Orlando Part 1

As usual, I packed the night before and the morning of our trip. That doesn’t really bother me. I work best under pressure, or at least tell myself that. I prefer packing summer clothes because they take up less room. I actually remembered all the things I usually forget: Swim suits, swim diapers, plenty of toys and books for the plane and snacks for the plane.




I tried a new accessory this trip. I have seen Todd’s schoolmates’ parents use a backpack with what essentially is a leash attached to it. I know, I know. Autistic kids have a tendency to just “take off” and it’s hard to chase after them or physically keep them in one place when you’re also trying to juggle luggage and keep an eye on your other child. I thought I’d try it for this trip. It actually was very helpful. I initially tried to ignore the ugly looks and judgmental stares. There was one pair of women, appeared to be a mother and daughter, who exchanged smug smiles and I heard one of them say, “He’s going to choke on that,” even though the harness only goes over his shoulders. I should have said something bitchy to them, but I was in too good a mood. It really helped at the airports and at Magic Kingdom. It didn’t hurt him and he didn’t seem to mind it. I actually saw several children in similar restraints at Magic Kingdom.



There’s an episode of “Modern Family” where the family is going to Disneyland and the fathers of the youngest child break out a harness. Someone asks, “Is that a leash?” One dad answers, “No, it’s a child safety tethering device.” The other dad answers, “It’s a leash. Please don’t judge us.”



Midway Airport is about a 20-minute ride down Cicero Avenue from our home. The planes fly in very close to Cicero and make my kids giggle. My brother checked us in online, so when we arrived at Midway Airport, we went straight to security.



Now, I understand the TSAs have an important job to do. I’m not naïve to the fact there are terrorists out there who want to kill us all. That said, I have my doubts about the effectiveness of the TSA system. All I ever see at the airport are families with young children being harassed and old people, many in wheelchairs, being molested because their fake body parts set off an alarm.



I was happy to see some new rules. There was a sign that if you were born before this date in 1937, you don’t have to take off your shoes. That pertained to my dad, who was born in 1934. Also, children under the age of 12 no longer have to take off their shoes. This is great, because it was a huge pain in the ass to take off my own shoes and those of my two children, plus try to get all our stuff in the plastic bins, take out the laptop and put that in its own bin, take out the standard 3 3-oz. liquids in the ziploc baggie, separate the iPad, cell phone, etc. Old habits die hard, though. My 7-year-old kept trying to take off his shoes anyway, since I’ve trained him to do that for past vacations.



But, as usual, they had to scold me for something. The TSA complained that my kids weren’t holding their individual boarding passes. I got snippy at this point. “I have two special needs kids, one on a leash, six bags and you expect the kids to hold their own boarding passes? And this is important, why?”