If You're Going to Travel with a Diva...

expect a lotta drama. We took Master Sam (who now insists that we refer to him as "Indy" aka Indiana Jones) and Princess Sophie on a mini vacation to Great Wolf Lodge. They were beyond excited and I think our first shopping stop was more than anything they'd imagined. We stopped in Concord Mills and found the Lego store for Sam and the Disney store for Sophie. Their eyes grew to the size of saucers as they took in all the sights and sounds of their 2 most favorite play things. Sam began to enter panic mode as he tried to decide just what Lego set to buy. Yes, poor thing, gets all wound up like his Mama when he needs to choose just one thing in the store. See, he doesn't want to choose the wrong one just to be disappointed later. I left him with his Daddy to help with the selection process. I escorted Sophie to the Disney store and discovered to my extreme happiness that they were having a HUGE sale. Oh my! Our diva twirled and pranced from one princess toy to another...she stopped to try on flip flops at some point between handling a Belle glittery cup, a princess laden soccer ball, and too many pairs of pajamas/t-shirts to keep up with. Finally, she settled on a large Sleeping Beauty head with flowing blond hair and a smorgasbord of hair accessories to put on the aforementioned head. At this point, "Indy" and his dad returned with a Lego Land Rover and horse trailer set. You've never seen 2 children happier with their purchases. Next, we made a stop at the indoor carousel. Sam chose a stationary bench to ride on (until I made him pick an animal--are you kidding me??? I was NOT paying $2 for him to just sit there). Sophie selected a horse with a bizarre mermaid tail. Afterwards, I scrounged up 75 cents for the kids to squeeze in a kiddie ice cream truck ride together. Sophie "drove" while Sam screamed random dollar amounts out the window at us. We then bought dinner in the food court and as we were inhaling our chicken sandwich, I read a sign that explained how you could text a # and request a certain song to be played over the food court speakers. So Sam chose a song ("Hey Soul Sister") and was so excited to hear it playing for everyone within a 1 mile radius of where we were seated. After all that excitement, we took the kids to check in the Great Wolf Lodge. We immediately suited up and headed to the indoor water park. All 4 of us had a great time sliding and splashing around. I think Sophie spent at least 3/4ths of her time parading around in her ballerina swimsuit. We finally headed back upstairs and went through a vacation version of the bedtime routine. This is the part where the diva really reared her ugly head and caused a lot of stress. She refused to go to sleep and began barking all of her usual demands at us..."I need a snack; I need a drink; I don't like this bed; I don't like you; blah, blah, blah..." She was in our bed before either one of us realized what was happening. FINALLY at 11 pm she drifted off to sleep and Alan scooped her up to put her in her own bed. We thought we were good for a night's sleep. But that little princess woke up at 4:00 and began the list of requests again. Finally, after a pop on the leg, a fussing mommy, a growling daddy, and a whaling diva, she fell back asleep around 4:45 am. Thank goodness she did sleep until about 8:45 but oh man, we were wiped out! 2nd night...I massaged her back until she drifted off and she slept like an angel. So the diva likes back rubs...who knew???