David's Disneyland Favorites

Next up:  David's favorites.  I should note that I take editorial liberties with these lists.  While I left Greg's list completely in tact (though I think he should have added the Jungle Cruise), you could see that I added plenty of my own commentary.  With the kids I get to edit their lists.  Once you get them going, EVERYTHING is a favorite.  So I'll give you here what has come up again and again as the highlights for David.

Indiana Jones

David just after he took me on Indiana Jones

If you ask David what his favorite ride in the whole world is, he will tell you Indiana Jones.




California Screamin'

Just after our awesome ride on the California Screamin'!
First time doing a loop is a rite of passage, at least in my family.

David fell in love with roller coasters this summer at Kings Island. I was the same age when I became obsessed with roller coasters.  So I was so happy that I got to go with David for his first time on the California Screamin'--it was his first time on an upside-down roller coaster!  (I was eight the first time I went on a roller coaster with a loop, at Busch Gardens in Florida, and I think it was the highlight of my childhood!) David loved it!!  He rode it five other times during our trip, for six total!  We started calling him the Screamin' King!

David asked me to take his picture with the California Screamin' when the coaster was in the loop.

 Star Tours

Of course this made David's list!  How could it not?!


Jedi Academy

Greg and I hesitated initially to do this.  Volunteers are chosen from the audience to train as padawans, and, while it's a big group, there is no guarantee your kid will get picked ... which can be absolutely crushing.  (As one mom said, "Way to go, Disney, for figuring out the cruelest possible way to break my son's heart."  Yeah, I'm not sure Disney quite has this one perfected yet.  I appreciate that you don't have to pay for it, unlike a lot of the princess experiences, and you can see they've managed to squeeze in as many kids as possible ... but for a Star Wars obsessed kid not being chosen is devastating.  And even more devastating for the parents!)  We weren't sure David could handle not being chosen, and I did not want the Jedi Academy to ruin our whole vacation.

But David expressed a lot of interest in going.  So we talked at length with him about it.  And then, like any good helicopter parents, we devised a careful plan to get him picked!  It worked.  (Or we were just lucky...)  I'm saving my tips for a How-to-Get-Your-Kid-into-Jedi-Academy blog because what the world needs is another website on how to go on a Disney vacation.  (But I will say is that our plan included a light saber, leveraging the early admission day over at California Adventure, and a total willingness to exploit our baby.)  Anyway, David was chosen, and I cannot express in words the immense relief I felt.

With the burden of "Will my kid be chosen???!!!" lifted, there was nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the show.  It was really fun, more so because David was so into it.  You could see that his imagination and suspension of disbelief were at work.  He was focused and serious like he is in karate.  It was awesome.

David and the other padawans receive their light sabers.

Learning the light saber.

Look at the concentration.

Nice moves.

Uh, oh.  It looks like they have some visitors.  This isn't going to be good...

Darth Vader tries to persuade the young padawans to join the Dark Side.  He is not successful.

Oh no!  Now Darth Maul is there to join forces with Vader to prove to the padawans the power of the Dark Side.

David battles Darth Maul, defeating him!

The young padawans successfully fight off Darth Maul and Darth Vader, who retreat in defeat.

The storm troopers get out of there too.

Hooray for the padawans!  They are strong in the Force.  They celebrate their victory.  (David is right in the middle.)

Here come the new padawans.

Time to graduate.

Congratulations, graduates.  Look how serious and David is.

Iron Man

David is not into superheroes at all.  But he makes an exception for Iron Man.  So he was excited about the Iron Man exhibit in Tomorrowland.  All of the Iron Man suits were on display.  He also loved getting "suited up" as Iron Man (through Xbox) and testing out the new Iron Man suit.

Another one of David's favorites was spending his "mad money" from Aunt Janell.  My family and I share happy memories with Janell of a trip we took to Disneyland when I was in high school.  She sent David and Mary "mad money" for the trip.  They loved the idea of it--money you could choose to spend on whatever and your parents couldn't boss you about it.  David chose an Iron Man Lego set from the Lego store in Downtown Disney.  He was really excited and very definite about it.  So there was definitely an Iron Man theme running through our trip, along Star Wars, the princesses, Mickey Mouse, and all that.


The Pixar Parade

On our first day, when we were at California Adventure, we had a moment of crisis in the afternoon.  We had done everything we had set out to do, so without an itinerary we were lost.  Should we go back to the hotel and swim?  Should we leave and come back?  Should we go for more rides?  Try to see a show or something?  I think I've mentioned that I am not a parade person, so, for me, that wasn't an option.  But Greg decided we were going to watch the Pixar Parade, no matter what.  He pointed out that going to the parades is something you just do when you go to Disneyland.  (This was his first trip to Disneyland, and he and his kids were going to have the classic experience, despite his wife's anti-parade quirks.)

Well, hooray for Daddy.  Because David LOVED the parade.  LOVE LOVE LOVED it!  He was absolutely wowed by the floats, and he was thrilled to see the characters!  (I was surprised by how much David enjoyed seeing and meeting the characters on this trip.  I thought he might be too old for it, but he cited meeting Mickey Mouse as one of his favorite things.  He also really liked exploring ToonTown--he was totally pretending it was all real.  It was precious to me to see those moments with David, when he let the magic be real.  He is so sweet.)

David's favorite parts of the parade were the Bug's Life float with the acrobats and seeing Mater at the end.

Other Favorites

Goofy's Kitchen
Autopia
Building a light saber
Buzz Lightyear
Grizzly River Run
Swimming and making a new friend (from Canada)
Meeting Mickey Mouse
Visiting Minnie's House
Meeting Winnie the Pooh
Eating at the Hungry Bear
Finding Nemo Submarine Ride
Both parades
Jungle Cruise
Going on rides with Mommy

Greg's Disneyland Favorites

Greg was thoughtful and careful about his list.  So he gets to go first.  I believe these are in no particular order.

The Fireworks

Which we could watch from our balcony at the Disneyland Hotel!  (And the soundtrack was broadcast on the TV inside.)  They were unlike any fireworks we had ever seen--imaginative and artistic and carefully coordinated.  Very, very cool.  The fireworks were the last thing we enjoyed, and Greg and I were like, "Wow, yet another thing Disney does really well."

Mickey Mouse Parade

I'm not much of a parade person, and I don't remember really enjoying the Disney parades.  So I was ready to skip them.  But Greg, in his wisdom, insisted that we go.  It is the thing to do, after all.  Yay for Daddy!  He was right.  The parades were a blast.  We all LOVED them!  It was like pure bliss and excitement watching them.  (Disney certainly knows how to do a parade.)

Giving Sara Minnie Mouse

Greg decreed that we were buying Sara her own Minnie Mouse.  It would be her Minnie Mouse and NO ONE (meaning Big Brother and Big Sister) could take it away from her.  (Sara LOVES stuffed animals, and a certain two siblings of hers are not good about sharing.)  When we gave her Minnie, Sara's face immediately lit up!

Star Tours

He went with David and Mary (and then David and I went with a stroller pass and our fourth FastPass).  Pretty great ride, especially now that Disney has the rights to Star Wars!  (It's no longer wannabe!)

Sorry, no picture.  (I should have taken one with David and droids--he loved waiting in line just to watch the droids.)


Ariel's Grotto

Greg thought our lunch at Ariel's Grotto was great.  He loved watching his daughters meet the princesses.  Mary, of course, was in heaven and took it all very seriously.  And Sara was fascinated by the princesses!  Here are a few of the pictures.  (Incidentally, I think it's so sweet that Greg enjoying this so much.)

Jedi Academy

Greg was front row and center when David was recruited to participate in the Jedi Academy.  (It was a family affair trying to make sure he got picked from the audience.  We parents were definitely on pins and needles until David was safely chosen.  Talk about stress.  I'm not sure Disney has this one figured out yet...)  Greg got a great view of the action.  It was so awesome to see David do this!  He took it seriously. And doesn't every parent want to see their kid defeat Darth Maul?
 Here are a few of the pictures Greg took.

Coming soon ... ?

I really am going to post about Disneyland.  The longer I blog, I the more I realize that I blog for my family, as a record.  It's important to me that we can look back and remember this special time we spent together as a family.  I took a million pictures, of course.  So I'm trying to think about how to post them.

After we got back, everyone made a list of their favorites from Disneyland: favorite rides, moments, things, activities, memories.  I think I will start by posting those lists, along with relevant pictures.  And then I will simply start posting the pictures chronologically.  I might finish one day this century.

(I'm still trying to figure out why I have no time to myself.  Baby? Still settling into a new house?  Which is actually an older house for which we have a list of projects?  Busy husband? Busy kids?  Church responsibilities?  All of the above?  But it doesn't seem like it's anything super extraordinary.  Doesn't everybody have a baby and an imperfect house and a busy family?  Why do I feel like I'm going to crumble?  Why do I feel so STRESSED?  I know saying "I'm so stressed" is cliche and practically meaningless.  But there is not a better way of describing how I feel. I don't even know what I feel anxious about.  But I do know that there are two things I do to relax:  Blog and work out.  Well, you can see how often I blog.  And I have not had a solid work out in A YEAR!  I can't see how it's going to change anytime soon.  Why is finding time for myself so hard???  Much much easier said than done.)

Fancy new sofa

Here is a picture of my fancy new sofa:

Let me explain.  So I think I've mentioned that Greg was supposed to deploy to Afghanistan this fall, right?  Well, just before we moved we found out his deployment was cancelled.  (Huge sigh of relief!!!)

But back in July when we thought Greg was deploying, we decided we should go to Disneyland.  Doing a Disney vacation is kind of out of character for our family*, but it just seemed like the thing to do.  We settled on California (instead of Orlando)** and figured out a good week, but we didn't buy any tickets because there were still too many unknowns about Greg's deployment training schedule.  Then at the end of July we found out Greg's deployment, like many assignments in Afghanistan, had been cancelled.  It seemed obvious that we couldn't justify the trip anymore.  We had never told the kids about the deployment--or the trip.  Greg and I didn't give Disney a thought again.

Until one night, after we'd moved into our house here in Ohio, I was staring at the big ugly brown black-hole-of-a-couch in our family room.  I was daydreaming about the brand new fancy high-quality long-lasting leather couch I had on order that would replace the worn beast I was looking at.  I had been planning for months and month to buy the sofa, and I was giddy with excitement about finally getting it.  But, somehow, and really I'm not quite sure how... the new couch morphed into a trip to Disneyland.  The order for the sofa was cancelled and the trip to Disneyland was booked.

For the record, Greg sees the sofa and Disneyland as unrelated.  He tells it more like this: "I was going to deploy, so we planned a trip to Disneyland.  My deployment was cancelled, but we took the trip anyway."  (Since our kids had no idea about the deployment and still don't, to them, the trip was totally out of no where and a complete shock!  It was not even within their realm of possibility.  In their words, "We were so surprised--we thought you would never take us anywhere famous!")

Okay, so maybe there is not a direct connection between the couch and the trip.  But I'm not sure we could have swallowed the trip without first cancelling the order on the sofa.  I guess I see it more as a test of all that happiness research out there that says that spending money on memories and experiences and vacations brings more happiness than spending money on possessions and things and fancy leather couches.  We got back yesterday, and the result of the test?

I am very glad my couch looks like this ...

By the way, if you think these are the only pictures I am going to post, you are sorely wrong, my friend.  I love what Diana said about taking a ton of pictures of their trip to Disneyland--the next time they go the kids might have bad skin and bad attitudes!  (Her posts of their trip was timely.  I read every word and showed my kids every picture!)  So more details and pictures are coming throughout the week.  It was really, really fun.  Amazing. Really, really great. You might even say it was magical.

* It would probably be more like us to take our kids to a big city--kids love skyscrapers and museums and public transportation.  Or to Central America--we even have an itinerary tucked away for taking the kids to Honduras one day.  Or, most likely, we would go somewhere local-ish.  We move enough that we can enjoy a lot of different places without traveling very far.  You can see why the kids were shocked when we told them about Disneyland!  We had literally never mentioned it before.

** Orlando is an easy 2.5 hour flight away and in the same time zone.  So why would we even consider Disneyland in California?  1) The weather.  2) We liked the way the military discounts worked at Disneyland--a lot more than how they work at Walt Disney World.  3)  I love that Disneyland is the first and original and I have more memories there and I am from the West and, frankly, Florida creeps me out a little.  Fortunately, plane tickets didn't cost any more to fly to L.A. and the three hour time different ended up working in our favor.

Credit taken where credit is not due

Sara at the airport waiting for her first plane ride

Ohio to Boise is a long, long time on small, cramped airplanes.  So I was nervous about flying with a baby on my lap.  (I could remember what it was like last time.  The trip included Mary's major meltdown.)  But I had no need to fret.  This was Sara!

I shouldn't have been surprised to find that Sara was easy to fly with.  (This is a baby who entertained herself by gently holding--but not bending--the flight safety card for over an hour)  She was nervous during our first flight, so she snuggled close and whimpered quietly.  But once I reassured her, she became her bright, sweet, pleasant, happy self.  She was full of smiles for all, but never demanded attention from anyone.  She brought joy to all those around us.

The thing about flying alone with a baby is that you get to hold your baby for hours and hours on end.  This is bad because you cannot accept the in flight beverage, pee, or, if it's a Canadian Regional Jet, stand up.  But there are few other times when you get to hold your baby close for so long.  It's kind of great, actually.  Especially if your baby is not screaming his or her head off.

(I remember flying from Turkey to Salt Lake City alone with a six-month-old David.  The journey is over 24-hours, and, in order to negotiate customs alone in Istanbul on the way back, I did not bring a stroller.  So I literally held my baby for over a day a straight, twice.  I felt so bonded to him after that, and we were pretty bonded before.  But the other thing I have to say is:  How did I do that??!!  Flying alone across the Atlantic with a super high maintenance baby?!!  Crazy, crazy.)

Since Sara was so pleasant, I frequently heard these types of comments:  "Oh, she is so good.  You are such a good mom!"  "Your baby did so well on the flight.  You must really know what you're doing."  "I don't know how you do it, but you have one very well-behaved baby."

My first thought is, "It's not me!  It's her!!  Yes, she is the best baby ever and it has nothing to do with me!"  Because this is true.

Now, spare me the whole oh she's your third child and now you know what you're doing and you're all relaxed and that makes her good.  That is a bunch of crap.  First of all, I am not an idiot.  I am the mom.  I can see if my kids have different personalities and temperaments, especially now, by the third one.   If anything, I'm even more sure that David especially and even Mary were difficult babies.  I don't look back and say, "Gee, I really did everything wrong."  Now that I have a normal baby I look back and say, "Gee, I had some challenging babies.  It's a relief to know it wasn't me with the problem."  I maybe didn't have it all together, but do you really really think I MADE David be the kind of baby he was?  You're going to be that cruel and imply that I brought it on myself?  Second of all, I take issue with your assumption that I am more relaxed now.  Please ask my husband, who happens to be married to a woman who is currently in a near constant state of panic, worry, and anxiety.  If my level of relaxedness directly correlates to my baby's health, happiness, and sleep patterns, then Sara would be a sickly, grouchy baby who sleeps exactly 37 minutes in a 24 hour period.

Yes, I will concede that experience definitely helps.  There are things about having a baby that I feel confident about now, and that has come with having had two others.  But, over all, Sara has been a pleasant, "by the book" kind of baby because she came that way.  (By the way, if you ever made a comment to me about Sara being easy because she's number 3, I promise I cannot remember it because I can't--and I did not get offended in the least.  Or if I did, I can't remember it and I still love you with all my heart. I imagine I was mostly just trilled you were acknowledging the sweetness of my baby.  No worries.)

So, when all those lovely, well-meaning people praised my mothering skills instead of my baby's innate contented, peaceful personality, what did I do?

I smiled and took the credit.

Boise

Sara and I flew to Boise over the weekend to visit my grandmother and aunt.  (Flashbacks of this trip from Ohio to Idaho with a different baby girl.)

My 90-year-old grandma is in hospice care at home.  She did not recognize me--she doesn't recognize anyone really anymore.  She also often babbles incoherently, her words having little to no connection with the physical reality around her.  But she shared some sweet, tender moments with Sara.  The first night we were there, as we were putting my grandma to bed, she looked into Sara's face and gasped, "Oh, you're darling, you're just darling!"  There was this moment of lucidity, and it was like a veil lifted.  At some level I think they recognized each other.  And I am not surprised.  Sara is a special baby.  She needed to meet her great-grandmother in this life.

Later, on Sunday afternoon, my grandma played with Sara, bouncing her gently and singing her silly baby songs.  (None of the pictures convey the sweet way they were interacting.)  My grandma loves babies.  Loves and adored babies!  She has such love and patience for babies and small children and a natural ease with them.  I cherish the times she has played with my babies, cooing and comforting.  Though she held Sara on Sunday (it was adorable to watch), it was Friday night, I think, when there was that moment of real connection.

The real reason I went, however, was to visit my aunt Janell, my grandma's primary caregiver and best friend.  She has made tremendous sacrifices to allow my grandma to stay at home.  It was so wonderful to be with her.  Janell has an enormous heart.  She is quick to love and slow to judge.  She cultivates friendship everywhere.  I deeply admire her generosity.  When she sees a need, she is quick to act: she serves, cares, helps, and hugs.  Hugs!!  Her hugs are world famous!  (I don't have especially affectionate parents.  I think there were years when the only hugs I got were Janell's--but they were so good, the effects would last a year or more!)  I feel honored and humbled to have her example of faith and charity in my life.

I took pictures, which I will now post.  I do this somewhat hesitatingly.  My grandmother is a classy, lovely lady.  (She still gets her hair done every Saturday, thanks to Sandy, her hair dresser of 30 years who makes a special house call now just for my grandma.)  She would be HORRIFIED to know that I am posting pictures of her 90-year-old self for all the world to see.  Some of these pictures were taken during more lucid moments, but the camera didn't capture that.  But I also want to remember this trip, and, because I know my grandma, I can catch glimpses of her somewhere in there.  (I have a feeling that when I meet my grandma in the afterlife she's going to give me a little smack on the cheek for doing this.  This is a woman who refused canes and hearing aides and walkers for as long as possible and who, above all, would NEVER EVER tell me how old she was.  A real lady never reveals her age.)

These are a few of my very favorites:

And here are some others good ones:

P.S.  Sara got her first haircut!  No, she doesn't have much hair.  But she was growing wings over her ears.  Those little shaggy baby fly-aways drive me nuts.  Sandy, my grandma's hairdresser, trimmed it perfectly in about two minutes with a pair of dull kitchen shears.  She is that good!!  She also declared Sara the best baby ever out of her 49 years of cutting hair!  Best baby ever!  That's our Sara.