Alex’s California Adventure, Part Two, or “Disneyland - The Ultimate Adventure In Toddler Management”

Oh, the things we sacrifice for our kids. Our time, our energy and our long-held promises to never, ever go to Disneyland/World.

Yes, I swore I’d never go to Disneyland. It was my personal stand against the commercialism and the happily ever after-isms. I had never gone as a kid and I wasn’t lacking for it.

Then, of course, I had Alex. Things change. Mom gets silly ideas put into her head and agrees to break a promise. For Alex, of course.

Our day at Disneyland was going to be with some flickr friends and their kids. Some of us had gotten together in the past and it’s always a blast, so we could only imagine how much fun we could have at Disneyland while making snarky comments about the atmosphere while our kids rode rides until they were sick and ate sugary treats until they were hanging off of Mickey’s ears.

The weather was great. Highs in the 80s and bright and sunny. We couldn’t have asked for better weather (especially since it was snowing and freezing cold back in Denver). The drive through LA traffic was great (!) and we got to the park right at opening time and met up with some of our friends at the entrance. Of course, one thing that absolutely had to be done was to get Alex’s picture by the “A” at the California sign outside of California Adventure.

Alas, there’s no K(im), not even an M(ommy). And the poor, neglected O wasn’t very busy. Not a very common initial.

We had had some concerns about taking Alex to Disneyland. It wasn’t the crowds that concerned as so much as the concept of trying to get a toddler to wait in a lineup. Some of the line ups for rides at Disneyland (heck, any park) are notorious for their wait times, so we were unsure how he’d handle them. We talked to some of his therapists and they suggested that we bring some new small toys that he’d never seen before along with us. That way, if he started getting restless, we could pull one out that would hopefully occupy him for a few minutes. In our longest lineup, about 35 minutes, it worked well. It also helps when you have other people there that are good at entertaining (like his Auntie Mal) and when things get desperate, you can always pull out the trusty ol’ iPhone with preloaded episodes of Sesame Street.

We rented a stroller for Alex as soon as we got in the park. If you’ve got little people, take advantage of these strollers. They’re sporty strollers, pretty comfy for the kids and it’ll save your back from carrying them throughout the park. Trust me, it’s worth the $10. The nice thing about Disneyland is it’s size. It’s big, but not nearly as big as Disney World is which, I think, makes it easier for smaller kids (and their parents) to manage.

The other thing that surprised me a lot of Disneyland was the variety of food available. Yes, there’s your usual fried stuff and amusement park standbys (popcorn, ice cream, etc) but there’s some healthy food choices too, like veggies and dip, fresh fruit, fresh fruit juices and dried fruit. Alex’s kids lunch was a small pizza with a choice of chips or fruit. It’s so great to have various healthy choices available for the kids (do you hear that, other amusement parks?) and not feel doomed to whatever fried food is coming out from under the heat lamps.

We weren’t sure how Alex would do on the rides. The most motion he’d ever had was from daddy “flying” him up the stairs or flipping him over. Little did we know how well he’d do. The first ride was on Autopia, which he loved, even with the long wait.

He signed that he wanted to do the ride again. Of course. After explaining that we’d have to wait longer than before and showing him a few other rides that he might be more interested in, he decided he was okay with that. (*phew*)

After a struggle to have him eat some lunch (who wants to eat when there’s so much FUN to be had?!), we got in line for the Matterhorn. Yes, the roller coaster. The very fast roller coaster. And yes, you read it right - right after lunch. We knew that Alex had just barely eked past the required hight minimum and figured that we’d give it a try. Things had been going so well, why not just try it? With Alex buckled in safely in front of daddy, we were off. And he LOVED IT and wanted more! We discovered that our son was a little thrill seeker! Unfortunately, just as our sled got in, they shut the ride down for repairs. We were lucky we had gotten on when we did.

As Alex’s usual naptime came and went, we started to get a little concerned - was he going to go nuclear (have a tantrum) at some point from the lack of sleep? We had never really pushed him that much before. We hoped that we could get away with pushing him around in the stroller and that he might nod off for a little nap, but he’d never done it before. He seemed okay and ready for more and more rides, so we kept going on, with the idea that if he got really tired, we’d head for home.

Of course, with so many rides and so much fun to be had, he probably forgot that he was tired. Tired and the Tea Cup ride just don’t go together.

But, as does inevitably happen, all toddlers hit their maximum allowable sleep deficit and even Alex started to fall asleep in lineups.

He had done really well and had a lot of fun, but we were planning on coming back later in the week, so we decided it was time to hit the road. It had been a really long day, we had a long drive ahead of us to get home and we wanted to make sure that he’d get a good night’s sleep, so we said goodbye to our friends around 4 pm. Drove home, picked up some take out and ate dinner. Alex was keyed up from the day, moderately hungry but definitely ready to get to bed. We did our bath routine, got his pajamas on and started giving him his milk before bedtime. He had gotten through about half the bottle before he pushed it away and promptly threw up all over the place.

Uh oh.

Alex burst out into tears and we brought him into the bathtub and stripped his clothes off to clean him up while he stood in the tub sobbing, “Oh no. Oh no.” He felt hot to the touch. So hot, in fact, that he was running a fever. We brought him downstairs and tried to feed him a frozen juice pop while trying to get some Tylenol into him (which he, of course, also threw up). His fever peaked at 102 and I had premonitions of us spending the rest of our vacation nursing a sick kid with whatever it was he was sick with. Eventually, he fell asleep on daddy and we carried him upstairs to his crib to sleep the night. He got more sleep then I did, since I was listening all night for him.

Next morning, he was fine. No fever, no throwing up, back to normal. We have no idea what it was. We were just glad that he was feeling better and showed it by clearing a whole plateful of silver dollar pancakes at a local breakfast place.

We went back to Disneyland a couple of days later to do some of the rides that we didn’t have a chance to get to. Since he did so well on the Matterhorn, we tried Gadget’s Go-Go Coaster.

Yep. Liked that ride too. A lot. It was his first official roller coaster ride and I’m sure it won’t be his last.

The Bug’s Land area at California Adventure was a big hit for Alex too. Most of the rides in that area are geared towards smaller kids in that they’re more manageable for them (size, speeds, demeanor, etc.) and if the day is a little on the warm side, there’s a great water play area for the kids to cool off in (so bring some spare clothes).

Also near the Bug’s Land area is a great resource for parents with babies or toddlers. Disney has Baby Care Centers in the park that provide a place to change diapers, feed kids (including microwaves for heating up food) and it even has a small sized flushing toilet for those in the training stages. If you’ve run out of diapers, they have some for sale. It’s a great resource for those with littler kids.

I tell ya, those Disney folks have thought of everything.

All in all, we did have a great time at Disneyland and yes, even I’ll admit that I did too. We had a great time with our group of friends and we’ve even bought an annual pass since we’ll probably be back with Alex in the not too distant future.

Some promises are made to be broken.