weigh-in! So please pray this week for everyone involved with the tournament (especially the men who have to wake up at 1AM to get to the check-in points at 3AM, then be there until 6AM, then drive to Gonzales to set up!), and pray that Tucker has a near-perfect day so that everyone who has helped or donated to us can see him in a happy mood on Saturday. Cabela's is one of his favorite places, so I think he and I will spend a fair amount of time inside on the escalators, even though the tournament is outside. But then he loves outside and parking lots, so we will hope for the best!

Day Five

We got a good night's rest on Thursday night, then got an early start on Friday. We were headed back to Universal Orlando, but we were going to the other park, Islands of Adventure. At the GKTW orientation, I learned that Harry Potter world was super popular, and we had to get there very early to get in. Once it reaches capacity, they block it off. This part was definitely for me, I love the Harry Potter books and movies. We got to Harry Potter world by 815 (the park opens at 8) and it was already packed with wall-to-wall people. I learned later that with the Wish button we could have gotten into HP World at 7am, so it would have been almost empty, but I don't think we could have gotten up and ready and out to the park that early! Here is the entrance to Harry Potter World. All Aboard the Hogwart's Express!

Tucker pointed to it and said "choo choo!" The conductor (who had a British accent, like most of the employees in this area) came over to talk to us. I told him how Tucker loves rides, and he said Tucker should be in Gryffindor house since he's so brave. That made he smile, he is a brave little boy: The entrance to Harry Potter World leads through Hogsmeade, we saw Zonko's joke shop, Ollivander's wand shop, and other places from HP books. Then we saw Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

There are 3 rides in HP world: the Hyppogriff ride (a kiddie coaster for Tucker!), a crazy double roller coaster called the Dragon Coaster (for Chris), and a 3D simulated ride through Hogwart's castle (for me). The line for the Hogwart's ride was over 2 hours long, but I got up and on the ride within a few minutes. I was actually upset, because the line for the ride was all through Hogwart's castle, and that place is amazing! I passed Dumbledore's Office, the Defense Against the Darks Arts classroom, and the Sorting Hat. I got strapped into the ride, the first few seconds were okay. I felt like I was flying on a broomstick with Harry Potter and his friends.

Then the dragons came up, and smoke blew in my face. Then we flew into the Acrumantula cave, and the spider spit in my face! That was when I covered my eyes and said "it's not real, it's not real" lol!! I left my eyes closed for most of the rest of it, and felt very sick by the end. I came out of the ride, and Chris was ready to hear all about it. I told him I needed to sit for awhile, and never ride another ride again! So Tucker and Chris took their several turns on the Hyppogriff ride. Tucker loved it, of course, but he put up no fight after the second turn, when Chris told him it was time to go find something else to do.

Chris rode the Dragon Challenge, which he said was great.

Usually, we go right onto the rides, so even when we were not together, we usually reunited pretty quickly. Well this time, Chris was gone for over 10 minutes, and Tucker was so super-attached to Chris that he was freaking out without him. So I called Chris to see if he was off of the ride or what was going on. Chris was about to get on the roller coaster, but he answered the phone-at that time, the Wish button fell out of his pocket and onto the ground below the ride! (We didn't wear the button because it kept coming undone and we were scared to lose it.) So after that Chris was very mad at me for calling him! Once he got off the ride, we hiked back to the front of the park to Guest Services, and they said we could use the GAP pass to get to the front of everything, and then get a replacement button from GKTW that night. So we were okay. We stopped for lunch at the Comic Book Cafe since the line was short. Tucker could barely contain himself since Chris went in line to get our food and we had to sit at the table. By then we should have known better, I should have went to get the food, Tucker can't stand to have Chris more than 3 feet away;)

The next place we went was Jurassic Park. It was a very neat environment.

There was a huge playground, Tucker loved it! "up da stairs!"

We played in the playground for quite a while, and I also called GKTW to make sure we could get a replacement button, they said they'd have one waiting for us.

Chris and Tucker hopped on the Flying Pterdactyl ride. It was super tame, but I still refused to ride!

Tucker was not happy about leaving Jurassic Park, but it was time for Chris's favorite-Superhero Alley (I think that's what it was called.)

I had read in the guidebook that the Spiderman ride was amazing. We went straight there, but Tucker was too short to ride by about 1/4". :( We should have spiked his hair up! So we went up to the front, there is a child swap policy. Two parents can wait in line, then when they get to the front, one parent rides while the other parent waits with the small child in a special waiting area. Then when the ride is over, the parents swap places and the other one gets to ride the ride.

We decided to go up to the child swap place so that Tucker wouldn't freak out when Chris left us. Tucker and I stayed in the kid area, looking at the Spiderman posters and souveniers. Chris liked the ride, but he said it definitely wasn't his favorite.

We bought Chris a Spiderman mug at the gift shop, then I saw a sign to meet Spiderman across the street. I was so excited, Tucker loves "Pey-dah-man" lol (he even wore his Spiderman shirt)and so does Chris!

After we met Spiderman we went across the street to meet Rogue and Storm from XMen. We took a picture with them, then a Universal employee came up to us. She told us that if we waited for 10 minutes, she'd gather all of the superheros so we could have a meet and greet and not wait in any more lines. We agreed! So we sat and let Tucker lick all of his Fritos. Wolverine ran past us, then he saw us and asked us to come over. Then Captain America came, and everyone else. Tucker loved their tights! He just stared at each one of them, it was so sweet.

He sat on Captain America's lap; Captain America wanted to know why he had Spiderman on his shirt instead of him, Spiderman said his other shirt was in the laundry:)

Here we are with the Superheros:) This was Chris's Dream Come True, haha.

There was one more ride we had to let Chris ride-the Hulk Roller coaster. He went right on, and he loved it. But this time Tucker really went nuts when Chris left, and I had to rock him and hug him the whole time. So after that, I told Chris he was not to leave Tucker's side! That is the price he pays for being the favorite, I guess.

Then we headed over to Seuss Landing. The trip was for Tucker, after all, so we took him to the Car-o-seuss-el. He was so happy, he said "ride da horse" but that was definitely not a horse!

We rode the Cat in the Hat ride, which was pretty neat. We rode in little cars that took us through the Cat in the Hat book. Tucker grinned the whole time. Tucker and Chris rode the Dr. Seuss trolley, and then we called it a day. Before we left I bought a Hermione wand from the gift shop, she is my favorite character. I have practiced, but it still doesn't work;)

We took Tucker back to GKTW, where our new button was waiting for us. We put Tucker right to bed, and I started planning our trip to Sea World that night.

My plan was to go to Islands of Adventure in the morning, then let Tucker take a nap, then go to Sea World at night. Well I did not realize that Sea World only has shows during the day! I guess I thought the stadiums were indoors, so it didn't matter what time it was. I called SeaWorld to get a list of showtimes, and we had missed almost every show!! :( I was so upset!

There were two shows we could still see-the Elmo and Abby Cadabby Christmas show, and the Shamu Rocks the World Show at 930pm or 1045 pm (they were late since it was New Year's Eve). So we planned to see Elmo at 8 and Shamu at 930, assuming we lasted that long.

We got to Sea World at 6, and realized that the kiddie ride area was on the opposite side from the Elmo show. We told them we had a wish button, so they said we could get great seats, but we still had to be in our seats at least 30 minutes ahead of time. So we took a quick trip to the kiddie area. Tucker started crying "hotel, hotel" pretty much as soon as we entered SeaWorld:( He had a good nap, but he was just done!

So Chris and I ran past the carousel, because the line was long and we didn't want to fight to get him back off after. There was an enormous playground, so we decided to spend our time there. It was a good choice at first, as Tucker loved it.

The problem was that it was mainly big nets, and Tucker was obviously too young and too small for it. The bigger kids kept climing over him; they weren't being mean, he just kept getting in the way, poor kid!

After Tucker almost fell down the net, I told him it was time to get down! He was so mad, and then we realized that the ride we wanted to take him on was broken! The Shamu Express roller coaster said the height requirement was 42" and Tucker is only 39". So in the middle of a mini-meltdown, a SeaWorld employee walked over and asked me what was wrong. I told him Tucker was too small for all the rides in this area, and he was not happy! The guy asked me if I read the fine print; I told him I was a little busy. He said the requirement was 42" to ride without a parent, but with a parent riding, Tucker only had to be 36". Well that was it, Chris picked Tucker up and ran up the Exit ramp. Tucker wiped his tears and was so happy:) He waited patiently for several rides to go by before he and Chris got their turn.

Tucker had a blast, and this ride took a picture in the middle. It is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip, Tucker and Chris are both grinning, and Tucker is hanging onto Chris, I will have to scan it in and share it, I LOVE it!

After that, it was time to see Elmo. We headed over to the Elmo show, and got great seats. By this point, neither the DVD player or CD player with headphones were making him happy, so Chris and Tucker walked up and down the bleacher stairs until the show started.

Tucker liked it for about 5 minutes.

Then it went from bad to worse very quickly. Tucker started crying "up da stairs!!" He wanted to climb up the stairs and be on stage with Elmo and the characters. It sounds cute, but his little heart was broken. He literally did not understand why he couldn't go up the stairs. When Tucker gets something in his head, and he gets a certain look, I just know it's over...there is no fighting him other than removing the temptation. So we walked out of the theatre, and he cried louder "back inside! up da stairs!" I told him he was not allowed because he was too loud for the other kids who were watching Elmo. He was so upset, and he just didn't understand.

Well, I burst out in tears at this point, as I feel like I punished Tucker for doing something he didn't even know was wrong. He watches Elmo every day at home, and I was just so upset that he was so sad. I told Chris that I wished he could just have seen Elmo, so Chris went to ask the attendant if Tucker could. They said Elmo and Abby come out after every show, and Tucker could be first in line to see them. I was so emotionally exhausted by this point (taking your kid on a Wish trip is just so full of every emotion, and it was taking its toll) that I wasn't even happy about it. We took Tucker to the line, and waited. He still was throwing a fit, and I am sure when Elmo and Abby came out, they were not too happy to meet Tucker!

His little face lit up, he only sat there for a few minutes before he got up and ran off. But I was happy that he at least met Elmo.

The picture I got wasn't very good, so we wanted to see what the professional pictures looked like. Chris and I went right over to the picture kiosk, but they weren't ready yet. Tucker was crying "hotel hotel" so we decided to leave. We ended up having no idea where we were going, so we walked in circles for about 30 minutes. Right before we left, we decided to check another picture kiosk. The picture was up, and it was so cute, so we bought it. We left, picked up Taco Bell, and were in bed by 10 on New Year's Eve! We had one more day at Disney the next day, so as usual, we needed our rest. We will have to visit Orlando again one day to meet Shamu and his friends.

Day Four

I have so much to blog about lately, and no time! I have a new job, Tucker started a new school semester, and our adorable new niece Kinley was born two days ago. So I am working on finishing the Dreams Come True trip so I don't miss any of the memories. Then I'll get on to all the other posts. On Day Four, we woke up and took our time getting ready. We went to breakfast at the Ice Cream Palace (it was less crowded and had yummy bacon and omelets). Well we sat right next to a rocking horse:) Tucker loved it, and Chris and I thought: "we are NEVER going to get him out of here!" He rocked for a while. Then it was my turn:)

It was pretty fun!Then we took a walk around Give Kids the World, waiting to meet the Disney characters at the Safari Theatre. We had already met Mickey and Minnie twice by this point, but we didn't want to miss out on any chance we had.

We got there right on time and were third in line. Here we are waiting in line.

Tucker did not really cooperate. By Day Four, not much impressed Tucker anymore. It was all very much "I've been here, already seen them, so what?" I told Chris "you give a kid all he wants whenever he wants for 3 days, and he gets spoiled..." Who knew? Outside of the theatre we met Belle, we had misssed her at Epcot so we were glad we saw her at GKTW. We were upset that she wasn't wearing her yellow gown, we may write Disney a letter!

After this, we headed to Universal Studios. We had two passes to Universal. Universal is actually two parks: Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. Universal has a lot more shows and rides that are based on movies, like a show that teaches you about horror show make-up, and a show and ride that makes you feel like you are in the Twister movie. We knew we wouldn't spend too long at Universal because most of the stuff was geared to older kids, or people with decent attention spans!

There were moving sidewalks, which Tucker loved! Plus he gave Chris's shoulders a break.

There were some very cool rides at Universal; unfortunately, Tucker was too short for most of them!

We got on the Jimmy Neutron ride first. It is a simulation ride, so you sit in a movie theatre, and your seats move and there are effects. Well, we got right on through the handicapped entrance, and the ride started, only to stop after 15 seconds. Tucker started screaming "go! go! go!" but the ride was broken:( The technicians came into work on it, and over 15 minutes later, we were still stuck in the tram and Tucker was still screaming. The attendants tried to entertain us by asking SpongeBob trivia questions (I shouted out almost all the answers-I'm not sure who embarassed Chris more-Tucker or me!). The attendant came over and asked if she could help us, I said "my son is four, he has autism, and he's stuck in a ride, you can fix the ride or get us out!" So a few minutes later they let everyone out since they couldn't fix it. We did meet Spongebob on the way out at least, I didn't get a good picture of Tucker with Spongebob, but the US photo guy got a good one of him poking at Sponge Bob's mouth. So far our day was not looking great! We headed over to the Woody Woodpecker Rollercoaster, a rollercoaster that Tucker was tall enough for. We passed Barney's Park on the way.

Then Tucker and Chris "ride da rides" and all was well, thank goodness:) So I tried the ride, blech, hated it!

We fed Tucker and then went to the Barney Show next. We got front row seats, and Tucker loved watching Barney, and especially Baby Bop. I sang and made Tucker dance to the songs. After the show, we walked out to the Barney playground. Tucker loved it, there were stairs, slides, and a little treehouse. We almost missed meeting Barney because Tucker wouldn't leave the playground.

There was this box that you press to hear Baby Bop talk. Tucker pressed it about 3223423 times. He loves Baby Bop:)

There was also a little boat. I'm not sure how that relates to Barney! Tucker grabbed the handle, so I got this pic:) He reminds us of his Poppy and Troy on Swamp People-Choot em!

Then of course we went back to the roller coaster!

There really wasn't much left for us to do; we ate lunch, which took a very long time. Maybe Universal doesn't have as many places to eat per capita as Disney, because the lines there for food were extremely long. Tucker and I waited at a table for over an hour for Chris to bring us our two slices of pizza. Once again, Tucker was SO GOOD and his Fritos and DVD player came to the rescue.

Chris kept saying how much he wanted to ride this rollercoaster:

It was huge and looked wild. I told him it was our Dream Come True, too, so he could use the GAP pass to go to the front of the line. We got an attendant, and told him Tucker was the wish kid, could Chris go to the front? He brought Chris right up! Tucker cried, "ride da ride!" but he had to be over 50 inches to ride it, so he had to sit with me. Chris loved the ride, so I'm glad he went. I guess we know where Tucker gets his bravery! Not me!

After we left Universal, it was still pretty early. I really wanted to go to Downtown Disney to see the Once Upon a Toy store. I wanted to get Tucker the Potato Head parts for his Potato Head "tay-ta hade" lol. So I got out the GPS on my phone and figured out how to get there (I am sure by now Chris was so tired of my plans and detours! lol, but he was a trooper, he knew I wanted to get every experience and smile out of this week that I could).

So it was easy to find, but Downtown Disney is basically an outdoor shopping mall, and it's huge. The toy store was on one end, and we parked on the complete opposite end, because it was so packed.

For anyone who goes to Disney, I definitely recommend shopping here. We wouldn't have gone there if it weren't for the Toy Store, but it's really neat.

There is a Lego Store, there is a transformer, dinosaur, and dragon all made out of legos.There are tons of restaurants, bars, and stores, and we saw all of them;) It was a long walk, and Tucker rode on Chris's shoulders the whole time. We finally got to the store. Tucker was SO excited to see Potato Head! I thought we might find him dressed up at Pixar Place, but they told me they cut up potato head and ate him! So this is the closest he got to actually meeting him.We bought a box for $20, and we filled it up with potato head pieces. The only rule is you have to be able to close the box. Since we already had a potato head at home, we stuffed the box full of Darth Vader hats, Mickey Ears, and Minnie Bows. Tucker was so proud of his box, it was so cute:)

And the next picture is one of my absolute favorites. I can't figure out how to rotate the pictures! :( This was what most of our trip looked like, Tucker riding on Chris's shoulders....I swear, the two of them got even more attached on this trip, which I didn't think was possible.

After that, we headed back to GKTW. But we weren't done yet! Our villa was right across from Matthew's Boundless Playground. It is a fully inclusive park, so that kids with all kinds of special needs can all play together. We had waited until now to show Tucker the park, because we knew once he went, that was all he would want! And we were right:)

He loved the big purple swings.

He even liked the slides:)

We finally got him off of the playground to go and meet Santa. GKTW has a big Christmas party every Thursday night, complete with Santa and Mrs. Claus and presents for every kid! No matter what time of the year. Tucker didn't really like Santa at the mall in December, but I thought we would give it another try. On the way there, we met the snack cart. This guy drives the cart around and offers everyone cookies and hot chocolate, how neat is that? :)

Of course, Tucker didn't want any of that! He wanted to ride on the cart! Then we kept walking to the carousel, where Tucker rode a few times.

We also went to the Amberville Train Station, which had little rides outside.

Tucker likes these type of rides at Wal Mart, he puts the quarters in and loves to go. Well at GKTW of course they are all free! So Tucker kept screaming "money! money!" and trying to dig money out of our pockets. He finally understood that it was free, and he could ride as long as he wanted:) Then Chris and I got a little break! We each went to get ice cream and ate our ice cream while Tucker "rode da rides." Then of course Chris and Tucker took a ride on the train.

And rode the elephant.

So then we tried to take him to see Santa, and after that long day, he fell apart :( Poor baby, he just couldn't go anymore, and he freaked out when we got to the theatre. So we didn't care, we told him we could go to the hotel. On the way out, a volunteer told us to go in the back, he didn't have to meet Santa to get a gift. So we took Tucker to a huge wall of toys! He of course chose a dump truck to add to the massive collection he got for Christmas. Then we headed back to the hotel, and Tucker threw a fit the whole way there, and after we were there. He had just had too much that day.

Chris and I didn't know what to do, none of the usual tricks worked. So I pulled out the preschool video as a last resort, and that did the trick. He just sat watching it with his little tears flowing. We needed some downtime! So we all went to bed by 9, and Tucker slept about 10 hours that night.

Day Four was still great, but the vacation was beginning to wear on al 3 of us by that point;) There are still 3 great days to go, hopefully I post about them soon!