Amnesia

Sometimes I absolutely feel like Dory. The Nemo fish, Dory.

Yesterday morning I was standing in front of my mirror at the crack of dawn, blowing out my freshly washed hair and simultaneously planning my day. Apparently the teetering decision of whether or not to go to the gym was made when I stepped into the shower pre-7 am. So I was thinking about my Crate and Barrel return. And my Rack return. Plausible. The babies and I could conquer those two little to-do's--- WAIT A MINUTE.

How could I have forgotten? ....My secret agenda. That I never transferred to my for real agenda. Because if something gets placed on the for real agenda, there's a higher probability I'll flake out and not go through with it. Especially if I don't have to. If I really want it to happen, it's much safer that it's filed away in the secret agenda.

The only catch being that I have to remember.

And I did. With an hour to spare. And was newly shocked by the good idea I had been secretly planning for the last week and a half: that it was a Disneyland day. Deeter loses his free entrance on Sunday; Kaia had never been. So we had to take advantage.

Seconds after dropping the big boys off at school, I turned around to my back seat babies. Because I wanted to see the facial. The reaction.

"Deetz, should we take Kaia to Disneyland today?!!"

"Ummmm.... but she no like Pirates ub duh Car-be-ans." That was his matter-of-fact reply.

Whatever. He didn't scream Nooooooo so I was taking that as a yes.

It only took me another 20 to get those kids dressed, throw a few more things together, and we were off. 6 freeways later, we were pulling up to the Happiest Place on Earth.

And we wasted no time getting to what I imagined would be Kaia's favorite ride

We got in line and began that familiar inching movement. Familiar but once again...kinda forgotten. Because everything is different with a 1 year old. Did I mention this was Kaia's first trip?!! I forgot that this meant singing lots of rounds of The Itsy Bitsy Spider. And lots of chasing. And lots of pointing out random, unimportant objects in a hope that it would capture 10 more seconds of her attention.

And in all that inching I realized two things: it was a HOT...and CROWDED...Disneyland day.

But we made it on Small World and got lots of ooohhs and aaaahhs and had ourselves a few moments of the magic we came for.

And then it was off to the Nemo ride.

You know, there's something kinda depressing about having pretty happily endured a 20ish minute wait....only to walk into a 40 minute line.

And the fidgeting started pretty quick. The 1 year old fidgets. The swatting my hands off her. The mad bolts for every direction but the one we needed to go. The spontaneous lay-myself-on-the-ground-I-can't-do-this-anymore defeat sessions. And this was all in the first 5 minutes.

But we were saved. By the Frozen Strawberry Lemonade sold at the stand that is placed strategically to the side of the line to trap/save desperate parents such as myself. Because a $4.25 lemonade also buys a good 20 minutes of engaged babies.

Can I confess that it is a true workout to hold a 25 lb baby girl AND chisel away at those lemonades all at the same time? Come on, you know those lemonades are frozen solid and hard to get into at the beginning! So I was holding and chiseling and getting an earful of impatient "Ah.....Ah.....Ah." I was doing the best I could to keep up with the demand and keep baby girl's mouth wet with lemonade. At all times. Without even a 7 second break. Because apparently that's how she likes it. At some point in this hold-chisel-feed routine, I thought I deserved a break. At least from the holding part. So I lightly put baby girl down to her feet. And juuuuuust as those little toes were about to touch....it became obvious she was going down for a lay-myself-on-the-ground-I-can't-do-this-anymore defeat session. So like ANY GOOD PARENT would do, I graciously escorted her head all the way to the ground to ensure a soft landing....and let her cry it out for a minute.

40 minutes. For 40 minutes I was doing this. In case you're wondering....YES....it felt like forever.

We finally made it on the ride. And while the kids were taking in Nemo and Dory and Crush, I was calculating my for real agenda...which was to get the heck out of there.

Can I give a quick shout out for low expectations? Because they so often yield satisfaction. And because of them I felt absolutely content {and exhausted} walking out of Disneyland no less than three hours after I walked in. 

Here's to hoping that my forgetfulness keeps up....or else baby girl isn't getting invited back to Disneyland before she's 3!