The kids and I are visiting my mom in Cocoa Beach this week. Austin is having man time in Virginia with a veritable home improvement frenzy. Flying here with the two of them alone was a bit daunting, but we didn't hit any major snags and arrived more or less in one piece (well, three pieces if you consider that there are three of us).
Our big adventure of the trip was yesterday: going to Disney World. Austin told me on Monday night that he would rather fly with the kids (he considers being trapped on an airplane with his two children akin to a small form of torture) than go to Disney World with them. He was wrong, of course, because we had an absolutely fabulous time. I'm not sure how it could have gone better. The key: don't stand in any line longer than 10 minutes. This eliminates a lot of the possible rides, but there are no rides that are worth standing in a line with a 3 year-old longer than 10 minutes.
We rode Dumbo first thing in the morning before the line got long. Tucker had never been on a high-flying ride like that before, and I wondered how he would do. He loved it. He ate it all up. The only hitch was we didn't get a green elephant and he wanted the green one. He seemed satisfied enough when I called the teal one we were on "green."
Next we went to find Mickey. On our way, we stumbled on Goofy's airplane ride and I sent Tucker and my mom on that one. Once they entered the line, I turned to look at the rest of the ride and was shocked to discover that what I thought was a little kiddie ride actually was a medium-sized roller coaster. I frantically tried to call to them not to go, concerned my sensitive little boy would be scarred for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Tucker's heart was already set on it so they went. He loved it. (The only tears of the day came late in the afternoon when he begged to go on it again.) My mom, though, was scarred from the ride and wants the record to reflect that I sent her as the sacrificial adult on that one. Oops.
After soaking in Goofy's thrills, we wandered into Mickey's house. It wasn't very exciting, but it spit us out in a line that was for some sort of Mickey show, we thought. It wasn't a long line, and there were old Mickey cartoons playing so Tucker was rapt and we just stayed not quite sure where it would lead. It turns out that the line was for a private audience with Mickey. When Tucker got up-close-and-personal with his favorite rodent, he just melted in awe to the ground. He couldn't even look up he was so excited and overwhelmed. It might've been a little cute.
We then had a sit-down lunch with Winnie the Pooh and friends, which was a much-needed break in the middle of the day. Arranging that lunch was a great call. Surprisingly, the Winnie the Pooh lunch wasn't ridiculously priced... only about double what you'd spend on a lunch of hot dogs and fries at a cafeteria in Disney World, and the buffet actually had good food. Of course, it also included large furry friends and Tucker got into the hang of the character thing and started giving them all big hugs.
Other highlights that day: seeing the Mickey show in the middle of the park, the Parade in the afternoon, riding the train around the park, and going on rides.
The very best part of our afternoon was: Winnie the Pooh's house. Tucker loved Pooh's tree. He spent ages hugging Pooh's honey pots, protecting them from bees, eating the honey, and doing it all again, and again and again. It was ridiculous. The only way we were able to get him out of there was that we had tickets to ride in Winnie's honey pot on a ride.
These are some videos of Tucker's playing with the honey:
Molly was a star all day, basically just hanging out and being easy. She specializes in eating quickly so I didn't have to nurse her all the time in random places. She napped in her car seat, snuggled and enjoyed meeting the characters (Mickey and Minnie especially loved her). She also went on the Winnie the Pooh ride and screamed for the part of it in the dark (but the music was loud so no one could here her).
When we got to the car, we were all exhausted. But then Tucker rallied into pure hysteria on the way home, wanting to play his version of peek-a-boo and "break the pickle--tickle, tickle!" for approximately an hour. I don't blame him; it was a pretty exciting day.
