Grandma vs. Disneyland

Last year my parents went to the funeral of an old family friend. My dad remembers her doing all kinds of things from being the den mother for scouts to being the bus driver for school. She was quite a character. When they got home from the funeral, my mom threw her hands in the air and said, "I give up. She wins. She is the world's best grandma." She then told some of the funny memories people shared at the funeral about this lady, all the fun things she did for kids and grand kids.  One of the most notable stories was when one of her kids were taking their family to Disneyland. Their youngest was a little young to really enjoy all the features of Disneyland, I guess, so they decided to drop the baby off to stay with Grandma while they were on vacation. As the family was getting ready to leave Grandma's house to go to the greatest place on earth, the next youngest sibling got really upset and whined, "Why do I have to go to Disneyland? Why can't I stay at Grandma's house?"

My kids don't even know Disneyland exists. We'll see how long that lasts. For now, I think they get as much thrill out of Grandma's house as they could from Disneyland at this point. And here are just a few tips for Disneyland from one grandma's house:

Put light switches in reach of babies. Hours of entertainment. Charlie loves lights, practically jumps out of my arms every time we go past a light switch, trying to reach to turn it on and off. It was so nice to have on he could just play with by himself.

Provide princess tent beds. We recently discovered that Ellie sleeps better when she has her tent bed to shut out the outside world (we discovered this when we took down the little tent over her bed and she stopped sleeping through the night, staying up for hour and a half stretches in the middle of the night, etc.). With her tent bed, she seems to get a lot more sleep, so we go with it for now. My mom rigged up this little number so Ellie would feel at home while visiting. Worked like a charm (stayed in her bed until 6:55 a.m. most mornings), and Ellie loved it. 

The first night I tucked her in Ellie said, "I'm really glad I came . . . so glad." Then she started squirming around and crying out, "Ooh! Ouch! Ouchie! Oh, I hurt!" Alarmed, I asked her where she hurt. She responded, "Oh, no. There is a pea under my bed." We decided it would make it better if I "ate" the pea, and all was right in the world again. Quite the little princess, that one.

Of course, the main attraction would probably have to be cousins. A close second is popcorn and movie parties.

Hang in there, Baby Ian. Someday you can knock him down!

This is the only picture I have of these two cousins together. They were fascinated with each other, and especially with each other's pacifiers. They never tried to suck on the other's, but loved pulling each other's out, and (sometimes) trying to put it back in again.

The most important thing we learned, though, whether it's Grandma's house or Disneyland, is never, ever, EVER forget Blanket Dear or she will have to be shipped to you and you will be inventing stories for a couple of days about all the adventures Blanket Dear is on to try and comfort the distraught three-year-old in your life. It was a rough couple of days followed by a joyous reunion. They had lots of secrets to tell each other and don't part company much while at home these days.