Some Thoughts on Little Man's First Visit to Disneyland

1. Too f*%#ing expensive. It was $239 for two adults and one child. And we paid $11 to park!!!

2. The child was overwhelmed. Nope, that's the wrong word. The kid was scared to death! For our $250, we did all of three rides. We did Winnie the Pooh (which scared him initially). We did the Casey Jr. train. We did Small World. In fact, we did Small World twice. That's it!!! Soul Brother #2 didn't want to go on anything else.

3. Where do they get off charging the prices they do for food and drink? Thank goodness friends told us to take our own.

4. The second trip through Small World made me wonder if I was in hell.

5. The Casey Jr. train has cages for animals, one of which is labeled "Monkeys". Soul Brother #2 can't read much yet. When we got off the train, he said he wanted to go again. Then he pointed to the aformentioned cage and said he wanted to ride in it on the next go round. Soul Brother #1 and I said "No!" almost in unison. The little one asked why we couldn't ride in it. I said I'd tell him in 10 years (when he's old enough to understand discussions about race and stereotypes). When I told my mother of all of this, she fell out laughing, saying she understood why we said no.

6. Soul Brother #2, to our surprise, was in awe when he met Mickey Mouse. My friends think the picture indicates his apathy. But I know my kid. That's the look of someone in awe. You see that look on the faces of people who get an audience with the Pope. For Soul Brother #2, this was like meeting the Pope. That look on his face is one of beatitude.


7. Coolest thing we did: getting a silhouette done of the little one. They sat the little man down in a chair. Then this woman simply talked to him and, without the aid of computers or anything but a pair of scissors, cut out an absolutely perfect profile of my child. How'd she do that? Truly amazing.