DorrieDorrie

Chasing the Clouds Away (except not)2

For our second day at Sesame Place, we had made some modifications to our plan. The idea this time was to feed Dorrie at the nice, cool hotel room. Then just bring some juice with us to the park to keep her hydrated, not even bothering with the pump and bag and all that setup. If we could get over there early enough, we could spend a few hours, come back for a break (and meal) and then return to the park for some last minute fun and to watch the parade at 9pm.

The first kink in our plan was Miss D herself, who didn’t want to wake up in the morning. Eventually we had to decide: wake her up or risk feeding her while she was asleep? We decided to chance the latter and so started up her food while she was still asleep. She woke up partway through the food and though the inevitable did occur, the pukie was only a very small one and entirely contained on a hotel towel.

We left the hotel feeling all wise and prepared. The first thing we did upon getting to the park was to head for the welcome center to get Dorrie her orange handicap bracelet and a printed list of rides. Naturally, we hit the first snag there as well, as the girl couldn’t get her computer to work and actually spit out the list of accessible rides. After several minutes we gave up and decided we’d just ask at the rides. (As it turned out, the only ride for Dorrie was the carousel. Which is really my only complaint about the park — yes, if she didn’t have a trach, probably she could also have gone on some of the water rides, but I’m really not sure why an amusement park with such gentle rides overall was not more accessible to someone who needs even as much assistance as Miss D. I’m really surprised there wasn’t something like a train.)

The girl running the carousel this day was more cautious and required permission from her supervisor before she’d allow D on the ride, but she was apparently a very anal employee in general — she stopped the ride several times because people were ‘taking pictures’ or ‘moving around’. But Dorrie got to ride with Grammy in the end and had a very nice time.

[Waiting for the ride to start]

[Riding with Grammy]

Grammy and I hit the stores again, spending even more money on random stuff that we’d been debating over the day before. We even managed to find the personalized books booth, which we had overlooked the day before. So we ordered a couple of those and grabbed some slushies (Grammy’s hopes were dashed, as it wasn’t nearly hot enough for Dorrie to be interested in having any) before we headed over to see the second of the three shows currently running, Abby’s Treasure Hunt.

[Enjoying the show]

This show involved more muppets than the Elmo’s World Live had, and Dorrie was in a better frame of mind to begin with, so she enjoyed it a lot more than the last one. She even managed to stay in her chair the entire time. At the end, Rosita came down to say hello, which was just great. (I’m not sure Rosita is one of Dorrie’s favorites exactly, but she’s one of mine.) Bob managed to snap a couple of pictures before a little girl who’d been sitting behind us managed to fling herself bodily onto Rosita.

[Rosita says hello]

The whole afternoon there had been thunder on and off, causing the rides and some bits of the park to close down for periods of time. As we finished with the Abby show, it was still threatening to storm, but it didn’t feel like it was overly close. All the same, we decided it would be a good time to have our break, so I went back to pick up the books and Grammy and Bob headed to the car to start getting Miss D and all of her gear packed up. I had just collected the books (saying to the guy that he’d better give me a bag in case it started to rain) and was heading to grab the picture frame I was also intending to buy when the skies opened up and the rain came pouring down. It had been several minutes, so I was hopeful that Grammy, Bob and Dorrie were already back at the car; there was no hope for me, of course, so I didn’t bother to hurry, and by the time I did get to the parking lot I was completely soaked.

Unfortunately, so was everyone else, because they had stopped to close out our locker rather than head straight for the car. We sat in the car for a few minutes, collecting ourselves, before we went to grab some food and head back to the hotel to relax for a couple of hours.

It was the right choice for sure. We all attempted to dry off, we got Dorrie a meal, and we all had a chance to decompress. And no one fell asleep!

It was a little hard to get ourselves moving again to go back to the park, since some of our clothing was still a bit damp, but we found the motivation and piled back into the car. We arrived in time for the final showing of the Elmo Rocks! stage show, which Dorrie liked very much at first, since it involved singing and dancing and familiar tunes (she broke into a big smile for the Sesame Street theme). Toward the end, when it got more “rockin’” she started to get overwhelmed by the noise and was less happy with it, but she managed to come through without a big meltdown or needing to come out of her chair. This show also turned out to be the one with the most audience participation: some on purpose, like having the kids stand up and dance at the end; some not so much, as when more than one toddler began to rush the stage, mesmerized by Elmo.

[Dorrie knows the song!]

At the end, Dorrie was the lucky recipient of some more attention from the characters. Cookie Monster came down and was able to spend a surprising amount of time with her, and then even Elmo came down to say hello. Elmo didn’t get to stay as long, as he was soon overwhelmed by all the other (more mobile) little kids and beat a retreat backstage.

[Cookie Monster stops by]

[Posing with Cookie]

[Elmo is rushed]

There was still some time to kill after the show, so we went back for one last ride on the carousel. There was a nice breeze blowing every time we came around one side, and Dorrie was very happy every time it blew in her face. She enjoyed this ride as much as she had the others. When it was all done, we started back toward the front of the park to stake out a spot for the parade.

[One last ride]

We ended up near the topiaries at the entrance of the park. Now, as it turned out and which we didn’t know, a spot further along the parade route would give you more to see, because the parade stops, does a little dance, then moves a bit forward and repeats. So if you’re near the beginning of the route, the parade goes almost all the way past before the first stop.

In any case, we had a good spot and it got dark surprisingly quickly — it was pretty dim by the time the parade got started at 9pm. Dorrie was starting to get kind of tired by the time it finally began, but she perked up at all the lights (which she loves) and the music was also a plus. The parade itself was very cool, and we got to see some characters we hadn’t seen yet in the park, like Murray and Prairie Dawn. But really the best part was after they stopped and began to do the first of their routines. Super Grover came right on over to say hello to Miss D, shake her hand and make friends. She wasn’t too sure about this — it was kind of hard to see, since he’s dark blue and it was dark, but she was mostly game. It was only after he left that she started to lose it: the music was pretty loud and I think she just got overstimulated.

[Watching the parade]

[Super Grover is super]

So I pulled her out of her chair, and Super Grover noticed and tried to come over and help. Which really was above and beyond, I must say.

D calmed down and the parade quickly moved beyond us after that, so we left. All in all, a very successful visit.

Back at the hotel, we had to get ready to leave. There was an astonishing amount of crap to pack up, not even counting Dorrie’s vent and associated supplies. She fortunately managed to fall asleep around midnight, and I was able to pretty much finish packing by that point, so Grammy helpfully moved some stuff down to the car. I would have been happy to lay down with her and get a bit of a nap, but for whatever reason her vent was determined not to detect her breathing and kept alarming every minute or so. I was a bit worried about how much noise it was making, so when moving her around didn’t help the sensor, I ended up sitting up and pushing the alarm silence for a couple of hours until it was time to head out.

Atonishingly, Dorrie stayed asleep when she was transferred into the car. Less astonishingly, she woke up about an hour later, while we were still in New Jersey, and remained awake for the entire rest of the ride home.

Posted by mom, under our little witch, tales of interest