Adventureland!
The first thing we did when we got to Disneyland was walk beneath the castle. We asked a group of teen girls with matching blonde extensions to take our picture in front of it, and then we walked through. Zoe gasped in awe as I held her, walked her beneath the arches she had seen before every Disney movie she's watched. I immediately shivered and tears sprang to my eyes - I had envisioned this trip as a mother for so many years. 15 years ago when my sister first took her kids, I remember how extraordinary she said it felt to experience Disneyland as a parent, because that sense of childhood magic rushes back to you, but even better this time because you get to see it through their eyes.
I looked at Tyler, teary, positively dorky. I'm not exactly a Disneyhead - I hadn't even gone since I was 11 years old and I've lived in Los Angeles over a decade, now. I hate lines, I hate bad food, and animatronics give me the heebie-jeebies.
But, man. Sitting next to Zoe in It's a Small World, the ride that broke down and held me hostage on it for over an hour when I rode it as a 4 year-old, and probably scarred me for life away from 1) repetitive children's songs and 2) animatronics, all sense of benumbment of adulthood faded away as I saw her positively wheeze in shock at the delight of it all: the colors, the animals, the lighting, the brightness, the dancing, the flying, the "Svens" (reindeers), the senseless, Pollyanna humanity of it all.
And in the darkness of the Pirates of the Caribbean, I remembered oh, right, this is why I love storytelling. Barring VR games, which I have yet to try, how often does a person get to completely immerse themselves in the production design of another time, another place? Movies can't even fully do that for you -- look around and you're still on your threadbare couch, your modern shoes clamoring for space by the door. But in the pitch-black, watery dark, surrounded by figures far enough away that if you squint, do feel like real people, drunk, filthy people who eschewed careerism / low-wage worker exploitation for a different kind of life, an adventurous life, a dangerous and violent life where death was always hanging around the bend. It's an odd gift, these 3 to 10 minute rides, that allow you to cast away everything you know and feel something else so foreign to the quotidian: panic, terror, elation, admiration, even, sure, heebie-jeebies.
So, how did it all go with two toddlers (4 and 2.5)? They were honestly so thrilled to be there the entire day, it went great. We managed to spend 13 hours there, but it felt like 5. A simple balloon brightened an entire hour. By 9:30pm, they were fully breaking down, but that's because Zoe refuses to nap anywhere other than her crib (not at school, not in the car, not in a stroller at the Sweatiest Place on Earth. (I don't understand how either of us made it out of there without a yeast infection, and yet.))
We had packed a stroller in the car, but when we finally parked after the 30 minute wait to get through the parking lot, we felt freakishly invincible so we left it in the trunk, thinking we'd just rent one if we needed one halfway through the day. Halfway through the day we realized we very much needed one (The Health app on my phone said 23,000 steps at the end of the day but half that was spent carrying a child, which should automatically double the number. I felt indefatigable, until I remembered this perfect story about steps.) The problem is, if you want to rent a stroller halfway through the day when your toddler's eyes are red with exhaustion and the hope that maybe this will be the day she just conks out like all the other toddlers in strollers all over the park, you have to walk allllllllllll the way back and OUT THE EXIT to rent one. Why don't they have a rental in the middle of the park? It makes no sense. So, another 5,000 steps Zoe and I went, while Rowan and Tyler did the new Galaxy Star Wars Something Or Other Ride.
Another tip: the Rider Switch Service. If one parent has to stay with a younger child that doesn't meet the height requirement for any given ride, you can just switch off with the one parent leaving the ride and get right back on the ride with the older/taller child without waiting in the line, while the other parent takes over with the littler child.
I hate shitty food, and theme parks always have shitty food. We really frigged up the food situation, as you have to mobile order like an hour ahead and we kept waiting too long and ordering when all of us were already cranky with low blood sugar. We ordered lobster rolls from the Harbor Restaurant, which I thought was maybe the most asinine choice I could have made but was actually quite delicious, recommend! Who knows if it was real lobster, veeeeery likely not.
Midway through the day, we all got pretty hot and cranky. Tyler went off to stand in the 45-minute long line for Dole Pineapple ice cream (?) while we went into the Enchanted Tiki Room for some air conditioning and "entertainment."
Ever since a Huntington Gardens toilet automatically flushed while she was still atop it, Zoe refuses to sit on a toilet in any public space. Her body goes rigid and arched, she screams, turns red, and absolutely refuses to bend her body into a sitting position. At Legoland last month, I forced the issue out of desperation and ended up getting peed on. Pee, absolutely, everywhere. Hours of her holding pee, just exploded out of her in her sweaty desperation not to perch on the Flushing Hitler Potty, and she accidentally peed onto both of us, the floor, everywhere. There were no paper towels in the bathroom, so I had to clean it all up with single-ply toilet paper. WRETCHED. I tried again at Disneyland, to no avail.
The fun thing about Disneyland, is every square inch of its 100 acres (40 hectares) is covered in manicured greenery that lives behind 3-4 foot high wrought iron fencing. But after 13 hours there, I know intimately the three spots of un-gated dirt that would allow for her forest pees. A fire hydrant surrounded by dirt in Tomorrowland, a dry swathe of succulents beyond the tunnel to Star Wars Land, and yes, a raised bed of trees just adjacent to Pizza Planet.
"I have to poop."
"Okay," I said, going to remove her shorts.
"NO." Tyler said. "She ABSOLUTELY CANNOT TAKE A SHIT IN THE DIRT AT DISNEYLAND. IT'S UNSANITARY." Tyler admonished.
"Okay, Tyler. You try."
Off they went, to the bathroom, Tyler full of vim and vigor.
Back, they came, minutes later, a strained expression on Tyler's face.
"And?" I asked, not needing to.
"There's no way in hell she will sit down in there."
And so, I rolled her shorts around her ankles as I held her beneath her armpits and she squatted there, in the long shadow of Pizza Planet at sunset, Rowan just over yonder "battling" any kids with light sabers their parents had also been tricked into buying for them, as she excreted two human adult-sized doods onto the manicured landscaping. Here's a "great" pic of me picking it up with two napkins from Pizza Planet:
I kept waiting for the kids to be afraid of a ride, but they clearly felt invincible, too. Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Matterhorn Rollercoaster, none of it fazed them, they loved it all. They demanded to go on the Haunted Mansion ride a third time! What fun, these little people are. What total champs. What perfect little friends. I honestly can't wait to go back! In the gift shop, I almost bought a fucking NABOO shirt (the colors were cool). In the end, I knew I'd never wear it (I never wear t-shirts, and I definitely never wear t-shirts that say STAR WARS on the front, I would feel like a fraud, plus I had to ask Tyler what Naboo is), but for a moment, I was swept up in it all, standing there in the brightly-lit gift shop, fondling a lavender/hot-pink swirl of cotton, a real...Disneyhead.