Craig Daily Press

I’m not a big fan of e-mail forwards.

I don’t generally have the time to read them and, because of my personal aversion, I don’t like to clutter other people’s inboxes with them either.

But occasionally I’m given reason to re-evaluate my policy, and a recent video I received was one of those. It featured a child who was laughing so hard at the sound and feel of paper ripping that he couldn’t stay sitting up.

His uninhibited belly laugh had me laughing, too. It cheered me so much that I watched three times before I forwarded it to everyone I knew. I saved the video for rainy days.

More than that, I save it to remind me of a maxim I often forget, and it’s so important to parents: Keep it simple, stupid.

Given that I received the video a week before visiting Disney World, you’d think that it would’ve been fresh enough on my mind to have some effect.

You’d think.

Instead, I dragged my 6- and 7-year-old daughters into a kid’s vacation planned by adults for adults.

Simplicity was nowhere near the forefront of our planning process.

The Democratic candidates had nothing on us when it came to maximizing our time. Four states in three days is nothing compared to eight big people, three small people, luggage for twice that many, six theme parks, two layovers, four flights and two cars.

The universe kept giving me signs.

On our first night away, 6-year-old Nikki, whose reach is longer than her grasp, didn’t consider she couldn’t swim when she jumped into water that was about 2 feet deeper than she is.

I told her it’s important to look before she leaps.

Yes, it is.

I should have realized that 14 hours of walking, viewing quaint village scenes, stopping for pictures, rest, water and food, even in Disney World, isn’t a child’s idea of the vacation we’d outlined during the months we held it over their heads to bribe them for good behavior.

They wanted one thing and one thing only.

To ride rides.

It pains me to know that when Katie got off a rollercoaster I never thought she’d ride in the first place, I said we didn’t have time when she begged to “do it again.”

On day three, we got the picture when instead of getting out of bed with excitement, the kids begged to stay at the hotel where the swimming pool had a white, sandy beach and a water slide.

I jumped into Disney World without looking first and, most importantly, not looking through my children’s eyes instead of my own.

It’s easy to realize when I emptied bags of souvenirs and my girls emptied their pockets.

How different the contents.

In theirs were bits of shells found in rock gardens at Sea World, pennies that cost 50 cents to imprint with a Disney character, an acorn shell found at Animal Kingdom, carefully colored blue with the small leaves of a flower tucked inside.

That’s keeping it simple.