I'm guest-blogging today at one of my favorite sites, Southern MOMentum. They picked up one of my posts about "Getting Back to Work," something I've been trying to figure out for the past year.

Why do I love this site and the hilarious girls who write it? Oh, let me count the ways ... first of all, they have a clever name. They are committed to "inspiring moms to hit their stride," which is as worthy a blog aspiration as I can imagine. The writers are all funny, smart and as sweet as a glass of iced tea (made the way iced tea SHOULD be made, with sugar). But most importantly, I love them because this is the way they see me:

It's like looking into a mirror!

The "S" is for "special needs." Please stop by and visit me and my Super Friends at Southern MOMentum.

No caption necessary.

Jill over at Yeah. Good Times. created an award, and Jenni B at Anybody Want a Peanut? bestowed it on me. This is a truly awesome award (awesome=ugly), so clap for me! I got a dancing kitten! And I'm “memetastic” and I don't even know what that means! As Jill says, “It's better than the Nobel Prize ... the economics one anyway.”

I'm not sure I really want this award, but I'm very scared of Jill, so here we go ...

The rules, should you find yourself in receipt of the Memetastic Award:

1. You must proudly display the graphic Jillsmo describes as "absolutely disgusting.” I don't know what she's talking about. I'm no graphic designer but I can tell this was done by a real professional. You should be teaching classes. I want to know more about this kitten. I particularly like the way the confetti only rains on the kitty in that one little square at the bottom.

According to Jill: “It's so bad that not only did I use COMIC SANS, but there's even a little jumping, celebrating kitten down there at the bottom. It's horrifying! But its presence in your award celebration is crucial to the memetastic process we're creating here.”

2. You must list 5 things about yourself, and 4 of them must be bold-faced lies. Quality is not important.

3. You must pass this award on to 5 bloggers that you either like or don't like or don't really have much of an opinion about. Jill: "I don't care who you pick, and nobody needs to know why. I mean, you can give a reason if you want, but I don't really care"

4. If you fail to follow any of the above rules, Jill will hunt you down and harass you incessantly until, according to her, "you either block me on Twitter or ban my IP address from visiting your blog. I don't know if you can actually do that last thing, but I will become so annoying to you that you will actually go out and hire an IT professional to train you on how to ban IP addresses just so that I'll leave you alone. I'm serious. I'm going to do these things.” She will. She's no longer Mayor of Target so she's got time on her hands.

5. (Not actually a rule for some reason) Once you do the above, please link up to the Memetastic Hop so that Jillsmo can keep track of where this thing goes and figure out who she needs to stalk.

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5 things about AMANDA, 1 of which is actually true:

1. I weigh 100 pounds.

2. I have a superior, almost superhuman, sense of direction.

3. I used to work for Larry Flynt.

4. I help the police solve crimes through my psychic dreams.

5. My actual title is Lady Broadfoot of Windemere.

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I bestow this award on the following lucky (lucky=horrified) recipients:

1. E. Peterman and Vanessa at G. at girls-gone-geek.com because I love to give a shout-out to my fellow fan girls. Unfortunately, they have a strong sense of aesthetic, and I'm not sure the dancing kitten is going to make it on to their site. Maybe you could give him a mask and a cape?

2. Ashley at Stinker Babies because someone just stole this hilarious blogger's yard sale sign, so she could use a jumping kitty.

3. Maura at 36x37 because she writes so beautifully about firsts, and I'll bet this is the first time she has received a dancing kitty as a gift.

4. Wendy from Herding Cats in Hammon River, because she'll provide a happy home to our maniacally delighted cat.

5. The Cat's Blog because he or she (I have no idea who writes this blog) loves cats and hasn't posted since 2009's post, “Problem with the litter box,” so I'm concerned about him/her (concerned=not really).

Check out their blogs...and be sure and harass them about when they're going to post the dancing kitty.

(This is the fourth and final part of our story of our trip to Disney. It's taken longer to write it than to live it ... and that's saying something. You can find parts ONE, TWO, and THREE here.)

It's early yet. We haven't yet lost the will to live.

We finally made it to Magic Kingdom on Day 3, and that's where we should have been the whole time. Everyone else on the planet decided the same thing on the same day, though, because they all showed up.

I have never been in a more crowded place in my LIFE. I was terrified of losing track of one of the children in that pulsing mass of unwashed humanity, but it was, in fact, my mother that I had to keep playing sheepdog to, circling back around and herding her back toward the group as she lingered to shop, sight-see, or chat to someone. Any lingering was disastrous to group cohesion; stop to tie your shoe and you would look up to find yourself in the midst of the First Baptist Church of Dallas or 500 identically T-shirted residents of a Wyoming assisted living facility.

We stopped for a photo opp in front of Cinderella's castle, which now includes a seriously over-priced restaurant called Cinderella's Royal Table. One website suggested you plan on spending $50 a head if you eat there, kids or adults. I imagine eating in that castle is a dream come true for little girls of a certain age, and the little girl in me kinda pined to eat there. Short of emptying out the kids' college funds, though, I didn't really see it happening. When Willow's a little older ...

Billy is bawling in the picture because he "climb on the castle."

The Magic Kingdom is divided into what Disney calls “7 whimsical areas!” If whimsy=crowded, then we were seeing whimsy everywhere we went:

Main Street USA: gift shops, Disney Railroad stops here, parade route.

Adventureland: Swiss Family Treehouse, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise, Aladdin's Magic Carpet ride.

Frontierland: Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Tom Sawyer Island.

Liberty Square: Hall of Presidents, Liberty Square Riverboat.

Fantasyland: Cinderella's castle, Dumbo, Mad Tea Party, Peter Pan, Carousel, Small World.

Mickey's Toontown Fair: playground, Goofy's Barnstormer roller coaster, Disney Railroad.

Tomorrowland: Buzz Lightyear, Space Mountain, Carousel of Progress, Tomorrowland Speedway.

My final tip of this trip: Just don't go to Disney New Year's weekend.

Unlike 4^th of July or Thanksgiving, New Year happens to be a holiday for just about everybody, everywhere. Everyone in the world gets New Year's Day off ... except maybe people celebrating Chinese New Year. Do they still get off work on our New Year's Day? Maybe not. If China ever opens a Disney World, go there on January 1, because Orlando is a freakin' madhouse.

We spent most of our time in Fantasyland, which was more age-appropriate for the four kids in our group, all under 5. Dumbo was a favorite, as was the Carousel and the Teacups. Billy cackled non-stop on those spinning teacups, while I stood on the sidelines and nursed my empathetic motion sickness.

First ride of the day: We're having so much fuuuuun!

Last ride of the day: We're back. Again. At Dumbo.

I get nauseous just thinking about the Teacups.

We had planned to take the ferry to Tom Sawyer Island, until we saw the miserable shoulder-to-shoulder conditions under which we'd have to travel. Also, you can't take a stroller over there, so we decided to skip that one.

I thought the Buzz Lightyear ride, during which you get to shoot laser guns at targets, was awesome. But Billy freaked out through most of it. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think the laser gunfire sounds and neon glow-in-the-dark colors combined to create a sensory overload. There's a handle in the car, which allows you to spin your car around to face different targets, and he did enjoying constantly spinning us. I, on the other hand, nearly Zorged all over everyone (motion sickness rears its ugly head again).

Billy thoroughly enjoyed the Tomorrowland Speedway. “Speed” is not the primary descriptor I would use to describe this ride – which suited us just fine. The cars can only chug along a pre-determined track, and parents and kids can ride together.

This is what passed for a successful family photo by the end of the trip.

A huge hit with all the kids (and their parents) was the Disney Railroad. We kicked back and enjoyed the park from the comfort of our open-air train compartment, so even though we didn't explore Tom Sawyer's Island, we got to see it, as well as a lot of the rest of the park to which we didn't make it on foot.

Our kids spent a good hour in Mickey's Toontown Playground, a small, preschool-sized playground no more elaborate than what you might find at your neighborhood park. So basically, my kids' favorite attractions on our Disney trip were the train, the pop fountain at Epcot and the playground. Next time, I'm just going to take them to the Destin Commons Mall where they can do all that for free.

Though I have laughed and complained through most of this description of our trip to Disney, I can seriously say that it was one of the best trips of my life. I feel very lucky to have a family with whom I can travel and laugh and complain and EAT and nurse our collective wounds. Every morning now as I limp a little bit getting out of bed, I remember fondly the endless cobblestone miles we trudged and all the elbows to the kidneys I received in the long lines. I can't wait till next year.

Update: Four days ago, I sent a letter to Disney describing our New Year's Eve experience, as many of you suggested. I received an automated reply telling me that someone would respond within 14 days. So far, I haven't heard anything else, but I'll let you know if I do.

Bad hair! The Bee Gees! A calendar of 1979

... to bring you an episode of the $25,000 Pyramid. Remember that game show?

Well, apparently Willow was Dick Clark in another life, because she remembers it too. Wait, Dick Clark is still alive. How old is that man anyway? Like 150?!

But I digress ... So Willow cuddles up in bed with me for a few minutes each morning, and she tells me things. Usually, it's just words she knows. Lately, though, she's been categorizing them. She'll sit on my chest and and recite, "Pink ... bwack ...white ...yewwoh ... orange..." and then wait.

My job is to respond, "Colors!"

Then she'll do another one: "Carrots ... peas ... ice cream ..."

"Food!" I'll guess, and if I get it wrong, she keeps going:

"Fry-fries (French fries)...eat-dog (hot dog) ..."

And I've got it: "Plastic food in your toy kitchen!"

Bingo. Then she starts again: "Mama ... Daddy ... Bee-dah (brother) ...Nan..." and so on.

She loves this game. I feel like that at 22 months, categorizing words like this is a sign of unadulterated genius, but since I've never seen a normally developing child acquire language, this is probably totally normal. Everything she says seems like magic to me.

But this morning she stumped me. After we went through "Animals," "Flying stuff" and "Shapes," she came out with this list:

"Five ... car...Tar-Brown (Charlie Brown) ...eight ...Corny-corn (unicorn) ... Tar-Brown..."

Any thoughts?

(This is part 3 in a seemingly endless recounting of our trip to Disney World over New Year's. If you're interested, you can find PART 1 here and PART 2 here. I promise you: There's just one more day after this.)

Hello, my little friends...

After our New Year's Eve at Hollywood Studios, I woke up in pain in every muscle and joint of my body. The fronts of my shins, the backs of my thighs, my neck – even my armpits hurt. I woke to the sound of gibberish and couldn't actually make out any words; that, coupled with the pain, made me think at first that I had had a stroke. But it turned out to be Willow babbling.

Though the Mouse House was our ultimate goal for this trip, many of our favorite memories took place outside the park, in the MickMansion, hanging out with our family. One of those memories was Christmas Number Two on Saturday morning.

The kids hadn't exchanged presents between cousins, so over breakfast, they tore into their new haul. Willow, master chef of the plastic food got a gourmet kitchen's worth of different fruits, vegetables and even fast food (what sadist would include individual plastic French Fries in the 300 pieces of toy food???), stainless steel kitchen ware and a chef's apron.

I love them I love them I love them I love them

And Billy received a set of Charlie Brown figures. Never has a child loved a present more. He gathered them all into his arms – Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Peppermint Patty, Snoopy and Woodstock – and carried them with him everywhere. (Quick flash forward: He fell asleep that night with Charlie Brown in one hand and Lucy gripped in the other.)

Watching the kids play with their loot bought us enough time to nurse our wounds and a cup of coffee before psyching ourselves up for Epcot Day.

Space is Bad

I've made some bad parenting decisions in my time. But few will probably haunt me as long and relentlessly as the decision to send Billy on the Mission: Space ride at Epcot. To this day, one of his first questions in the morning is, “We're not going to space? Space is bad.” This from a child who was so excited about “going to space” that he could talk of nothing else before we got to Epcot

Baby Sloan says, "Viva Mexico!"

Things started out positively enough. The slow-moving Spaceship Earth was a huge success. He was none-to-keen on the animatronic people – and it is a bit startling to come around the corner and find yourself face-to-face with Galileo – but when the ceiling around us transformed into a giant planetarium, he was thrilled.

By the time we finished this ride, of course, it was time to eat. It had, after all, been about an hour and a half since we had breakfast.

One of the reasons Epcot is my favorite park is the food. Eleven different countries have their own little “worlds,” reflected in the food and merchandise sold there. Dave had his sights on Germany, sausages and beer, but when we arrived there, we found out that the lunch buffet cost $38 per person for adults and $18 per kid. Dave can drink a lot of beer, but even he would be challenged to eat and drink his money's worth there.

On the outskirts of Germany, though, was Billy's very favorite exhibit: The model railroad. An outdoor miniature train track with mountains and tunnels was criss-crossed with pathways, allowing kids (and adults) to run around and follow the electric trains on their journey. Billy would have stayed there all day long, and we had our first true meltdown of the trip when we informed him we had to move on.

We talked about the irony of commanding our children, “NO! You cannot stay HERE and have fun, because we have to go to the next place and have fun THERE!” The drive to “move on” becomes a bit relentless and overwhelming at these super-sized parks.

Billy: "He has a blanket."

Italy and Mexico both have (relatively speaking) reasonably priced food of pretty good quality. We settled on an Italian place where we could order pizzas and salads to split and where they had a very tolerant attitude about us breaking out food for the kids. (Your special needs pass earns you a lot of tolerance in this area in most restaurants.)

On this trip, Billy developed a fascination with Roman gods and goddesses in a storybook his Nan brought for him. Outside the restaurant was a fountain with a giant Neptune statue where he spent a good bit of quality gazing time. He refused to leave, even ending up in the family photos of many other people who stopped for a photo opp.

Cautionary Tale #3 in Traveling to Disney World with an Autistic Child

What could make more sense than stuffing your child full of mac-n-cheese and then sending him on a motion simulator space ride with realistic g-force blast-off experience?

Imagining it would be similar to the slow-moving Mission: Earth ride we took in the beginning, I sent Dave and Billy off to take a Mission to Mars.

That's a stream of water from the pop fountain in the picture. She LOVED it!

WHAT. WAS. I. THINKING?????????

Well, I wasn't thinking. I didn't do nearly enough research.

Willow and Sloan weren't tall enough for Mars so we waited and played in the pop fountain – Willow's favorite part of Disney. Quick tip: pack at least one extra set of clothes because there are many opportunities to get wet – some intentional, some not-so-much – and you won't want to miss out.

EXT. EPCOT POP FOUNTAIN – DAY.

Billy and Dave stumble out of the Mars ride red-eyed and stunned.

BILLY: Space is BAD!!

ME: What happened?

DAVE: They couldn't believe he was big enough. I should have known something was up when they kept measuring him at every stop.

ME: Ya THINK??!

BILLY: Space is BAD!!

He leaps into my arms.

ME: WHAT. HAPPENED??!

DAVE: G-forces. Blast-off. He was screaming. So much screaming. (then) They made him the pilot.

BILLY: We CRASHED! Space is BAD!!

It would be really helpful if some sort of “sensory guide” to Disney could accompany the special needs pass. A height requirement is not always enough to judge whether a ride is appropriate for every child.

It's also worth noting that after having the Bejeezus scared out of him, a sensitive child is likely to have little tolerance for what Disney calls “mild thrills.”

Posed picture fail #1

Posed picture fail #2

Our Mini Sensory Guide to the Rest of Epcot

Yay for the calming effect of real, non-talking fish.

On the Nemo ride, Billy screamed bloody murder at the sight of that sharp-toothed fish that jumps out at you. However, he found the real aquarium outside the ride to be very calming.

On Universe of Energy, he climbed onto my head like a squirrel at the sight of the realistic, life-sized dinosaurs while screaming, “I don't like dinosaurs!” at the top of his lungs. Most of the ride involves sitting in the dark watching a film in which Ellen Degeneres learns about energy before the rows of seats start to move around the pavilion in the dark where the dinosaurs are lurking. At one point, you just sit in the dark and listen to a “radio announcer” discuss evolution. It's the only ride on which I've ever been simultaneously bored to tears and terrified.

Thumbs up to the Test Track, the race car ride that Billy rode with Daddy.

Billy's favorite moments of the day: The model train, staring at the giant fountain in the middle of Epcot and dancing to a Scottish band performing in the Canada exhibit.

Wes (my brother-in-law) and I tried to convince everybody to go on The Land ride, where you get a tour of the hydroponic farms, but everyone blew raspberries at us and called us giant nerds, so we missed out on that one. We also missed Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, which would have required Billy to wear 3-D glasses; after the day he'd had, we were afraid that had we managed to actually get the glasses on him (always iffy), the experience would give him seizures or something.

Even though it was New Year's Day, Epcot wasn't terribly crowded and we really did have a great time once we figured out that the quality of our time couldn't be judged by the quantity of rides we rode.

All in all, a successful day: After all, it was 2011 and we hadn't gotten into one public fight all year.

Coming up next time! In our FINAL episode (I promise): Magic Kingdom finally breaks us (the parents).