Disney Parent Day
SUMMER! What an eventful season! I consider Summer to be four months long - June, July, August and September - even though Chicago does not. But that’s cool. We have our differences and maintain a friendly passive aggressive relationship. Choosing a topic for this summer blog was hard. So here are all of them:
Topics for summer blog:
1) Solly can define a mile, a minute or five hours by stretching his hands different lengths apart - conversely he can define “last year” or “when I was even littler” by the depth of a knee bend
2) Want to get your money out of a streaming service? Grade papers while you watch a series and then watch it with surprise and delight again and again!
3) Nothing like the preschool rainforest unit to cause some major plastic wear guilt (we said we’d quit after the kids were out of babyhood…but…)
4) About once a month I wonder about those who successfully walk through the world expectation free. Buddists mainly. And those who escaped anxiety in their genetic makeup. I can’t let go of the expectation that maybe one day I'll finish a story without being interrupted by a child’s needs. And that hope has left me wildly disappointed so far.
5) I have a new, very long commute. Hooray! I can listen to podcasts! … Instead I have decided this is a good time to worry about money. How did I get by all those years without two hours and twenty minutes a day to do this?
6) ”Beach day with kids under 5!” … don’t come near association with that sentence.
7) I don’t know why toddlers don’t walk around feeling so special all the time. If I had a shirt that read 478 months on the tag, and toys that said “perfect for 475-480 months I would feel tremendously seen.
8) Everyone should have a chance to put a wet bathing suit back on a two year old. It will change your perspective on a lot of things and have the same effect as a near death experience where once it’s over, colors are more vivid, sunlight seems brighter, and you’re damn grateful to be alive.
9) The phrase, “when I’m a parent I’ll never…” is a wonderful holier than thou stage of pregnancy with the first child. We are on number eighty seven (at least) of concessions we declared we would never make. Some include: buying ice cream when it’s demanded, handing the iphone over at 3am, bringing a child into bed with us who refuses their own, and offering a steady diet of cheese, pasta and ant sized pieces of broccoli.
10) Like covid, I’ve learned that listening to musical theatre dulls my ability to taste embarrassment. So I now have a 24 hour, “Wait to send a sing” rule. When the spirit really moves me while listening to a Waitress, for example, and i have this incredible urge to record myself and send the song as an inspirational gift to a colleague, acquaintance or student, I wait 24 hours. And my senses return and I delete it.
11) Hungry extended family groups trying to make plans to eat/get/acquire food in the late afternoon when the patriarch or matriarch has not made a plan, is a recipe for a light mockumentary or legit murder documentary depending on cell service and food app speed.
12) Maya wakes and slowly pokes me in the face in the morning. I almost made her stop yesterday until I realized I slowly rotate/poke her nose regularly for Covid tests, so…even.
13) One of Maya’s favorite routines after being put to bed is sitting in her crib in the dark and reenacting her daily abandonment moments with stuffed animals.
Big doggie: “oh, mama has to go to work doggie”
Little doggie: “no! Don’t leave me!”.
Once she has weakened me in this way, she’ll turn and ask for more cheese. And I get it. See #10
14) I understand someday I’ll probably lose all my money because my passwords just have different exclamation point amounts. And I’m okay with that. But the anticipation is killing me.
15) Things that frustrate two and four year olds:
—”the trees are blocking the sky! Mama move them!”
—”WHAT?! Who put this stick in my popsicle! Get it out!”
—”Why this not not stick to the fridge?!” (devastating realization that not everything has a magnet)
16) Things that frustrate parents of two year olds:
—If only there were a sob interpreter when toddlers are trying to share important information while tantruming. It took a 45 minute cry once for me to finally hear Maya articulate, “bunny is wet” to which we ended the tantrum in five seconds with a towel.
—tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny toys.
–“Forever” and its many uses: “my legs are hurting forever!” “I can’t reach that forever!” “You are just forever!”
17) I would like to create, “The Disney Vlog That Would’ve Actually Helped.” I read and watched many vlogs leading up to our trip at the end of July. They ranged from people in their calm non messy bedrooms filming topics like: “Going to Disney? What to pack for a 12 month old, a 29 month old … a 468 month old.” The vlogs from inside the parks looked like handheld camera war movie cinematography and I couldn’t make it through any of them. Too many popsicle casualties. Too much cave footage into bright light back into caves. The problem with youtube is that it’s like a drug for those who want to be in control (MEEEEE). It makes you THINK that you can get ahead of issues and problems and learn from other people’s mistakes so that your time will be perfect, dreamy and worth the major bucks you have to fork over for a theme park. So here is what my vlog would include:
Accept as much as possible that you will NOT have a magical time. There is no possible way you can do this with small children, crowds, lines and heat. You MIGHT have magical moments, but you will not have a magical TIME.
You have to LEARN AN APP to attend this theme park. An APP. That you’ll NEVER USE AGAIN but need to know and operate under extreme duress. I can barely open up and operate the “make a phone call” feature on my phone while I’m sweating, kids are screaming and there is social pressure from everyone in line to “get my kids in check” let alone operate the DISNEY GENIE APP that is supposed to lead me to rides, out of terrible lines, and find water asap.
Kids know when it’s a leash - even when it’s really just a harness with cute mickey ears. Leashes for 2-4 years DON’T WORK.
Don’t just take water. Take water in many forms (liquid, ice, but not mist) and in many containers. In fact, bring a camel. We took along a spray bottle thinking that would help with the heat and it backfired when my kids sprayed everyone’s calves in line. Fail.
Bring money. Bring lots of money. Don’t pack 18 snacks and outfits for any type of “situation” like the other vlogs say. Just bring lots of money and buy your way out of problems. You’re already spending a fortune, so spend a little more money indulging your child’s every food and toy demand.
You don’t need ponchos for water rides in the summer… oops. We could have used that space for more WATER.
When you’ve been waiting in a character line with a melting down four year old and then Goofy needs to go “on break,” don’t appeal to his handler saying, “my kid is really having a tough time, could you please just see one more?” Because then the handler will look at you like lowly disney parent scum and not the knowledgeable educator you are in the “beyond,” who understands that it is insane to ask a person inside a stifling costume in the sun all day to skip their break. Then not only is your kid upset, but you also take a nice ride on the guilt train. That train is definitely one of the unspoken little secrets of the park! Don’t worry about finding it. It will find you.
When your kids finally come out of their cranky funk and begin dancing to the main street music, don’t look at other parents and then back at your cute kid as if they’re going to affirm how darling yours are. They are no doubt the folks that got their legs sprayed in line and this joy offends them. Whatever you do, don’t assume anyone in this park has an extra bit of joy to send your way who is not paid to do so.
That one lady who stands at the top of the redwood tree slide is an f-ing hero. She saw a small spat begin and handed my kids little random cards with lion king characters on them. THAT lady for the win! Don’t wait for Goofy! Find THAT lady and tell your kids she’s the “Hero of Her Own Story” - a movie that’s just come out but hasn’t streamed yet.
Always wait out the awful moments an extra 30 minutes. You never know! Someone may fall asleep and be unable to cry for a while and/or maybe it will get dark and your kid will be so stunned they’re hanging out “late” that they could turn their mood around and/or it could just get a lot worse.
Bring LOTS of tootsie pops of all sizes. You can’t pack enough. Bring more tootsie pops than water.
At the end of my vlog I would like to offer any prospective parent a way out. Part of the tragedy of only having one day to spend in a disney park is that you can only learn by doing. And if you only get one day a decade in these places, you’re screwed. Granted, we did have some magical moments in the last two hours of our 16 hour day which were worth it (?), but it would have been nice to have squeezed another one or two out of the first 14 hours.
So here’s my proposal. You supply me with a lot of go fund me resources (aka money) and I’ll see if we can get Disney to buy into the following:
PROPOSAL FOR DISNEY: Just like Genie + and Genie ++ and Genie ++++-=*@&$&@#+, you could have a Parent +++ package where one adult in a group with young children gets to spend five hours in the park the day before the fam comes in as a learning day. This should be free of charge because it would mean you would have happier under five year old people and families in the parks and therefore families would consider coming back next year, as opposed to us who will not be back till our children are 22 and 24.
Parent +++ package (pre day bootcamp) would include tips on:
–how to throw money at problems
–how to use the app and make timed decisions for line times under timed simulated stress while family whines and cries around you for a long time (maybe the people who aren’t good looking enough to play the “prince/princess” disney characters could get work acting as Boot Camp mock family members)
–how to care for your water camel in crowds
–small self help mantras to avoid mental breaks when all the other kids in line are smiling and yours are poking people’s butts
–ways of apologizing in multiple languages to the people who get spritzed with water when the 2 year old goes rogue with the spray bottle
–more easy to remember mantras about lowering expectations
–how to carry tootsie pops on your person even if you don’t have pockets
–how to pick up a tootsie pop that’s fallen on the ground and have it back in your child’s mouth before someone side eye shames you
–how to respond to people who passive aggressively make statements like,
“Oh! She doesn’t have socks or shoes on, I see!”
“Ready for a nap, huh?”
“When my kids were little we just didn’t bring them...”
To conclude, if you’d like me to get some crowdfunding started for this idea let me know with a nice note and a check with at least five digits. ;)
Thanks!
Happy entering into fall time, 2022!