"The Big D"

For Christmas, Jude and I got Disneyland passes.  This gift was a subject of some debate.  On one hand, I don't want our kids to think Disneyland is no big deal, or be spoiled to go there so often.  On the other hand, having it so close is a perk of living in Southern California, passes used often make entrance pretty darn cheap, and it's an activity that we ALL enjoy.  You know those gem activities when you're in the trenches of raising young, dependent children, those activities that both parent and child are happy to participate in?  Jeff wouldn't be able to go much because the passes we got are blacked-out most Saturdays, so he didn't want one, but I convinced him that he'd never forgive himself if he wasn't there for Jude and Graham's first visit to Disneyland. He got a one-day pass.

One Saturday in January, the boys were still a teensy bit wobbly in the tummy, but we had nothing pressing on the schedule, Jeff didn't see a weekday coming up he could escape the office, we realized black-out days don't apply to the first time an annual pass is used, and so we filled the bottom of the stroller with Pedialyte, Gatorade, cheerios, granola bars, and zipped up the 5 to "The Big D" (as my parents used to call it). 

It was a little crazy to be the parents in this situation.  I kept watching the kids thinking, "So this time we're the parents bringing our kids here??"  Very surreal, and it felt like a very big step in parenthood.  But so much fun. Jude vacillated between overjoyed and overwhelmed, and Grahamsky was just happy to be along.  Here is some photo proof of the day:

Dumbo

Screenshot of Jeff's Instagram of the obligatory flower Mickey Mouse family photo -- it looks like I was digging my nails into Jeff's shoulder/arm, but I promise I wasn't.

Sssshhhocking!  Disneyland wore out my baby.

Before he got worn out, though, he blew out his diaper.  (I did bring a spare outfit, but he looked so cute and pleased in his nakedness, plus he'd pinched Jude's cup of Gatorade, and I obviously had to take a picture.)

While we waited 45 minutes in line to see "Mickey" (see total biff below), the boys played in line like hooligans.

About 3/4 of the way through the long line to see Mickey at his little house in Toon Town, we realized there were only little girls surrounding us in line, and the closer we got to the house it was very pink; we'd gotten in the wrong line and we were going to see Minnie. Woops!  Luckily, the boys didn't give a woopdeedoo.  In fact, this was a stop we made pretty early in the day when Jude was a little weirded out by the characters.  He would freeze up a bit and cling to us but I could see it in his eyes, he was suspicious, pitied them, and admired them all at once.

Main Street really is still exciting to me!



Meeting McQueen "Muhkeen!" blew Jude's mind.  We also saw Mater, and Red the Fire truck.  He still talks about this.  It's like when my mom had been reading the Cinderella book to me and Elizabeth for months on end, and on our first trip to Disneyland, within a few minutes of entering the park, Cinderella approached us on Main Street, knelt down, and gave Elizabeth a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  My mom said it brought tears to her eyes, and she wanted to ask, "How did you know?!"  McQueen didn't kiss Jude on the cheek, but if you tickle his headlights he giggles, and the whole thing just made our day!

Jeff and I were both so impressed with Radiator Springs.  On some rides Jude would not let himself be excited until it was over.  He'd sit with a deer-in-headlights face until it was over, and then as soon as his feet hit solid ground he would jump up and down and yell about how it was the best thing he'd ever done in his life :).  A major error on the part of MOI: after 6 hours at the park, the boys were fading and we figured we had enough time for one more ride before the boys would be deranged by exhaustion.  I thought it would be awesome to go on a ride that's been around since the 80s -- aka a ride I'd gone on as a child.  The shortest wait was for Pinocchio, so that's what we picked.  As soon as the safety bar was lowered and the lights dimmed I realized this was a baaaad move. And with each subsequent millisecond the ride got scarier and scarier, and it took Jude all of 2 seconds to start wailing, and then he wailed louder and louder.  Do kids even enjoy that ride anymore??  It's all loud carnival music, creepy images popping out at you, you get eaten by a whale, and there was nothing to do but sit and live through it and hope the car we were on would pick up some speed.  Jeff and I had a pretty good laugh about it, but we booked it outta there and of course they fell asleep before their car seats were even buckled.  He seems to have tucked that nightmare somewhere deep into the dark corners of childhood terror memories, and has not mentioned it since. :)


And since we've gone about once a week.  I'm such a lucky mom to get to go with my kids and my friends -- they love it every time!  Jude dances while watching street performers do Newsies numbers, loves the Jungle Cruise, Monsters Inc. ride, and I think next time I'll try Pirates of the Caribbean.