Our Beautifully Ordinary Life

Ava developed a vacation habit of waking very early in her pack and play by our bed and peering over the top, whispering “Mama, Mama” until I woke, then endearingly screaming informing me that she had to potty. Since there was no way that she was going to willingly go back into her bed afterwards, not when there was a great big one right there with both Mama and Daddy in it, I usually just stuck her in bed with us and prayed for another 30 minutes of rest before we had to get up and head out for more mouse. It worked every time.

So this morning, after SHE woke US demanding potty and breakfast and forcing us out of bed to take care of our mini-tyrant, we couldn’t find her.

The little wench. She kicked us out and then took herself back to OUR bed.

Our game plan was to spend the day at Hollywood Studios. Since it’s apparently in the back 40 of Disney and the monorail doesn’t go there we decided to hop on the shuttle bus. We’d hoped to get an early start so as to (hopefully) avoid the crowds so we both groaned in dismay at the crowd waiting at the bus stop at the WL. It was packed – tons of little kids w/strollers which makes J immediately combative in his desire to secure a spot in order to ensure we get on the very.next.bus. (Side note: there were 2 other China adoptive families waiting for a shuttle. Neither looked at or spoke to us.)

We needn’t have worried. Apparently everyone here was NOT going to HS as it was only us and one other family on the bus. Plenty of room for both strollers and the elderly (and rudely staring) couple who got on at the Grand Floridian. We were soon at our destination where we hopped off and headed right in. (Side note 2: We literally ran into another China adoptive family as we were getting off the bus. They totally ignored us, too.)

It was not crowded at all so we walked right in and promptly ran into Minnie Mouse. Ava wanted to say hi so J got the honors of introducing Ava to Minnie.

Or not. This was as close as he could get before she decided it was way too close and needed Mama to save her. I switched places with J but Ava was NOT interested in conversing with Minnie nor did she wish to pose for a photo op, thankyouverymuch.

After knocking out the attempted token character visit J took off in a near gallop in order to get to the real reason we came to HS.

Note how deserted this is. J walked onto the ride with no wait while I strapped Ava into her leash packback. She barely had time to climb into two strollers that didn’t belong to her while I tried to sneakily check my email before J was back out again – catching me red iPhone’d and just in time to watch Ava fall over her leash and nearly crack her head open on the curb.

No matter – she was happy to be allowed to walk. Easy to do when there’s no one else around.

We were checking out a car…

when a kindly Disney employee walked up and offered Ava a sticker. Ava excitedly said “Yeah” and promptly ignored the proffered one in order to reach around and rip about 40 of them off the roll hanging from the cast member’s pocket. I just hope her avaricious manner was tempered somewhat by the fact that she said “Thank you, please” without prompting.

We meandered around a bit as we headed toward the Buzz Lightyear ride/game where we had our longest wait of the whole vacation. We ended up standing in line for about 15 minutes to ride this one but I was (literally) cool with it as it was inside (A/C) and there was a gigantic talking and singing potato head to keep Ava amused. (Side note 3: Another China adoptive family here and SCORE! they actually smiled and nodded at us.) I think J liked this ride better than the Star Tours one. It’s a shoot ‘em up and spin around arcade game ride and even Ava got into it a little.

Our timing was perfect and we finished just in time to head over to Disney Playhouse on Stage before our lunch reservations. I don’t even know how to describe this experience other than to say Ava lost her flipping mind (in a good way) when she saw Mickey, Minnie, etc and so on) on stage. Singing and talking, even. Oh, and Pooh. And Tigger. And, well, you get the idea. My normally reticent girl was toddler slam-dancing with the best of them. If there had been a mosh pit then she would surely have been in the middle of it. It’s one of two times at the park that I wished we’d had the video camera because our still camera was worthless inside (no flash photography) and there’s no way a picture could truly capture her excitement. It was so exciting that she couldn’t even make it to the end before she had to potty. “Pot-pot NOW, Mama.” Let me tell you, it was good times trying to unobtrusively crawl over 300 or so people to get the kid out quick in order to make it to the nearest (not so near, really) bathroom. Oh well, saved us trying to fight the rush of people exiting at the very end.

We made it to our lunch at the “50′s Prime Time Cafe” just in time for our reservation. I didn’t really tell J this was a theme restaurant until we got there. The theme is Mom’s 1950′s kitchen and they could have totally used my grandmother’s kitchen for their inspiration for the decor. Copper gelatin molds on the wall, fake fruit, plasticine wall clocks (electric), and the dessert menu could only be viewed via a retro Viewfinder. It was awesome and our waitress was fantastic. She played it up, but not too much, although she did make J set the table and told him to keep his bottom in the seat after he disappeared for a bit.

Ava ate like a horse. This was clearly one of her favorite meals at Disney.

Me? The food was just okay but I got to have S’mores for dessert which went a long way toward making up for the weird vegetable thing they did with the pot roast.

Pretty much the day at HS fell apart about this time. It was beyond hot, Ava was tired and cranky, Mama was tired and cranky, and Daddy was dead set on finding a particular geocache. We walked and walked and walked (and sweated). I couldn’t find one single place to sit down that was shaded and we missed the Beauty and the Beast show which had music and shade by about 15 seconds.

So I pouted (and sweated – which mostly makes me mad) and Ava FINALLY went to sleep and J kept walking and taking pictures while I slowly followed, complaining the whole way.

And then I got a bug in my eye and that was that. I was done with Hollywood Studios and refused to move a step further unless it was toward the exit.

Ava woke as we neared the front of the park and immediately started whining – until she spotted these guys in the midst of a silly, slapstick street performance. Bless them. They had her in stitches.

We briefly stopped to watch some of the other skits and then found ourselves a bench off on a side street to sit down and have a drink and a snack. It just so happened that the performers all entered and exited this way and it was pretty nifty to see that they remained in character the entire way out. They were playing up to Ava the whole time and she was just eating it up while practicing for her future as a homecoming queen/Wal-M*rt greeter.

One guy totally did it for us. He was a 1940′s sleazy casting director, complete with velvet smoking jacket and pencil-thin, greasy mustache. Ava was drinking from her Mickey cup as he walked by and he loudly cooed, “Oh, she’s as beautiful as Shirley Temple – and just like her with a cup to her lips all the time.” Cracked us up and ended our HS day on a relatively high note. At this point we were planning on heading back to our hotel and calling it a day.

Except we decided to bypass the buses and take a boat back to Epcot. There was a method to our madness – one of the things we wanted to do was see some of the other resorts so we thought we could kill two birds with one stone. The boat trip took a long time, which was fine since there was a lovely breeze, we had plenty of snacks for Ava, and it took us by all of the Epcot resorts allowing us to daydream about where we’ll stay next time we go. It also allowed me to rest my tired, achy feet for a bit. All that said, we really were looking forward to getting off the boat and hopping right onto the monorail to head home.

Heh. Except nobody told us that the boat drops you off in the very middle of Epcot. That would be nowhere near the entrance to the park where the monorail is located, by the way. It would be, however, just about the furthest point possible from where we expected (nay, desperately wanted, to be).

After a mini tantrum (me this time…not Ava) J distracted me with the promise of French food so we headed back to the little cafe from the day before. I’m a creature of habit when it comes to food so if I find something I really like then I’m happy to eat it for days and days until I’m sick of if. J knows this and used it to his advantage – also tempting me with the promise of a crepe. I’ve spent years searching the US for ones as good as we had in Paris so we try them every chance we get. Ummm, except ultimately not here because I threw over the crepe after being seduced by a marvelous strawberry tart.

Why did he do this, you might ask? Because there were geocaches in Epcot and he just happened to have his GPS with him – he didn’t have it the day before.

I’m so glad he did. We had a marvelous rest of the day here.

We watched a Celtic band in Canada (??) called Off-Kilter. We started out across the street and ended up nearly front row because Ava LOVED them. She started off by singing along in her stroller…

And ended up by dancing front and center. Being that the average age of the audience at that point was, ummmm, a bit on the senior side, it at least let the band know that someone was alive and totally digging their music. The rest of the crowd could only kindly be described as subdued (to say the least).

J pacified me further by suggesting that we go back to the China pavilion and let Ava see the film (awake, this time). Since it’s in 360 she didn’t know which way to look and her little head was just whipping around trying to take it all in. After the film we topped off the day with just a little more shopping. In China, of course.

Ava got new shoes. You must understand that Ava loves new shoes like Mama loves new purses. That’s a lot. And the shoes were cute. And cheap (relatively). She insisted on putting on her shoes in the store and helping the salesgirl (from Shanghai) bag up her old shoes. She was so excited about the new shoes that she willingly posed for Daddy to take a “pee-chur” of them.

See?

And then, after I peeled her off of the parasols behind her, she made a new friend.

But you know what her favorite part of the day was? Coloring her free paper mask on a stick at the kidcot stops scattered throughout the park. Why? Because those stops are sponsored by Sharpie which means there are baskets and baskets of permanent magic markers that she could freely color with. Since there’s no way in h*ll that I’m going to turn this kid loose with even one permanent marker anytime soon it was a real treat for her (and for J since he seemed to be enjoying himself quite a lot, too).

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