It’s Wish week! So many things to share with you…

On Monday around lunchtime we checked into Give Kids the World Village (GKTW). When we looked at photos online we thought it looked pretty fun, but photos did not do it justice. So let’s start out with a little bit about GKTW.

This all inclusive resort was founded in 1986 for families just like ours. They work with all wish organizations, not just Make-A-Wish, to create a safe and accessible environment for families to come relax. They have thought of everything, and I mean everything, to make the stay amazing.

The entire village is accessible including a playground, splash pad, pool, putt putt, arcade, rides (giant swing, butterfly ride, carousel, and train). They provide three meals a day from the buffet style cafeteria, snacks poolside (Icees, hot dogs, nachos, etc), a cookie cart that drives around and serves cookies/brownies and lemonade, and an ice cream parlor that opens at 7:30am. They have a spa where kids can get temporary tattoos and get their hair styled. They offer pony rides for all abilities. In addition to all these fun things, they also host parties at least once a day, each with a different theme. And I am sure I am missing so much more.

Here is a photo slideshow of some of our favorite photos at GWTK. You can click on the first photo and click through the photos. This seems to be the best route for the many photos in this post!

Our villa had two bedrooms, two baths, a washer and dryer, a full kitchen and living room area. The entire house was accessible and included a shower chair for Malachi. We could call for a shuttle to drive us anywhere if we were too tired to walk, and Malachi felt like a prince on his golf cart!

We could have been gifted a week at the village and been totally content and thrilled! They utilize over 1,800 volunteers a week and everyone is so excited to serve. It was truly a special experience.

Medical mom moment: I am going to insert these into this post to let you see some of the inner workings on my brain and heart. So medical mom moment #1. I had a very hard time for the first 24 hours at GKTW. I was struggling with some PTSD moments- flashbacks to being in the Ronald McDonald House- and that brewed a lot of emotions. It is easy to read what I just wrote and find undertones of ungratefulness in it, so please don’t misunderstand me! We are so incredibly thankful for organizations like Ronald McDonald House. But being in that environment means you have a very sick child that cannot be with you because they are in the hospital. And those feelings of helplessness are so, so strong. We have spent nearly 300 nights in Ronald McDonald Houses. Being in an environment where that same generosity was being displayed to our family bubbled up those emotions. I had to keep reminding myself that my family was together- that all four of us were healthy and together and I could relax and enjoy the blessing. Which was surprisingly hard for me to do.

Each day they stopped by our villa while we were out and left presents for the boys. We attended one of the Christmas parties at the Village and they both got to choose a Christmas present in June! They were spoiled and showered with goodies all week. Not to mention the unlimited ice cream sundaes, Malachi’s favorite! On the final day Malachi was in a terrible mood as we packed the car. I asked him if there was something he wanted to do before we left and he signed yes. We finally got to the bottom of it…he wanted ice cream one more time. After that he was all smiles as we said goodbye and hit the road.

GKTW has several corporate sponsorships worldwide and they are able to gift families not only a place to stay but tickets to several local attractions. We received 3 day tickets and park hoppers to Disney, 2 day tickets to Universal, and 1 to Sea World. They also include free VIP parking and badges at each one to identify us as a GKTW family that give us special privileges. For Disney that meant going into the lightning lanes and being brought to the front of character meet/greets. For Universal they brought us through the exit of each attraction to the front of the line immediately. The badges also gave us free photo packages and each one!

We allowed Malachi to dictate the entire week, giving him multiple choice lists to choose from. On Tuesday he chose to go to Magic Kingdom and ride some rides. There were several that he was able to stay in his chair on and they even let him stay on and ride it more than once on a few rides. Here is a slideshow of our time at Magic Kingdom! For our Disney loving friends we rode: Winnie the Pooh, Buzz Lightyear, Aladdin, Enchanted Tales with Belle, Little Mermaid, Jungle Cruise, and maybe one or two more that I am forgetting.

On the way home Malachi asked to eat at the T-Rex restaurant which has animatronic dinosaurs all over. He was so so so happy. We made sure to order food and drinks for Malachi everywhere we went and let him “pay” with our Make-A-Wish card that had an allowance on it for the week. Malachi can’t eat a whole lot, but we were usually able to find something with melted cheese or chocolate on the menu as well as a smoothie. He literally gained 5 pounds this week.

On Wednesday Malachi wanted to go Universal to meet some characters! We only spent 1.5 hours there but packed in so much. That was one of the most fantastic benefits of the week is that we never felt the pressure of needing to “get our money’s worth”. We did just the specific things we set out to do and then left. He met Spider-Man, Blu the velociraptor, a baby t-Rex, and got Spider-Man face paint. Here is the Universal slideshow.

Since we still had some energy, we let Malachi choose the next thing on his list and he picked Gatorland. They also are corporate sponsors for GKTW and give families free tickets! We stayed for an hour and Malachi got to hold an alligator, two snakes, and a tarantula! Here is the slideshow, but beware it will spook you out. Also note that mom is not in many of the photos.

Thursday was Malachi’s wish day! We had to check in at Discovery Cove at 7am so it was an early morning. Malachi’s excitement was so incredibly sweet to watch. He was giggling as we walked in so I took a quick video:

Side note- Levi was VERY jealous. He was not old enough to participate in the dolphin swim and struggled with emotions, which made Malachi even more dramatically hyped haha. You can see the jealousy brewing in each photo.

We were scheduled for a 10:00 dolphin swim so we ate some breakfast and headed to the aviary to feed the tropical birds. Then we got Malachi all ready for his dolphin swim.

The dolphin swim was done in a large group of 10 so we attended a brief class and headed down to the water. Malachi’s excitement was incredible. He was so excited it took him at least ten minutes to relax enough to open his hands and pet the dolphin. The encounter was 40 minutes long and after he relaxed he laughed and laughed and laughed. The trainers let each person pet the dolphins (we had two dolphins: Rose and Maddie) multiple times and demonstrated all kinds of cool tricks. Malachi’s favorite part was the noises they were trained to do. One of them did a t-Rex impression, they both screamed if you said “Boo”, and mimicked a fishing reel. One of them made a toot noise when signaled to do so, and so much more. When that part of the experience came Malachi lost his mind, laughing and squealing with joy. He also got kissed by the dolphin. Here is a photo slideshow, but it doesn’t even capture a fraction of his smiles and joy.

We spent a few more hours at the resort checking out some of the other experiences. And Levi was much happier after the dolphin encounter was officially over. We swam with the sting rays and the tropical fish, even having one giant one brush up against Malachi’s feet.

We were only able to last a few hours at the resort before the heat caught up with Malachi. We headed home to let him rest a bit then spent the evening at Medieval Times.

Ugh Medical Mom Moment #2. I have been avoiding thinking in depth about this one. Let’s talk about the emotions of dolphin day.

When Malachi chose his wish to swim with dolphins the coordinator at Make-A-Wish said that he would only be able to choose one parent to join the encounter. We let Malachi choose and he chose momma, which was so touching. I really wanted to give him a good experience, and didn’t trust my abilities to physically be able to be his arms and legs without supportive seating. I joined our local gym and started working out and lifting weights 3-4 days a week for the last two months to prepare my body.

I was SO anxious leading into dolphin day, praying that I would be able to help Malachi participate fully. The first thing we had to do was get from the meeting area to the water and I had to pull his wheelchair 50 yards in the sand to get him close to the water. By the time I finished that task I was already shaking with fatigue and I could feel hot tears welling up in my eyes as I lifted him out…just feeling so defeated. They had told me the experience was 40 minutes long and I was already so physically tired. They assigned a life guard to be a helper but truthfully she was not eager at all to help and I didn’t want any of her negative vibes to be felt by Malachi.

Supporting Malachi is already hard, but getting him in a safe position in the water while freeing up one hand to try to help him touch the dolphin was quite the challenge. Add in his intense excitement and he was contracting all of his muscles. I couldn’t get him to open his hands and I felt like such a failure. He had chosen me to do this special thing and I was failing him. All of the emotions were rising to the surface and I had to look away and let a few tears fall, trying to talk myself out of a total meltdown. After about 15 minutes Malachi finally relaxed enough for us to interact with the dolphin and his joy made allowed me to completely ignore all of my shaking muscles and pull some extra energy from God. Hearing his laughter and watching him touch the dolphin with such intentional movements was amazing to see.

One of the underlying emotions of any medical mom is always feeling like we are failing our child. We are given circumstances beyond our control and our BEST is still not enough. I am so thankful that the Lord stepped in and helped make that experience an amazing one for Malachi, despite my inadequacies.

Friday was our final full day so we asked Malachi to tell us what he still had on his list. He chose to go back to Disney, this time Hollywood Studios to see some shows and ride a few rides. We watched Beauty and the Beat live on stage and attended the Frozen show where he was seated front and center. Then we spent some time riding rides in Toy Story Land. Against our better judgment we tried a real rollercoaster with the boys called Slinky Dog Dash. This coaster was INTENSE, even going sideways. We didn’t realize how intense it was on round 1. I sat Malachi beside me and held on tight to him, regretting our choice to ride within the first 10 seconds. But as it ended and we sat him back in his chair he immediately signed MORE MORE MORE! That was the first time he had done that all week so we knew we needed to ride it again. I think we have a thrill seeker on our hands!

We ate at the Rainforest Cafe for dinner, one of Malachi’s favorite restaurants. The only thing left on Malachi’s list was getting splashed by a whale at Sea World. The final orca show was at 8:15 so we arrived at 7:00 and got him front row seats with dad. His smiles were so huge before and after the splash. It was the perfect ending to the week!

That night I talked to Malachi about his week and asked if he was happy with all of his choices. This was the smile he gave me…

This week was such a gift to all of us. We had a week that was free of appointments, financial worries, medical drama, and saying “no”. We didn’t have to fight to give him opportunities at normalcy- it was gifted to us in abundance. This trip was so much more than anything we could have imagined, and we are so thankful for the memories we will cherish for a lifetime.

I am most definitely missing some great stories from the week but my brain is maxed out. So some final thoughts….

What I didn’t realize when we scheduled this trip was that it would fall on the same week that we brought our Malachi home from the hospital in 2013. In so many ways we are the same- but in so many ways we have been profoundly and beautifully changed by our Malachi in the best ways. Every day with him is a gift. And life with him has been a blessing that I wouldn’t have been able to imagine a decade ago.

Thank you, God, for the gift of Malachi. And thank you for your perfect will, even when it is vastly different than mine.

Much love,

Leah