The Small Family     

Hello all! Well, the big news this week is that unlike last year, the IRS is our friend this year! Well, sort of. I feel almost silly being excited to write an $1,800 check, but that’s less than 10% of what we had to come up with last year, so WE ARE ELATED!!! I suppose this is the upside of taking a big pay cut last year, right?

This means we can go to Disneyland, as the money we set aside for our trip does not have to be used for taxes. Yahoo! So Chris’s friend Jason, who recently started his own travel-agent business, helped me book a trip for March 17th. I can’t wait! And Theo is going to be so excited, as he has been asking to go to Disneyland for weeks. He really has no idea what it is, except that he knows Mickey Mouse lives there and they have rides like the ones we took him on at Funderland last weekend. But he has decided that this is indeed a place he needs to go, so he’s been asking about it quite a bit. I’m using the opportunity to get him all jazzed about the rides, saying things like, “If we go to Disneyland someday, they have a ride called Small World where you get to ride in a boat and listen to songs while you look at puppets!” So he is now telling me about all the things he’ll do at Disneyland--which usually involves riding in the teacups and riding a roller coaster. We’ll see--I know he’ll like the teacups, since he liked those at Funderland, but the roller coaster last weekend was not his favorite part of the day, so I’m not so sure about that one. He makes me laugh, though--he keeps saying, “Feo go on roller coaster and go SUPER FAST!!!!” Like mother, like son--I am a roller coaster junkie!

We actually got lucky on our reservation. I didn’t expect March to be overly busy, as I thought most kids would be in school, but apparently I was wrong. When we first looked into booking, we wanted to stay at the Grand California--the newest of the Disney hotels. Last year the price for that one was a bit higher than the other two hotels on the property, but still within what our budget would be this year. Um, not the case this year. At first, all three hotels were completely sold out. Then they opened up some rooms, but the ones at the Grand California were $6,600 for five nights! Not a snowball’s chance in heck--that is far, far beyond our budget! So we started looking off-property, as there are many hotels near Disneyland--some offer shuttle service, and some are even walking distance (a bit of a hike, but not too bad). But most of them were booked solid, too! We did find a few with space, so we were prepared to book at one of those, when I checked the Disney site again--and lo and behold, Paradise Pier, the least expensive of the three Disney properties, had opened up a room at a reasonable price within our budget. I emailed Jason, and he got right on it and did our booking. Good thing, as he checked again a couple hours later, and the price at Paradise Pier had gone up by another $500, which would’ve put it out of our budget. Whew!

So, we can’t wait! Well, Theo doesn’t know we’re going (and he won’t know until we arrive--we have long since learned that you never tell a toddler about an exciting place until you arrive, otherwise you hear whining about when you’ll get there the whole way), but Chris and I are very excited! We plan to spend three days in the parks and two days puttering around and visiting with friends down south. If the weather is good and we feel like driving a couple hours farther south, we may try the San Diego Zoo one day.  Now we just have to hope for good weather. It’s usually nice in Southern California, but it is March, so you never know.

We actually had a crazy storm here late in the week. We had a lot of rain and hail (and even a small tornado!) on Friday, and by Friday night the temperatures dropped to record lows (mid-20s--we usually don’t get below the mid-30s). Unfortunately, the precipitation was gone by the time the record lows arrived, so we didn’t get any snow. We had beautiful, clear blue skies all weekend--just quite chilly.

One of Theo’s favorite places, Scientopia, in Napa was open for free play on Saturday, so we enjoyed the nice weather by taking a drive down there. I didn’t bring the camera into Scientopia, as last time he only played for about half an hour before declaring that he was ready to go get lunch, and wouldn’t you know that this time, he played for two hours?? He would’ve kept going, but we were getting hungry! I did take a couple iPhone snaps, though.

Okay, I’m going to admit that I got into a brawl with a five-year-old at Scientopia. Well, not a brawl, I guess, but I stepped in when she was being a turd. I know I mentioned a few weeks ago that we’ve tended to run into a fair number of little girls who like to play by a lot of rules, and this was another such case. But in most cases, the girls aren't out of line--they're just playing differently than how the little boys are. But this particular little girl was just unbelievably rude, so I chose to step in. Chris took Theo in first (while I was on the phone with Jason firming up our Disneyland trip details), and I guess this little girl was being pretty bossy with Theo at the little play cash register. But it didn’t get out of hand, so Chris didn’t say anything to the little girl and just encouraged Theo to go play with something else.

A little while later, after I came in, Theo was playing in this little two-story playhouse they have, and this same little girl was in there. She kept getting mad that he was moving the two chairs around, and she yelled right in his face, “You need to get out of here!” I would’ve stepped in, but her father saw and read her the riot act and told her she needed to play nice. Kudos to the dad on that one--but unfortunately, dad then disappeared, and her mom seemed oblivious.

The girl played nicely for a minute or two, then got mad when Theo tried to help her stack up some play food that was in the kitchen of the house. Evidently he wasn’t stacking it as she wanted, so she kept getting mad at him. I watched him raise his hand to start to swat at her, but then he lowered it and just looked a bit hurt. (And yes, I was glad he didn’t follow through on hitting her, though I have to admit that part of me wouldn’t have blamed him if he had!)

At that point she physically pushed him out of the house and said very rudely, “Your mother said you need to get out of here!” Now, I’m not sure whether she meant I had told him that, and she was just lying to try to get him out of her hair, or whether she was pretending to be his mother and telling him to get out, but I’d had enough. Her parents were nowhere to be seen, so I walked over and said, “No, his mother did not tell him to get out of there. His mother told him he can play in the house with you. You two can share.” And she said, “But he’s messing it up!” I replied, “He’s not messing it up, he’s trying to help you. And the house is for everyone to share, not just for one person.” We went back and forth a bit, and she looked irritated with me, but she let Theo back in the house. And proceeded to follow him around cautioning him about what he could and could not touch. Sigh…Theo, just go play with the other kids next time! And yet, he stayed. Ah well. Someday, he will learn not to bother with people like that. I normally wouldn’t discipline anyone else’s child, but I figured if her parents weren’t doing their job of making sure she played nicely with other kids, I had the right to step in. It seems I have zero tolerance for bullies, and she was really a little tyrant.

Anyway, Theo seemed relatively unfazed by this, only announcing once or twice that, “Yiddle girl pushed you!” (translate: The little girl pushed me), and the rest of our time there was quite nice. We stopped for our usual Peruvian food and cupcakes afterward, then headed back up to Sacramento.

Sunday morning, I had a pug meetup, so we split up for the morning. Chris is not a big fan of pug meetups, so he took Theo to Lowe’s to return some light bulbs and buy some screws, while I took Luna and Zoe to the meetup at the dog park. Now, who do you think had the more exciting morning? I maintain that the pug meetup was way more fun than buying screws, but I think Chris would disagree!

I’d normally take Theo to the meetup, but I didn’t think I could handle Luna, Zoe, and Theo on my own, as I thought Zoe might be a neurotic freak. (She’s still settling in and showing some nervous issues that I assume are from being uprooted from her home. She’s a good girl…just neurotic!) As it turns out, Zoe did okay. She mostly hovered around me with her tail down, but she didn’t bark at everyone this time, so that’s progress. And there were about five pug puppies there this time, so it was a lot of fun to watch them playing! Is there anything cuter than a pug puppy?? Not much, I tell you….

We wrapped up the weekend by going to an Oscar party at my friend Amber’s house. I’ve been going to this party every year for probably seven years or more, and I’ve never managed to take home the trophy for the most winners guessed correctly. Until now! I’m pleased to report that I took home the winner’s hat--a lovely plastic Viking helmet--for getting 13 correct winner guesses. (Well, I’ll take it home as soon as last year’s winner relinquishes it. He didn’t show up this year, and I’m quite sure it’s because he knew I was going to take it away from him!)

Hope you all had a great week! Next week's post might be a day late. Sunday is cousin Nik's birthday party (he's turning 3!), so we'll be in San Jose for the day for that. Depending on how late we get home, I may or may not get the blog posted Sunday night... If not, then Monday for sure!