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But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we could even set foot on the good ship Disney, I had to find a way to get the three Mouseketeers to the launching pad down in Florida. I had assumed this would be one flight, but no, it was two, and the last thing you want to do when traveling with the smallest of children is have to switch planes in Atlanta. I was tempted to fly Cleo up from Texas just to help me ease the pain, but I decided I could do this, and I could even love doing it.

Things began to unravel at La Guardia Airport, where I was informed that you could no longer check bags at the curb because the airlines had decided to charge a new fee for any checked baggage. Which meant we had to get into a long snaking line in order to turn over our unwieldy luggage. Have you done this with a toddler? Well, have you done it with a toddler, a special-needs kid, and a pushy six-year-old? Pierson tried to help by manning the stroller, meaning he decided to ram it into the backs of my legs every time the fellow in front of us moved so much as an inch. I prefer to let a little space open up before I have to shoulder all the bags and precariously tip the oversize wheelie forward. Pierson, on the other hand, is incrementally driven.

“Mom, move up,” he’d say. Ram.

“Chill out.” I’d try not to curse at him. “I’m trying to figure out where Larson is.”

“He’s up there, pretending to be with those people.”

And he was. Clearly embarrassed by our steerage situation, Larson had found a young couple in the first-class express line who looked vaguely like him. He was loitering just out of their peripheral vision, lightly stroking their YSL luggage. I think he might have ended up in a much grander locale, if I’d let him.

We made it through security okay, even with the task of having to remove all our shoes and get them back on again, and waiting at the gate to board was fine, especially as it was the first time the boys had access to my carefully packed activity bag. They were enthralled by the new dot-to-dots and fresh crayons. Even Finn seemed as though he might be ready for his mid-morning nap by the time we got on the plane. No such luck. The minute we boarded, all hell broke loose. Along with “Never admit fatigue,” “Fight over the window seat” is one of the two cardinal rules of childhood, and Pierson and Larson immediately obeyed it. Sleepy little pre-boarding Finn turned into a cute version of that animated creature Gollum from Lord of the Rings: standing on armrests, dancing on tray tables, and just generally trying to scramble over other people and suitcases and into the aisle, a demented gleam in his eye. I opened a bag of Cheetos, hoping it would work its usual magic. He grabbed it and flung them everywhere at once. Larson and Pierson stopped squabbling long enough to laugh at me picking orange bits out of my hair and then went after the rest of the contents of the activity bag, spilling the Model Magic wrappers and fuzzy colored pipe cleaners from a “Make Your Own Bug” Kit. The big, brightly painted wooden beads provided for the bodies went rolling off to a faraway row. Gollum stood up on my lap and played peek-a-boo with the elderly couple behind us. I felt sorry for them. A smiling two-year-old is adorable for exactly three “I see yous;” after that, you tend to want your space back. I would have gotten him his own seat, but how could I when I needed to have a hand on the other two?

Across the aisle a couple in their late thirties sat down, clutching the same Disney Cruise Line travel packet as I had. It was just the two of them, no children. I had to ask.

“Why? Why are you going on a Disney Cruise without children? Young at heart? What the hell?”

“Not by choice,” the man answered, good-naturedly. “My sister is getting remarried and wants her children to have fun at the wedding.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said, pitying them but comforted to hear a valid excuse. Just then the “Fasten Seat Belts” sign binged on and we started to taxi, eliciting from Pierson the now-predictable wail