You've Got a Friend in Me

My two girls were on their best behavior at Disneyland. Or not. Alana was good, mostly. Ava, not so much. She boycotted the stroller, except for a few brief periods where we let her sit next to Alana. She wouldn't even tolerate the stroller when she was asleep. I know because everytime she fell asleep I tried to put her in it and she woke up pissed off. 

I do have to thank her for sleeping soundly, in the stroller, through World of Color. It was a miracle. My arms suddenly felt so free! Until I had to hold Alana so she could see.

There were a few events that made me rethink a repeat Disney vacation next year. Who am I kidding? We'll go again if the opportunity arises!

Alana had the worst timing ever when it came to peeing. Thirty seconds before World of Color was about to start she had to pee. We'd been sitting on the same spot of ground for an hour, and all of a sudden when they turned the lights off and announced the show was starting Alana had to pee. So we sprinted to the nearest bathroom and back as quickly as possible. Alana was out of breath when we got back, but we only missed a minute or two. Sprinting to the bathroom right before a show is still better than the two times she peed in her pants, right before going on a ride and right before David took her to watch World of Color a second time. We went on the ride anyway, otherwise those thirty minutes spent waiting would've been wasted.

It rained, more like misted, off and on all day Wednesday, which was miserable. I'd left my umbrella in the car, which was parked like a mile away. So I had a few choices. Walk around in the rain all day. Walk, in the rain, to the car to get my umbrella. Or buy a new umbrella. Thirty dollars later I had two new Disneyland umbrellas. I'll consider them a souvenir.

Ava's insistence that she was a grown woman didn't stop at refusing to ride in a stroller. I could've predicted this, since this wasn't my first time taking a one and a half year old to Disneyland. What can I say, I only remember the good parts looking back. She also never sat in her high chair at any restaurant for more than ten minutes. This meant she sat on my lap at every meal. At the end of vacation I really missed eating with two hands. It was like a distant memory. Part of it was the characters at some of the meals, which scared her. The other part was just pure stubbornness.

I nearly shoplifted once, which I probably could've gotten away with. Alana stood in the sit and stand, while David was pushing it, and fell down in the middle of the store. I heard her crying so I rushed outside to see what happened. I was holding Ava, my little cling-on, who happened to be holding two stuffed Chip and Dale toys. Ship and Dale, as Alana would say. We'd left the store, with the toys, and no one had noticed. Ava wanted to keep her stolen treasure, so I had to go back in and pay. I was framed!

At the end of the week, despite having so many toys I didn't know if all of our stuff would fit in our car for the return trip and really tired arms, I still had fun. Till the ride home. Ava's not a big fan of long car rides, and her sensitive gag reflex makes sure to punish me for things I did long ago. Like with Funyun puke 30 miles from home, that I barely shampooed out of the seat of the car yesterday. At least our DVD player and Wow Wow Wubbzy kept her entertained most of the time.

We barely stuffed all of our stuff into our car, partly because double strollers are so freaking bulky. Then when we got home and unpacked we realized we were missing a bag. A bad of overpriced souvenir cups that we'd paid extra for on numerous occasions. There were six of them, so by my calculations we lost $30 worth of cups. I still have no idea what the heck happened to them. The bellhop picked up our bags while I was still in the room, then I walked to the car with him and we both loaded the car. My only possible explanation is that they maybe got left in a corner of the room, even though I'd piled everything up in plain sight so nothing would get left behind. This ends my streak of never having forgotten anything in a hotel room.

Next year I think I will have forgotten about all the pain in the butt things about this year. Why else would we keep going every year?