Vacations are not something my family has been great at coordinating. By \u201cmy family\u201d I mean my little immediate family consisting of Nik and Callie and myself; as a kid I remember my parents loading my brother and I up in cars or RVs pretty regularly and taking jaunts to visit family in the Midwest or camping or some other exploratory excursion. Somehow as an adult a combination of financial concerns and a heavy demand on my limited vacation time due to three distinct extended family units has meant stringing a full week of days off together with some sort of plan has been a challenge. This year we made a pact that we were going to have a real family vacation no matter what, and I carefully rationed my PTO days so we could take Callie to Disneyland as our \u201cbig\u201d gift to her for her third birthday.<\/p>\n
Disneyland is, to Nik and I, one of the few vacation-y spots we\u2019ve made trips to in the almost 13 years of our marriage, although again, we\u2019ve never put a full week of vacation into one of these visits, usually lumping our returns in with some other event like a wedding or a concert or a convention. But whenever we\u2019re in the neighborhood and can swing it, we try to make it a point to spend a little time in the parks because we both share a particular fondness for the Magic Kingdom. I know my enthusiasm for Disneyland originates from several of those family trips as a kid where my brother and parents and I would gamely brave the summer lines to experience Peter Pan\u2019s Flight and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and The Jungle Cruise. Later, when Disneyland became a thing that I did more with friends or with Nik, the nostalgia buoyed the trips beyond the middling thrills offered me many of the rides compared to other destinations. It helped that while Nik enjoys the sort of safe-n-sane excitement of Space Mountain, she\u2019s far more leery than I of the bigger\/crazier\/loopier rides and coasters at places like Six Flags. I may be a roller coaster nut, game for just about any steel-rail madness the engineers can devise, but a minimum of half the fun is experiencing it with someone else, so I\u2019ll take any ride over no ride and Disney seems to offer the happiest middle ground between my wife and I.<\/p>\n
Yet, nostalgia can carry you only so far. In one of the last trips Nik and I made to Anaheim prior to Callie being born, we paused at one point and wondered aloud if we had gotten to the point where Disneyland was no longer quite the same for people of our advancing age to do alone. Unsaid but understood was that it wasn\u2019t Disneyland that was changing, it was us, and we made a half-joking, half-serious pact to make it a point to return only when we had children of our own to bring along.<\/p>\n
Flash forward five years or so and after initially nixing a trip somewhere in Callie\u2019s second year for fear of her being too little to really appreciate it (and, as usual, the time off\/funding conundrums), we decided three was a good age to introduce our daughter to the magic we both felt from our trips early in our lives to Disneyland. I confess, this put a fair amount of pressure on me and, to an extent (although I hope she didn\u2019t feel it at all) Callie to make the trip memorable, to instill that sense of awe and wonder present as a child in the park that had taken well over twenty years to completely shed.<\/p>\n
There is a piece written by SF author Neal Stephenson called\u00a0In The Beginning Was The Command Line<\/a>, which is interesting in and of itself, but applicable here in that there is a digression within where Stephenson notes that among Disney\u2019s principal characteristics is their ability to nail user interfaces. Which is to say, the facade of a place like Disneyland, the way the park presents itself to guests and the way the customers interact with the park, the rides, the queues, even just the visual presentation of information and experience is a huge part of what makes Disneyland (and other Disney theme parks, presumably) have that unique factor which makes it, and not, say, Magic Mountain, the most visited amusement park in the world. Six Flags\u2019 close proximity might make it a stronger competitor, and on paper it may perhaps be even better with more rides and more exciting attractions (and shorter lines), but Six Flags isn\u2019t a theme park, and the lack of theme is part of why it is a second run to the Disney mega-destination. \u00a0It\u2019s not just that Disneyland seems better curated, it is a more engaging place to be, because even when you\u2019re not on a ride you\u2019re immersed in a place where the details matter, whether you notice it consciously or not.<\/p>\n The challenge became trying to get an energetic and strong-willed toddler to acknowledge and appreciate these details, or to appreciate much of anything beyond \u201cwhat else you got?\u201d I went in to the trip armed with apps and maps and game plans and strategies to hit the attractions that I considered to be the highlights, determined to depart the trip with a child who recognized what it was that made mommy and I so excited when we advertised (starting about two months before her birthday and three and a half months before the actual trip) our destination. I knew going in that some things were going to have to be deferred; I don\u2019t know that I necessarily remember my very first visit to Disneyland. I think my parents took me when I was about Callie\u2019s age, maybe a touch younger. I have a hazy memory of the Autopia ride and my mom being pregnant with my brother, though that could be a confabulation with a different park (possibly Great America which is local). I know that by the time my brother and I went during the 30th Anniversary event for the park (in 1985) I was already enraptured by the place and the possibilities inherent in a parent-sponsored trip. I would have been seven years old at the time, and it was probably the first time I was tall enough to go on all the \u201cbig kid\u201d rides like Space Mountain and the Matterhorn Bobsleds.<\/p>\n Point being, this early trip may not stick many details in my daughter\u2019s mind about what it really means to be at Disneyland, but I think there is more than enough cognition to give her an overall sense of why going to Disneyland is more exciting than, say, going to an indoor jungle gym with themed rooms. Both are certainly fun, but there is an element present at Disneyland that you don\u2019t get from just anywhere, an element that, at risk of sounding like some kind of shill or drone, is close enough to magic to be virtually indistinguishable in a child\u2019s mind. As self-appointed tour guide for her, I went in feeling like it fell on me to ensure that she tasted that enough that if I were to come back to her in a year or two with, \u201cWould you like to go back?\u201d the answer would be as enthusiastic as I would be offering that to her. Presumptuous? Over-ambitious? Perhaps. But in context with the discussion of what it meant to be a childless thirtysomething at Disneyland trying to understand why that sparkle was fading from the experience, it felt significant to me to believe that there was a new element to a favored activity waiting to happen.<\/p>\n We decided to fly down rather than drive. A dull trek down I-5 with a kid in a rear-facing car seat didn\u2019t sound quick or appealing for any of us so we had our flight out of SFO early on Monday morning. Sunday afternoon we traveled to the City to stay overnight; our flight wasn\u2019t just early, it was crazy early for us so saving that little bit of time by waking up within spitting distance of the airport seemed smart. Sunday evening we took Callie to Pier 39, hit the aquarium there and showed Callie the sea lions before having dinner and then retiring very early. We were all up by 3:30 the next morning which might have felt more intense than it did if not for the vacation adrenaline, yet somehow despite our what-time-did-you-say-it-was morning and wise pre-planning our boarding experience was a little stressful, and we just squeaked on the plane with a hasty breakfast scarfed down at the gate. Our arrival at John Wayne airport was further frustrating in that the shuttle we had paid for ahead of time turned out to be more or less a regular passenger vehicle with no child seats. We confirmed with the booking agent that because it was registered as a public transportation vehicle it didn\u2019t fall under the same guidelines as what I assume the exact same van would have if registered differently, but we weren\u2019t at all comfortable with tossing our three year-old in the back of a van and hopping on the LA freeway system. With limited options we ended up paying for a rental car that came with a child seat, which we frustratingly used only to get to our hotel and back. I might have thought it an ill portent, but we were too focused on getting settled in and heading to the park.<\/p>\n As soon as we arrived, my notions of coordinating the trip carefully for maximum Callie-friendly exposure were tossed aside. Our solid-12-hour-sleeper was working on maybe seven hours of rest if you include the short nap she took during takeoff and though she gamely stood in line to meet Minnie Mouse (she was wearing a new Minnie t-shirt, some Minnie Mouse sneakers and sporting a temporary Minnie tattoo on her arm), she didn\u2019t seem all that charmed by the silent, imposing form of the costumed character. I had wanted to stroll leisurely down Main Street and let Callie take in the sights and sounds and smells of that iconic entry point, but it was quickly agreed that we needed to get her on a ride to whet her appetite for the meat of the park. We chose Peter Pan\u2019s Flight as it has been a long time favorite of mine and Nik\u2019s, but in retrospect I think we might have gone a different direction: the line was sluggish and long, most of the switchbacks being positioned right under the unforgiving noonday sun and an already tired Callie was uninterested in anything but clinging to an adult. The resulting 45-minute wait was a sweaty, grueling ordeal that culminated in a ride that didn\u2019t seem as vibrant as I remembered and which Callie declared upon exiting as \u201cscary and too dark.\u201d If she was going to be skittish about dark rides, we were potentially poised for a disappointing trip: a very large number of the attractions at the park are indoor rides with a heavy reliance on spot lighting.<\/p>\n For the rest of the morning session we relied on outdoor rides like Dumbo and The Jungle Cruise, but before long we realized we needed to get the little one some sort of nap so we hopped the shuttle back to the hotel and she promptly conked out on my shoulder during the ride, only to snap to vibrant alertness once we hit our room. Nik and I were dying for the planned nap so we slept fitfully while Callie kept half an eye on the TV and spent the rest of her time arranging our belongings into various drawers around the suite, which made for some fun rounds of Finders Keepers as we tried to interpret Callie\u2019s organizational scheme. As we went back to the park and stayed as late as they would allow us (we ended up being the very tail end of the line for Autopia with a Cast member standing behind us the whole way to dissuade any after-hours sneakers, which afforded me a few opportunities to ask Stupid Guest Questions), something began to dawn on me but it took until later in the week to understand it.<\/p>\n To me, the thing about Disney is that they are integrated into my childhood which means they play a specific role in my formative years. For some time now I\u2019ve shuffled my feet when confronted head on with the truth of my affection for the company and its intellectual property, especially as terms like \u201cintellectual property\u201d have crept into my vocabulary and the cynicism of adulthood has crowded out the blissful ignorance of youth. Disappointments along the way as well as just a pseudo-hipster posture of being sort of half annoyed by everything, particularly if it has intentionally broad commercial appeal had soured me somewhat on thinking of myself as a fan of any corporate entity. I catch myself doing this even with companies that my behavior would indicate places me squarely in the fanboy camp like Apple or Google or Marvel or TiVo or Fantasy Flight Games. It\u2019s as if my smirking, shrugging adopted attitude of feigned nonchalance insulates me from the horrific outward impression of enthusiasm.<\/p>\n And yet I continue to wax philosophical about the aspects of favored enterprises. Case in point, when I think of Disney I dissect it down to the point where I acknowledge that I admire the way that Disney, when they\u2019re being successful in my eyes, are a company that focuses on aesthetic. This harkens back to what Stephenson referred to when he talked about Disney as purveyors of excellence in interface design; it\u2019s visible in the whimsical\u00a0title animation<\/a>, now updated from the stylized Disney castle logo of my childhood and beyond the reminiscent 3D one found on Disney\/Pixar films, including a chugging train, a quiet dusk setting and a tranquil river leading to a triumphant castle, all towering spires and soft orange lighting. As fireworks light the sky above the waving banners, a sparkling arc of pixie dust hastens the fade in of the company logo and the orchestra swells with an overture of \u201cWhen You Wish Upon A Star.\u201d In these 30 seconds, Disney conveys a number of things about what they represent, or at least what they mostly try to embody: Hope, dreams, imagination, wonder, and a child-like innocence rooted firmly in a sanitized version of the past that\u2014hopefully\u2014still applies today.<\/p>\n Truth is, I like the concept, perhaps even the worldview, that Disney, to varying degrees of success, traffics in. Worlds where phrases such as \u201cHappily Ever After\u201d aren\u2019t scoff-worthy, where fairies and princesses burst into catchy songs, where tough times are just obstacles to overcome on journeys of self-discovery (often with the comic relief of anthropomorphized animal companions), where wishes and dreams and books and imagination are virtuous, where love can happen with a glance and where magic just is. The adult in me knows there are issues with this perspective, and particularly in the way Disney has handled their own ouvre: The whitebread protagonist syndrome (even dipping into darker, overt racism in earlier work), the implied materialism, the sometimes conflicted role of women or the frequently one-dimensional male figure offering timely salvation, the simplistic moral reductionism and so on. Better minds than mine have and will continue to pick apart the stories and products Disney produces, but those grown-up critiques are separate from the point that on its best days, Disney resonates with kids and with adults who are \u00a0still able to divorce their world weariness from their inner child and find joy in movies about dreamers, attractions featuring singing bunnies and shorts about an affable talking mouse and his slapstick-happy pals.<\/p>\n Disney isn\u2019t a charity enterprise, and money sullies everything, so naturally there will be problems inherent with blind acceptance; no one wants indoctrination or the creation of the Cult of Disney. Excessive merchandising, hasty direct-to-video sequels, and inflated premium-brand pricing exists to mine the pockets of exhausted parents. Even the very act of creating that Disney mythos leads to\u00a0princess culture and pink femininity<\/a>\u00a0which can itself be worrisome. It\u2019s easy to over think it. Ahem. Obviously.<\/p>\n It was probably during our second session on Tuesday that it started to dawn on me as I struggled to not burden Callie with a toddler\u2019s incessant need for reassurance that she was, in fact, having a good time and was understanding how cool everything was. It started during a solo stint where Nik and her sister, Sam, and Sam\u2019s husband Chase went off in search of lunch that Callie and I weren\u2019t as interested in. We wandered through \u201ca bug\u2019s land\u201d in California Adventure and she noted an elaborate water play area, one side designed like a giant outdoor water spigot with a concrete hose running and the leaky connector poured a fine mist of rain over an area; around the other side of the land the faux hose terminated with a giant sprinkler head that shot water in hops and jumps from both the functional head and several jets set into the ground. We weren\u2019t fully prepared for a soaked child, but it was hot and Callie kept asking about it. At once I felt my mantle as responsible father, constantly worrying about safety and preparedness and mindful limits, slip off completely. \u201cYeah, buddy,\u201d I heard myself say, \u201cyou can play in the water. We\u2019ll figure it out afterward.\u201d<\/p>\n At first she was timid, standing to the edges and looking wide-eyed at the delighted crowd of children drenching themselves in the irregular jets of water. Occasionally on the sprinkler head side all the jets would just go nuts at once and the chorus of squeals and laughter from the kids would drown out the rest of the din of the park. After one of these climactic events Callie finally began to edge her way around the perimeter of the arena, moving with her deliberate, semi-graceless half run in a regular circle that I noted was more of a slow spiral as she gained confidence with each lap and drifted closer and closer to the actual thrill of cool splashing water. When she finally miscalculated a jet and got nailed, water running down her full cheeks and onto her t-shirt in perfect defiance of every parental missive to \u201ctry not to get messy\u201d the grin on her face was unforgettable. After ten minutes her hair clung in sopping strands to her forehead and her shoes squelched with squeezing water from the soles on each giddy step and I couldn\u2019t stop laughing, nor could she save for the few stops to check in with me, grab a drink of non-chlorinated water from my bottle and then back into the cooling fray she\u2019d dance.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a ride, it wasn\u2019t necessarily a unique-to-Disneyland experience, but it triggered something in both my daughter and I that it took until the last hour we had at the park to really clarify. Wednesday was our last day and after two days of shortened hours for the park (open from 10-8 only) that were even shorter when you factored in the two-to-three hour round trip shuttle ride and nap break, we made the call to try and push through a full day with only cat naps in the stroller or on calmer rides and attractions. But Callie, perhaps sensing the end of the trip, seemed determined to not miss any more than was strictly required and she refused to sleep even during the dim and soothing 15-minute Enchanted Tiki Room show I took her to. She did fall asleep for a bit in the line for the kiddie thriller in Toontown, Gadget\u2019s Go Coaster, and didn\u2019t wake fully even once we sat down in the car, only finally coming around when the train took its first dip down the track. But for the most part she was committed. After dinner in Downtown Disney, Nik, Sam and Chase were exhausted from the long day and though there was still an hour left before the parks closed, they called it a night. Callie and I weren\u2019t quite ready, so we headed back to California Adventure for one last round of fun before the trip was over.<\/p>\n The nighttime show, World Of Color, was just about to start as we re-entered, which put a damper on my plan to hit up the area we had least frequented, Paradise Pier, since during the show nearly all the rides in that section are closed down including the big Mickey Mouse ferris wheel that Callie and I really wanted to try out. We settled on Toy Story Midway Mania! which is kind of a ride, kind of a video game and then tried to fight our way through the throngs of people filing out as World Of Color came to an end. We went back to Cars Land where we had stopped earlier in the week and practically walked onto Mater\u2019s Junkyard Jamboree, a sort of updated Scrambler type ride. Time was drawing to a close by the time we walked off, laughing and smiling, and I hoped to find one last ride to catch before they shut it all down. We made it over to \u201ca bug\u2019s land\u201d again and the guy at Flik\u2019s Flyers, a spinning carriage ride, agreed to run it one last time for us, closing the line behind as we entered. Turned out we had the whole ride to ourselves and as we spun over the darkening park I watched the look on Callie\u2019s face and reflected back on the things we\u2019d done on this trip.<\/p>\n The list was drastically different from the last time Nik and I came alone: Dumbo, Mad Tea Party (x3), It\u2019s A Small World (x2), Gadget\u2019s Go Coaster (x2), Buzz Lightyear\u2019s Astro Blasters, Astro Orbiter, The Disneyland Railroad (x2), Flik\u2019s Flyers (x2), Tuck N Roll\u2019s Bumper Cars, Mater\u2019s Junkyard Jamboree (x2), King Arthur\u2019s Carousel (x2), Autopia, Ariel\u2019s Undersea Adventure, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Toy Story Midway Mania, The Enchanted Tiki Room, Sleeping Beauty\u2019s Castle. Very few of those were ridden by us in our grown-up only visits, and the only standards we hit were The Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan\u2019s Flight plus Nik and I got to ride the updated Star Tours and the Halloween-themed Space Mountain: Ghost Galaxy while Callie spent a bit of time with her aunt and\/or uncle. By the standards of our pervious trips, this was a dull, thrill-less trip, lacking any of the must-sees like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, California Screamin\u2019, Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Maliboomer, etc. Nik and her sister did make it on the New Orleans Square highlights and I got to do the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, but all told for a three-day visit it should have been a disappointment.<\/p>\n It was anything but. I had so much fun. I didn\u2019t know the smaller, slower, less elaborate rides could be enjoyable ever again. But then I\u2019d sit there, arm wrapped protectively around Callie, hearing the delirious squeals of sheer delight, watching her head drop back to feel the wind rush by her face or feeling her arm raise to point out a funny animatronic figure, and I saw what she saw. She made me feel what she felt, that sense of awe and excitement of watching characters come to life without thinking \u201cI wonder how the robotics work under that plastic skin?\u201d I grasped the simple pleasure of gently bounding off another \u201cvictim\u201d in slow-moving bumper cars, understood the simple thrill of being able to ride a merry-go-round horse all by yourself for the first time. We stayed that last hour on Wednesday night because both of us, in at least equal parts, didn\u2019t want it to end. We wanted to stay, to keep spinning and soaring and riding and seeing and sharing.<\/p>\n As we walked out to the snap of lights being shut off and rattle of chains being drawn across line entrances, Callie\u2019s little bottom lip protruded and her soft eyebrows arced up and inward. \u201cDaddy,\u201d she said so softly I had to stop the stroller, lean down to hear, \u201cI\u2019m sad. I don\u2019t want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n I tried to force a brave smile. \u201cI know, baby,\u201d I said, \u201cI don\u2019t either.\u201d<\/p>\n And at last I got it. Finally it was clear that I hadn\u2019t needed to worry about making sure Callie loved Disneyland, that there was no need to go to extra lengths to expose her to everything the park had to offer. I wasn\u2019t opening her eyes to anything at all. I wasn\u2019t her guide. She was mine. This tiny three year-old, with sweetness and exuberance I\u2019d long, long ago forgotten, re-introduced me to the place I\u2019d been a dozen or more times, a place I\u2019d sworn I knew inside and out, a place I was sure I fully understood. And she showed me I didn\u2019t know it at all. I wanted to thank her, to hug her, to pay the price to push our flight back and buy one more day\u2019s worth of tickets. Anything to keep it going, to retain that exact moment. But you can\u2019t force the magic to happen, and it was time to apply the lesson my daughter had so effortlessly taught me.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t worry, sweetheart,\u201d I said, feeling a last smile on my sore cheeks, \u201cwe\u2019ll come back.\u201d<\/p>\n She considered this for a moment, looking off at the near horizon and seeing the lights behind Mickey Mouse\u2019s visage on the Paradise Pier ferris wheel. Her lip tucked itself back in and she smiled at me, the hint of tears still shining just so in her eyes, no longer needed but still lingering with the understanding that this small chapter was bittersweetly closing. \u201cWe\u2019ll come back,\u201d I said again, touching her hair.<\/p>\n \u201cYay!\u201d she said, with all the genuine optimism only a small child can muster.<\/p>\n from ironSoap<\/a> \u2014 October 02, 2012 at 01:32PM<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vacations are not something my family has been great at coordinating. By \u201cmy family\u201d I mean my little immediate family consisting of Nik and Callie and myself; as a kid I remember my parents loading my brother and I up in cars or RVs pretty regularly and taking jaunts to visit family in the Midwest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ironsoap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2129,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions\/2129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/complete.ironsoap.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}