When she wasn’t obsessing over whether a giant rat, duck or mangy dog was going to attack her, Etta entertained us all with her usual antics at breakfast.
This is the girl who was described by her preschool teachers in my parent-teacher conference today as “shy” and “passive.”
I’m scared to imagine what she’ll be like “when she comes out of her shell,” like her teachers expect her to do next year. Heaven help me.
Our successful breakfast with the rodents bought the Animal Kingdom some goodwill, which I used to coerce Oscar into hanging out in the park a bit longer. We managed to ride the Dumbo-like ride (with dinosaurs) and see the gigantic dinosaur before heading over to watch the Nemo musical.
This, BTW, is the closest I’m going to get to Nepal for a while . . . okay, forever.
Oscar has never been one to sit through a show. We’ve made it through three movies in theaters and that’s pretty much been it. I’ve always wondered whether this was at all attributable to the fact that he can barely see anything out of his right eye. We’ve also recently found out that his vision in his left eye isn’t that great either. We were able to sit very close to the stage at Nemo and that seemed to do the trick. He was so excited to actually see the show, and he was remarkably patient throughout – clapping and reacting to the cues just like the other kids in the audience.
How close did we need to sit? This close:
Actually, even closer. I just like this picture of Etta, singing while wearing her protective earmuffs. We ended up sitting in the first row right up front, which is where I would have had us sit to watch other shows if Etta had been able to enjoy this one. Even with the earmuffs, it was too loud for her, unfortunately.
While the show was a hit, the kids were done after that. Done. And we’d managed to go on only two rides, eat breakfast and watch a show. They were willing to stop in to play at the playground, but after that we were on our way back to our hotel.
We ate lunch and I forced both of the kids to take a nap, which was rewarded with pool time. A very brief amount of time in the pool, since we had barely made it around the “river” when a very loud alarm went off, informing the lifeguards that there had been a lightning strike on the resort’s golf course and that we needed to leave the pool and go inside. The kids were suprisingly good about getting out of the pool and heading to the room, and when it looked like it wasn’t actually going to rain, we ran out to the bus stop to go back to DisneyWorld.
We made it to the shelter, when this happened:
Was I going to let a little rain (or a torrential downpour) keep my kids from the REAL DisneyWorld? I think not. I played the odds and loaded us onto the bus. Given the day we were having, I figured we were due for things to fall our way. Luckily, by the time we got off the Monorail, my gamble had paid off. The rain had stopped, the kids saw the Castle and all was right with the world.
We rode the teacups (Etta’s favorite ride of the trip – we went back at least three times during our trip), the carousel (her second favorite) and Small World. Oscar got his first ice cream of the tip (so much more to come) and we all saw the fireworks.
Of course, staying to watch the fireworks meant we had to wait out the incredible traffic jam to leave the park. The main ways in and out of the Magic Kingdom are monorail, ferry boat and buses (but only to WDW resorts; we were still at our first resort, which was on Disney property, but run by Hilton). The lines were so long to get on the monorail or ferry that we ended up missing the last bus back to our hotel and had to get a cab. A little annoying, but other than that, we were able to salvage what had looked like it was going to be a disappointing day and convert it into a pretty successful one.
We started our trip to DisneyWorld not with a visit to the Magic Kingdom (a/k/a “the Castle” in our world), but with a day at the Animal Kingdom.
Big Mistake.
Kids this age think of DisneyWorld with basically two reference points, the Castle and the characters. My plan was to start the trip to WDW with a character breakfast – with “characters” being solely defined as Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy (this has been decreed by HRH Etta). Since I booked our trip so late (and I’ll get to that in another post), we were extremely limited in our character options. I chose a breakfast with our preferred characters, but that breakfast was held in Animal Kingdom.
First thing that morning, we booked it to the park on our resort’s free shuttle, picked up Oscar’s Guest Assistance Card and headed in right after AK opened. We did the Animal Safari first. I was really looking forward to this, and Etta definitely enjoyed it, since the animals were from Africa – like her, you know.
Oscar, however, got really quiet and refused to look out of the truck. When I’d ask what was wrong, I’d just get a grunt. Grunts, which were a common method of communication for us previously, are actually a thing of the past for us now. Oscar usually tells me what is wrong now, but he was so angry at AK, he would just grunt.
Eventually, he asked me when we were going to DisneyWorld. And this became a running refrain throughout the trip.
At some point, I attempted to explain the park system and realized the futility of that endeavor. I thought I salvaged the day by taking us directly from the safari ride over to breakfast, where we all got to meet . . . DONALD Duck!
Notice anything about these photos? Perhaps the absence of a certain duck lover? Turns out Etta is terrified of the characters. She loves them on the screen, but just not so much up close.
Despite this, breakfast was awesome. All of the characters made the rounds and stopped for photos, and Etta eventually even got the courage to pose with Mickey all by herself.
Breakfast bought the AK some goodwill from the kids, so after we wrapped that up, we headed out for some fun, which I’ll have to document after I get Etta back to sleep . . .
Yeah, you read that right. This single mom took her two preschoolers, aged 4 and 2, to DisneyWorld. Alone. Like, with no other adult supervision.
I didn’t originally plan for us to go to Florida for vacation. We were all booked on a trip to Disney’s new resort in Hawaii until American kept changing our flights and I read that our hotel was under construction (with jackhammers – I don’t stay at hotels where jackhammers are being used). I figured it was a sign that I should not lock myself on planes for 13 hours (each way, with layovers) and perhaps I should find somewhere closer to home for our vacation. The problem? Some idiot told the kids that they were going to be able to see Mickey and Minnie on their trip. That, and I was locked into taking my vacation on the same dates I had originally requested.
I tried to find cheap tickets to Disneyland, but that was a bust from here. It is apparently very difficult to find cheap tickets almost anywhere from the city we live in now. So, I booked special fares from a somewhat nearby town for a quick flight on S’West to Florida.
The drive (3 1/2 hours – yes, that’s “nearby” in these parts) wasn’t bad at all. The kids were fantastic throughout the entire day of travel. I wish I could say that great behavior continued . . .
This was not staged – she actually lugged this bag around the entire trip. She’d scream if I tried to take it away from her.
Although we arrived sort of late – 8:30 pm or so – our hotel’s pool was still open. Since it was the weekend, they were showing a movie in the pool. The kids saw what was going on through our window and started to drop their clothes immediately, demanding that I hurry and inflate the boats we had brought. I managed to get them inflated in a few minutes and after I regained consciousness, we finished getting changed and headed for what I think the kids may have considered the most fun they had ever had in their lives. Swimming in what they kept calling “the middle of the night with the Big Moon” (that huge golden moon that occurred a couple weeks ago).
Unfortunately, we have no photos of the actual festivities down in the pool. I was a little busy, what with trying to keep my two non-swimming toddler/preschoolers upright in the pool and all.
The pool shut down at 11:00 and I literally had to drag Oscar out of it, screaming his head off. I coerced him up to the room with the promise of room service and an entire day of swimming the next day (which is how we spent our entire first full day of vacation – floating down our hotel’s “lazy river”).
Don’t worry, there are actual Disney adventures ahead, with giant rodents and everything.
One of the biggest reasons I put an offer on the Pink House was that it was at the end of a cul-de-sac in a fairly quiet gated community. I figured that my kids would spend time out on the street, riding bikes, etc. I never could have imagined just how much time they would spend out there, though.
Oscar and Etta own our street. They are out there each and every day, riding their bikes, trikes and cars and playing hopscotch. I’m fairly certain that our neighbors hate us. Before we arrived, I’m pretty sure that our street was just as quiet as the others in the neighborhood (you know, the ones without a 2 and 4 year old terrorizing them).
Since taking back our street in the name of pre-schoolers everywhere, Oscar and Etta have even made a friend, another 4 year old boy who lives just a couple houses down from us. His parents would periodically take him for walks before we arrived, but didn’t want to let him be disruptive, so he was never set loose on the street. Since my holy terrors are out there, though, his parents are more than happy to let him run free. He and Oscar spend every afternoon flying down the street, slamming on their brakes, trying to see who can skid the furthest.
[don't freak on me; helmets were off only for photos]
Etta hates this, of course, since there are no girls on the street her age. She tries to keep up with the boys, but eventually gets frustrated. She then resorts to running around trying to chase them, and when that does not work, she’ll give up and just start dancing in the yard or doing her yoga or ballet in some crazy outfit. How did we ever survive with just a driveway – or worse – without even that when we lived in San Francisco?
