Happy holidays, DIS friends. I hope everyone has been having a wonderful winter break. We had a very relaxed Christmas and hope to have a similar New Year's Eve. I did forget Landon had a project for preschool to be completed before he returns to school, so we've been scrambling today to try and find the supplies necessary to complete the task. Whoops! Parenting fail on my part.
I did happen to notice while I was proofing my update that my posts might be coming across kind of whiny and full of complaints. I promise I don't intentionally try to do; this was a great trip and I'm so glad I took the kids to the parks over the summer. Given the chance to do it again, I would. So after this update I am going to try really hard to focus less on the negatives and highlight more of the positives!
July 21st Part 7:
Picking up right where I left off, my mom and I had just sat down to dinner at Garden Grill when Chip came up to our table and said hello. Landon loved the interaction; Evie took one look at the chipmunk and let out a blood curling scream. Pretty sure everyone in the restaurant heard the scream. I would even go so far as to say someone walking past the entrance heard Evie and thought to themselves: “Ahh, someone’s about to have a long dinner with an unhappy baby.”
*Sigh*
So much for that good mood Evie had on the way to the park. One look at Chip and she freaked. The strangest part of it all was that I wouldn’t say she was scared. She was more angry and confused. Like, it wasn’t part of the natural world to have an animal that big. We were upsetting the balance of nature and she was not okay with that. Not one bit.
Fortunately, the first round of food arrived before any other characters could stop by, so my mom and I were able to dish portions out to everybody and have a second to get settled.
The first course was a salad and rolls with some potato salad the chef had decided to whip up. This wasn’t on the menu and we couldn’t request the dish…it was just the delicious result of the cook’s whim. It’s a shame it wasn’t a regular item, though, because it was really good. I’m picky about my potato salad, but this one passed the taste test with flying colors.
The salad was fresh but had a lot of cucumbers in it, which is a food I don’t like so I only had a bite or two…As far as the bread went.
It served its main purpose.
That of keeping the kids occupied.
What parent doesn’t wait with bated breath until that beautiful bread bowl arrives to distract the kids from arguing or spilling their drinks?
Or to draw their attention away from gigantic Mickeys…
Unfortunately for my mother, I wasn’t cutting it for Evie that evening. She wanted to sit in Nana’s lap, so my mom had to set up camp with a one year old.
You can see in the photo that Evie was too busy watching her surroundings to eat much. Made life very interesting for my mom. She was scooping bites of salad here and there and avoiding wiggling elbows and restless feet. Ironically enough, when a character would reach the tables directly below us, Evie would start screaming their name and pointing in their direction.
“Pluto! Mommy, Pluto!”
From afar, the characters were great. From two feet away? Not so much.
Soon enough, our main course arrived.
I love my mom, if for no other reason than the fact that she continues to be surprised by the generous portions at Disney. She looked at all that meat in the skillet and told me I was crazy if I thought we’d be able to put a dent in it. To spare her immense guilt, the waitress informed us that anything not eaten would get recycled into electricity.
How cool is that?
I had heard that fun fact on a podcast before, but it was interesting hearing it from an actual Cast Member in a relevant setting.
All the food served was very good; I don’t think there was anything on the platter that I outright did not like. I only nibbled at a bite of the sausage because, well, living in Germany affords me a lot of opportunities to eat sausage. A lot. Honestly, I’m kind of sausage-d out. But I did demolish the turkey and stuffing and green beans. My mom had most of the pot roast and mashed potatoes, while the kids polished off the zucchini. Landon and I fought over the cranberry sauce, as we do during most holiday dinners.
Our waitress brought some mac and cheese and French fries halfway through our meal, and shamefully that’s what Evie ate the most of. She was so mad and overwhelmed that my mom and I struggled really hard getting her to eat anything. By that point I just wanted sustenance in her belly, no matter what it was.
While we were eating Mickey, Pluto, and Dale all came by to say hello, but with Evie flailing and screaming every time one approached I didn’t get too many pictures of the meets.
As our main course was wrapping up, my mom and I encountered the worst Catch-22 situation imaginable. Our table was about the third one away from the kitchen doors and the restaurant wasn’t overly full that night. So my kid, excitable little guy that he is, would see the characters passing by pretty frequently and feel the need to say hello to them. Landon would become so excited when he turned his head mid-bite and happen to see Mickey walking past. And I guess since it wasn’t that busy, the characters were feeling extra generous that evening and stopped in front of Landon almost every single time! Pluto, especially. He kept wanting to give Landon high fives, play peek a boo, return a quick wave.
It was amazing character interaction, and Landon could not believe how much attention he was getting.
But there was Evie.
WHY DO THESE ANIMALS KEEP COMING BACK?!?!
Landon’s on one end of the table drawing the characters to him like a beacon while Evie’s on the other throwing forks on the floor in frustration.
That was her go-to move when someone showed up.
Yell and throw a fork.
We went through seven forks.
Our server brought 4 extra when she saw what was happening.
I left a big tip.
By the time the dishes were cleared and the dessert was being prepped, my mother and I were both frazzled.
Full and happy. But frazzled.
Oh so frazzled.
Dessert arrived and due to all the mayhem I had forgotten to mention that I’m allergic to strawberries. Not wanting to drag the meal out any longer than necessary I just skipped eating and let my mom enjoy the strawberry shortcake all to herself.
The kids, meanwhile, each got a cookie.
That calmed Evie down for a few minutes.
In case you were wondering, yes, Evie was looking at pictures of Mickey on my mom’s phone. The very ones we took not twenty minutes earlier.
And she loved them.
What can I say? Evie liked the looks of the mouse a lot better through a screen than up close and personal.
Dinner complete, my mom and I took the kids downstairs to use Soarin’ Fastpasses that I was able to get earlier that afternoon. Since this is my mom’s favorite ride at Disney, I told her she could ride first and could take Landon on his first turn, too. The Cast Member at the entrance did check his height but said he was good to go. He even warned us they would probably check him again at the end, but to let whomever was working know that he’d been approved out there.
Sweet!
Landon officially hit the 40” mark. That was one less thing I had to stress over. I did make my mom grab a Rider Swap before we parted ways, that way if Landon loved the ride he could go again with me. Then, I took Evie over to the old paper FP distribution area and let her run around while we waited.
Since it was pretty late in the evening it wasn’t very crowded and those people that were there had kids, too. That must have been the unofficial baby playground of Future World.
Evie kept insisting on running to my feet and laying down on the ground.
Ew, Evie.
Ew.
Thankfully a big section of chairs emptied fifteen minutes into our wait and she spent the rest of the time climbing up and down on them.
My mom and Landon finished with Soarin’ and when I saw Landon I asked how he liked the ride.
“I hated it!”
Oh dear.
I looked up at my mom and she shook her head, eyes wide.
“It did not go well.”
“Really?”
“Mom, it was scary. Why would you let me ride that?”
Yikes, what was in this new film? Sharks? Volcanoes?
My mom then explained to me that there were a lot of 3D effects in this newer version that startled him. She said it was much more than the old golf ball coming towards you. I guess Landon’s sense of perception was getting really thrown off on the ride and it freaked him to the point where he buried his head in my mom’s shoulder until the end.
“So, buddy, does that mean you don’t want to go on it again?”
“No! No, no, no! Don’t make me ride it again.”
I threw up my hands. Fair enough. Soarin’ was out for Landon. Good to know. On the plus side, my mom enjoyed the new version; she got a kick out of seeing Neuschwanstein Castle in the same state she’d visited it (during the fall when all the leaves were changing), but she warned me that some of the scenes seemed tilted to her.
***
To this day, if you ask Landon about Soarin' his response is, "Soarin? No, no, no. I don't like that. I'll try it again when I'm an adult."***
Since Landon wasn’t going with me, I pocketed the Rider Swap and used my Fastpass. The wait to get on wasn’t long at all, but while standing in the queue I was hit with a huge sense of homesickness for Alex. I don’t know what in the world triggered it, but for that ten minute stretch I really missed my husband and felt really sad being at Disney World without him. There were other moments throughout the week that made me think of him, but that instance was by far the worst. I’m sure a lot had to do with the fact that I felt like a little bit of failure with Evie at dinner. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t get her to stop screaming when a character came by and could barely get her to eat her food.
Evie is extremely close with Alex (not to say she’s not with me, but ultimately she’s a daddy’s girl through and through) and I couldn’t help but think that if Alex were at that meal, things would have turned out a lot smoother. Add to that the fact that I’d been parenting both kids with little breaks for 3 months and the sudden solitude was jarring. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I could stand there and-
Just stand there.
I didn’t have to keep an eye on anyone or look at my surroundings and try to predict what trouble my tiny humans were going to create with something as innate as a planter.
Of course, standing around allowed me to think, and thinking brought back wonderful memories of Alex and I standing in that same queue seven years prior. Good golly, we were young back on our first trip!
Look at us babies!
That was circa 2010. Pre-marriage, pre-kids, pre-a whole heck of a lot of things.
Seemed like another lifetime ago!
My solo self was put in the second row.
Where instead of thinking, I crammed my backpack into the mesh storage underneath the seat. Why I didn’t put it in the middle walkway, I don’t know. So dumb on my part, because at the end of the ride the poor guy next to me had to help me pull the thing back out. Talk about embarrassing…
Overall, I liked the new version. It was lovely seeing all the new countries and really does fit in with Epcot’s theme, but I could have done with less special effects. After riding it myself, I could definitely see how Landon got freaked out on it.
When I met back up with my mom and the kids, my mother informed me that Landon had a situation he was too scared to deal with and my mother wasn’t making any progress.
Ahh. Yes. My son has quite a few quirks, and one of them at the time was his insistence to wait until bedtime to, ah, use the restroom. So, I left my mom with Evie and took Landon to the nearby bathrooms. And spent thirty minutes trying to get him to understand that waiting until we were back at Shades wasn’t a great idea.
It didn’t work. Finally, I threw in the towel and told my mom we needed to head back to the resort. Our plan to watch IllumiNations had to be nixed. But, on the plus side, we got to see some of Happily Ever After while we waited for our Shades bus at the TTC.
Landon was thrilled he got to see some fireworks. It’s not Disney if there’s not fireworks.
That’s his opinion, of course.
While we waited for the bus, my mom and I had a conversation and discussed Evie’s unhappiness with the day. We both agreed that we needed to give her a break and find something she would enjoy, and the solution we came up with was skipping a park in the morning and hanging out around the resort, instead. It killed me a little (okay – A LOT) to waste a whole morning, however I hoped it would do wonders to Evie’s disposition.
Anything to let Evie have a better day than the one she was currently finishing up…
Up Next…Don’t Forget You’re Only One.
Good choice!
