Fear Makes Companions of Us All

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Lately, I’ve been struggling with fear. Unfortunately, I didn’t recognize it when it affected me the most – I misidentified it as anxiety or self-righteous anger. My fear has revolved around two major themes: not being a “good enough” mom to Sprout and not doing enough to “make the world a better place.” My fear around the first issue was most prominent during our Disney trip; the second emerged while I was washing dishes last week as an extended, angry, despairing rant about climate change, poverty and other injustices. Both are always bubbling under the surface. While I don’t believe God manipulates people to send personal messages, I do believe that if people ask, God will open their hearts to help hear what they need to from the noise of everyday life. This past weekend, I had a one-two punch of those messages, leading me to realize that I need to embrace my fears rather than ignoring them.

The first blow came on Saturday night, from a marvelous episode of Doctor Who. Even though it was advertised as a “properly scary” episode, it ended up being something very different indeed. Without spoiling the plot, it was fundamentally about how fear isn’t inherently a bad thing. Fear can make us stronger, quicker, and braver; it can make us super-powered. Fear comes from the knowledge that there are things we do not and perhaps cannot understand, but that’s okay. Whether the monster under the bed is real or not is irrelevant. Fear may be our constant companion, but instead of letting it control us, it can drive us to become better people.

The second hit came the next morning in church. My pastor has been preaching on the Beatitudes and what it means to be a peacemaker in the world. Last Sunday, he preached about how love and peace need to be at the center of our lives. That although we may have fear, we can’t let it drive us. That peace comes from breaking cycles of violence, whether physical or emotional. When we have peace at the core of our being, it acknowledges the pain of others and moves out from us.

The Doctor Who episode deeply connected with me, but I didn’t know why until hearing the sermon. Putting the two together, I realized that by trying to ignore my fear, I was allowing it to overwhelm me. To paraphrase the Martin Luther King Jr. quote on this week’s church bulletin, I was trying to merely drive out darkness instead of bringing light. But there can be no known without an unknown, no comfort without fear, no rebuilding without destruction, and no resurrection without the despair of Good Friday.

By worrying about not being a good enough mom, I don’t give myself the space to make and acknowledge the mistakes that are needed to grow. By being so concerned that I’m not doing enough, I make it all about me and deny the efforts of the folks around me. One of my favorite bloggers, Phil Sandifer, says that progressive causes like feminism involve both tearing down the current systems and making new mistakes in the process. As both a parent and activist, I have to forgive myself and others so that we can all make new mistakes together.

From now on, I will try to embrace my fears, realizing that they’re an outgrowth of how much I love my son and am concerned about the world around me. Instead of being afraid of caring too much, I will try to celebrate it.

Rolling Somewhat Merrily Along

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

When I started our town’s series of Kidical Mass bike rides for families, I was afraid no one would show up. Now that the summer has wound down and I’ve led four different rides, those fears have mostly been alleviated. But while I’ve had some success, the last two rides have shown that like many activist projects, it’s going to take a lot of hard work to get a big impact. Fortunately, I’ve also had some little wins that give me hope.

Going into this project, I knew that my town’s bicycle culture lagged behind that of D.C. and Arlington. While we struggled to get 10 people for our community rides, they would get hundreds. Rockville has substantially improved its bike infrastructure and policies, but we just haven’t attracted the sheer numbers of cyclists yet. On top of that, getting families to cycle is the toughest nut to crack and suburban parents are notoriously paranoid about safety. This was illustrated quite clearly when the East Falls Church Kidical Mass launch ride (a specific neighborhood in Arlington) had 32 people, while ours had 17, including me, my husband, and the organizers of an existing ride.

On top of not having as much of a cycling culture, my town poses other logistical issues for Kidical Mass rides. Being in the suburbs, businesses are more spread out, making it difficult to find destinations within a few miles of a starting point that are also on quiet streets. From my experience so far, parents expect to drive rather than bike or take transit to the ride, so you need to start and end in the same place, preferably somewhere with good parking. As Rockville has a number of rolling hills that challenge adult cyclists, I usually abandoned the “flat” part of the “short, un-trafficked, flat” routes recommended for Kidical Mass rides.

Knowing all of this, it wasn’t too surprising that we only had one family each for our last two rides. We had some adult helpers on both, so neither group was ridiculously small, but we aren’t attracting the numbers that a ride that has “mass” in its name implies.

Despite the low turnout, certain aspects of each ride were encouraging. On the August ride, I had planned to ride from a local nature center to Rock Creek Park, a lush gem that runs from the heart of D.C. into Montgomery County. But the ride has some serious hills, so my heart sunk when I saw a little girl show up with training wheels. I especially felt bad when I realized she and her mom had showed up for the July ride but she was too scared to even leave the sidewalk. Trying to hide my nervousness, I encouraged her to try the ride and let her know that it was okay to walk the hills. Much to my relief, she defied everyone’s expectations. She made it up many of the hills and wasn’t ashamed of walking up others. The route offered exactly the right blend of achievable and just-out-of-reach challenge. We turned around before we reached the park, but I was so proud that she made it as far as she did. It was such a huge leap up from just a month before. Even though her mom kept saying, “If I had known the route, I would have never brought her!” it was clear that she was glad she did. Even though she was the only kid there, her accomplishment alone made the ride worthwhile.

On the ride this past weekend, I was quite surprised that anyone showed up, considering it was a 50% chance of rain. In fact, I actually left Chris and Sprout at home. But one family with two kids in a trailer and an older lady interested in volunteering both made an appearance. While the dad of the family was an avid cyclist, his wife was much less experienced. She had just gotten a new bike and self-identified as a rather slow cyclist. They had been doing rides around their neighborhood, but this was the first community ride they had done. And despite the rain, she loved it! Afterwards, she promised to sign up for another community ride this weekend as well as future Kidical Mass rides. On top of making it good experience for her, they’re also interested in purchasing a Yuba cargo bike to replace their trailer, which would be an awesome addition to our Kidical Mass rides.

Our next two rides are going to be with our sister ride in nearby Gaithersburg, which has been around for at least a year. I hope that some of their experience rubs off on us!

We Do Still Want to Hang Out With You – Seriously

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

A lot of people without kids complain that when their friends become parents that they never see them anymore. They stop accepting invitations and don’t invite them to their own events. But before Sprout was born, I was determined that Chris and I were not going to be those people. Even though many of our friends live on the other side of the city, we still wanted to see them.

While we aren’t perfect, I think we’ve been pretty good at following through on that commitment. This weekend, we actually spent time with our friends on both Saturday and Sunday. So to all of the folks who keep turning down invitations, I say that you don’t have to be Those Parents.

In fact, here are a few solutions to the most common challenges I’ve heard. While these won’t work for everyone, I think they could help a few new parents spend a little more time with their friends.

“You don’t want to come – it’s going to be a lot of kids.”
Possibly, but you never know unless you ask! If someone doesn’t want to attend an event, they will politely respond “no” or ignore the invitation altogether. Personally, I like inviting all of my friends – with and without kids – to parties at our house. For Sprout’s first birthday party, we rented space at a local park, which worked out very well for both the adults and kids. As he gets older, his parties will focus on his friends, but you can still have all-ages Halloween parties, Christmas celebrations or summer BBQs. For his party, I think one thing that helped was that we encouraged people to donate to the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project instead of bringing gifts. That way, my non-parent friends didn’t have to figure out what to buy for a one-year-old, folks on tight budgets didn’t feel obliged, people who wanted to could contribute, and we didn’t end up with a ton of extra toys.

“People without kids don’t want to hear me talk about my kids.”
Then don’t – it doesn’t always seem like it, but there are other conversational topics in the world! Even if you’re a stay at home parent, you can talk about pop culture, the news, politics or other hobbies. Also, I’ve found that our friends don’t mind us talking about Sprout, just as long as we’re respectful. We try not to dominate the conversation, listen to people tell stories about their own lives (including their pets), don’t imply that our lives are soooo much harder than their, and don’t make them feel bad about not having kids. In fact, our friends have had a lot of questions, either because they do want kids in the future or are just curious. But avoid talking about your kid’s poop. No one wants to hear about toileting habits – unless it’s a hysterically funny story.

“Babysitters are really expensive.”
They totally are – which is why we’ve avoided finding one so far. Now, a lot of this is due to having a supportive social circle and family, but some of it’s just flexibility. Whenever either set of our parents visit or we visit them, we ask if they can watch Sprout for the evening. While we’ve spent most of these nights on dates, we could have also used them to set up time with kid-less friends. More recently, we did a “child swap” with friends of ours that also have a baby. We took their kid for an afternoon so they could go out and a few weeks later, they took Sprout. But you don’t necessarily need friends or family to provide childcare. If you’re part of a couple, you can actually switch off between the two of you. When one of our friends sends an invitation to an evening party, we take turns as to who gets to go and who stays home. As we had a four year long distance relationship and years of opposite schedules, we’re both comfortable going to events by ourselves. It’s nicer to go to things together, but it’s better to go alone than not at all!

“Nap times are so restrictive.”
We’ve managed to phase out the morning nap, but we know well the dangers of screwing with naptime. But if your friends without kids are willing to be flexible, it’s possible to plan around them, especially on weekends. In particular, we’ve found late brunches and lunches to work well. If your kid is bad at restaurants, places with sidewalk seating tend to be more forgiving when it comes to being noisy and dropping food on the ground. While a lot of folks go to dinner too late for us, barbecues that we can attend after his afternoon nap are great. If you’re willing to host something at your own house, you can really expand the possibilities. In theory, you can put the baby down for his afternoon nap right before people come over, allowing you a couple of adult-only hours. Of course, this doesn’t always go as planned. I hosted a gaming session where I was GMing (game-mastering) and inevitably Sprout decided that was the day he didn’t want to take an afternoon nap.

“But I can’t bring my kids to a bar and adults don’t want to go to Chuck E Cheese!”
Unfortunately, they don’t make neighborhood bars like they used to. Back in the day, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather brought my mom and aunt to the local joint where all their friends hung out. In light of this loss, there are a lot of places that can meet the needs of both adults and kids. Besides the aforementioned outdoor dining, perhaps a friend wouldn’t mind hanging out at a park where the kids can play on the playground. Or you can go to the mall altogether and make a stop at the children’s area. While the summer is quickly fading, a lot of outdoor movie series show awesome family-friendly films, like Frozen and Star Wars. Local events can be perfect too – the local county fair or Renaissance Festival can be very entertaining for everyone.

Now, all of this is not to say that new parents should be solely responsible for maintaining the friendship. We ask for patience and understanding from our child-less friends. We may be a little later than usual, we may have odd stains on our clothes, we will have limited schedules, and we may sometimes need to leave to deal with a child-related disaster, whether medical or behavioral. But taking all of that into consideration, we do still want to be friends with you.

Guest Post at the Children and Nature Network

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

I have a guest post over at the Children & Nature Network! Their founder, Richard Louv (author of Last Child in the Woods), read my post on what I want to teach Sprout about nature and asked if I could adapt it for their blog. Obviously, I said yes. Their organization has a great mission – to get more kids into nature – and I’m so glad that I could contribute. I edited the original post quite a bit, so I think it’s still worth reading this one even if you saw the one before.

Go check it out: Valuable Lessons – What I Want to Teach My Son About Nature.

Faire Thee Well

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 7 Comments

Being a big dork who enjoys dressing up in costume, I love Renaissance Faires. I’ve never been hard core enough to get a season pass, but I’ve attended them on and off since junior high. This past weekend, we attended our local Faire with friends of ours who have a two and a half year old son. While Sprout wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate it, I enjoyed it and I definitely want to bring him back in the future.

Probably my favorite thing about the Renaissance Faire is how it inspires imagination. Despite being set in a pseudo-historical world, there is no question that this is pure fantasy. The Simpsons episode where they visit the Ren Faire (“Behold the mighty Esquilax, a horse with the head of a rabbit…and the body…of a rabbit!”) isn’t all that far off. For goodness sake, they sell corn dog bites and cheesecake on a stick! There’s tremendous value in learning about real history, but the Society for Creative Anachronism this is not.

But in place of actual historical fact, there exists a whimsical space for visitors to fill in themselves. In contrast to Disney (which has incredible world building, but it’s heavily controlled), participants are invited to jointly create a world with the performers. We are the rabble at the foot of Shakespeare’s stage, the lords and ladies in the Queen’s court, and the ordinary folk attending a joust. In fact, if you come in costume, you become a performer and character yourself. It was actually quite difficult to tell the difference at times!

Because of this combination of loose requirements and interactivity, the Renaissance Faire seems open and welcoming as a community. We saw all sorts of costumed attendees, ranging from people wearing custom-made elaborate corsets to a combination of mall-bought clothes that was suggestive of a pirate outfit. Personally, I wore a regular dress in a vaguely Renaissance style and a ridiculous hat. Unlike comic book conventions, where women are often accused of being “fake geek girls” if they don’t meet some vague and arbitrary level of comprehensive knowledge, the Renaissance Faire doesn’t have any set characters or standards. In fact, the booths even had a variety of costumes for sale, so even if you were totally unprepared and wanted to join in the fun, you could.

Similarly, the looseness of the world building means that visitors can remake it in their own image if they want to. So what if girls weren’t knighted at that time? They are here! So what if black and Hispanic people wouldn’t have been heavily represented in the court? They can be here! When fiction may not represent the full variety of fans, these in-person places give everyone the opportunity to step into a fantasy world and make it our own. (This is not to say there aren’t any issues with sexism or racism at Ren Faires, but I personally found it to seem like a more welcome atmosphere.).

In short, I like that I can bring Sprout to a place where imagination is celebrated by adults and all are welcome to participate in the co-creation of this shared world.

Lastly, I actually enjoy the commercial aspect of the Renaissance Faire. Almost all, if not all, of the vendors at our Faire are small producers who make their products themselves. From chain mail to swords to dresses, there was no shortage of beautiful goods. I like dealing directly with small crafters, knowing that they take pride in their products and are getting paid fairly for their efforts. As Sprout gets older, I like him knowing that you can buy toys from places other than the toy store and meet the people who make them.

Fundamentally, the Renaissance Faire is a silly place for adults and children alike to have light-hearted, imaginative fun. And it’s good that such a place exists.

Songs to Grow Up With: Why I Don’t Like Puff the Magic Dragon

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 8 Comments

Why I Don't Like Puff the Magic Dragon. Childhood doesn't have to mean the death of imagination - and teaching that it does is actually harmful. (Picture: Cartoon of a green dragon)

Listening to Puff the Magic Dragon on the iTunes children’s radio station, I stopped and frowned. Then I started crying, snuffling, blinking sobs that I tried to hold back in front of Sprout. I once thought I liked this song, but my memory was different than the reality.

Unlike other children’s songs, my dislike of it isn’t because of an annoying melody or inane lyrics. That day, I realized that I hate Puff the Magic Dragon’s message.

Continue reading →

A Chair of One’s Own

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

Sometimes, the things that children are proudest of don’t show up on any milestone chart.

This past Christmas, my in-laws gave Sprout a little plastic, Toy Story-themed chair. He was too small to use it at the time, so we just put it in the corner of his room.

A few weeks ago, Chris texted me with the omnious words: “He’s plotting.” Sprout realized he could potentially climb up onto the chair, although he didn’t actually have the coordination to do so. More importantly, he also realized he could drag the chair from room to room, giving him a convenient but risky stepstool. As we would like to keep him from scaling the furniture for as long as possible, the chair was banished to our room.

Until I left our bedroom door open the other day. Noticing he was suspiciously quiet, we peeked in and saw him perched up on his new throne, grinning. He was so pleased with himself – and not falling off the chair – that we couldn’t help but bring it out.

Since then, he’s been obsessed with sitting on the chair, in only the way a toddler can be. He’ll climb on and off it over and over again, either crossing his legs or swinging his feet. Once he’s on it, he’ll smile and clap his hands, congratulating himself on his achievement.

In fact, he was so distracted by the chair the other night that he refused to drink any milk before bedtime. With the chair in his line of sight, he only wanted to be sitting on it. He was willing to drink his milk while sitting on it, but doesn’t have the balance to both stay upright and lift the sippy cup to his mouth. As some kind of accident was bound to happen, I put the kibosh on that idea.

His sitting preoccupation has even extended past his chair. This weekend, he loved climbing up on a short stone stoop in our downtown area and was frustrated at the one that was too tall for him.

While walking is obviously a much bigger milestone, this is just more proof of Sprout’s burgeoning independence. I think he likes the chair so much because choosing to sit on a piece of furniture without any help at all is something Mommy and Daddy do. That aspect especially revealed itself this weekend, when my parents, Chris, and I were sitting around on the couch and living room chairs. Sprout dragged his chair from across the room and planted it in our little semi-circle, ready to join in the conversation.

There’s also an element of ownership. While we think of the high chair and crib as “his,” they’re really tools for us, furniture that makes our lives easier. In contrast, his chair is definitively his – he can use it on his own without help, and no else can. He isn’t in the “Mine, mine, mine” phase yet, but I’m starting to see the start of it.

Who knew that a simple chair could mean so much?

Walt Disney World Week: That Perfect Girl is Gone

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 11 Comments

I consider myself a recovering perfectionist. But like many addicts, I’ve come to realize that I’m not as close to recovered as I thought I was. It all came to a head on the last day of our Walt Disney World trip.

As a kid and young adult, my perfectionism was focused on my academic and work goals. But unlike many people, my perfectionism wasn’t paralyzingly – it was inspiring. Each ambitious goal I reached bolstered my confidence. On the occasion I didn’t meet my goal or even (gasp) failed at something, I was reassured that I had tried my hardest and would do well in the future.

That foundation failed me the minute I became a mom. Here I was, responsible for a entire person’s life, and completely unprepared. I had read plenty of books and taken the classes, but felt totally helpless. There was no grading system providing feedback and all of the advice was contradictory, leaving me lost.

Thankfully, I grew into my role with the support of my husband and family. I thought I came to grips with the fact that I’ll never know all of the answers and what works one day may become irrelevant the next. As Sprout developed into a happy, healthy kid, I felt better about my capabilities and choices. I even wrote an post about how toxic the idea of perfection was to me.

But all of those old worries flooded back on the first day of our trip. Trying to give Chris a break from his stay-at-home duties, I sat next to Sprout on the plane. At first, I was nervous that the pressure change would bother him, as my ears always have difficulty adjusting. Once we took off and he was fine (albeit surprised), I was obsessed with forestalling any potential crying fits. After all, I didn’t want to be “that mom.” After rounds off books and the See-and-Say, about 20 minutes from landing, I finally pulled out the big gun, the one thing I’ve never let him play with – my iPhone. Even then, I was on edge that he would start screaming any moment.

The trauma of the flight over, my mood lightened a little when we arrived at my grandmother’s house. But even there held untold risks. Our house is well baby-proofed, with the kitchen blocked off and everything strapped to the walls. While my grandmother made a valiant effort to prepare for our visit, her kitchen was open and there were still a few decorations within Sprout’s reach. We had to keep a constant eye on him to ensure he didn’t turn on the stove, pull open kitchen cabinets, rip pages out of books, knock over large ceramic figurines, or any other number of potentially disastrous scenarios. The hotel room was almost as bad on the baby-friendly front, between the full kitchen and our fellow travelers’ tendency to leave the bedroom and bathroom doors open. So even when we should have been relaxing, I was on high alert.

The parks only exacerbated my worries. Sprout decided early on that while the stroller was fine for short periods of time, he really wanted to explore. As we were visiting at the height of Disney’s busy season, finding uncrowded areas was almost impossible. Even though we were tethered together, the foot traffic was way too high for a toddler to be wandering around. So I ended up tailing him by a couple of inches, trying to prevent him from: getting run over by a stroller or motor scooter, getting trampled by a pedestrian, pulling on someone else’s clothes, or stealing someone else’s stuff. As he has the walking patterns of a hummingbird, it was like constantly playing defense to the world’s shortest basketball player.

While the main roads were challenging, the lines were worse. We managed to avoid most of them, but even the shortest 20 minute ones were overwhelming. After the first five minutes, he no longer wanted to be held, and would start struggling. If I put him down, he wasn’t going to wait patiently in line. He might be content to play with the ropes or chains separating the crowd, but he often wanted to wander. I tried to corral him into walking in a circle, but he’d catch onto that tactic pretty quickly and try to slip between the legs of the people ahead (or sometimes behind) us. As I see line-cutting as a social sin, trying to keep him happy while not skipping in front of people was a tightrope walk.

Besides the difficulty of baby-proofing the world, I had a lot of self-induced stress from feeling like a hypocrite. The first instance came from allowing Sprout to cry-it-out the second night at my grandmother’s house against my ethical and practical objections. But after two hours of trying to get Sprout back to sleep and him being so worked up that he was violently thrashing in my arms, neither Chris or I could think of a better solution. Listening to him yelp like a rabid badger at 1:30 in the morning was one of my low points as a parent. Thankfully, my grandmother was on the other side of the house and had taken out her hearing aid. Later on, I felt terribly self-contradictory on the subject of naps. Before the trip, I had so self-righteously lectured my in-laws on how we were going to maintain Sprout’s schedule and be back at the hotel for a 2 hour nap every afternoon. Ha – we didn’t carry out that plan a single time. (Of course, the day my in-laws took him, they did go back to the room.) Basically, I had underestimated the room-to-park commute (30 min to a full hour) as well as how uninterested in napping Sprout would be after the waiting for bus, bus ride, and stroller walk combination. So on top of being concerned he wasn’t getting enough sleep, I felt like a twit that I had taken such a hard stand on the issue.

Adding to all of that the relentless heat, the back and forth haul to the hotel, the long nights, the fact that everything takes twice as long with a small child, and the nagging concern that our car at the airport might be totaled, I was stretched thin. We had some excellent times, but on the last day, I just snapped.

I’m not exactly sure if anything triggered it, but I had a full-on anxiety attack. The whole family – my mother and father-in-law, my sister and brother-in-law, and Chris and Sprout – were together for the day. I wanted to have fun, but variations on the same thought kept drowning out everything else: “I want everyone to have a good time – it’s the last day. But what if it doesn’t go as planned? But what if Sprout is upset? What if he starts crying? It’s all going to be my fault.” I never had that exact thought, but all of the worries were based in that single fear, drenching me over me over and over again, washing away anything else. I wasn’t totally paralyzed – I could walk and talk, but I was tense, snippy, and manic. I jumped from subject to subject, preoccupied with impending doom.

Of all things, the one thing that broke the fear’s hold on me was a roller-coaster. In fact, it was my favorite roller-coaster in the world – Space Mountain. While it had been closed earlier in the day due to mechanical difficulties, it reopened for business just in time. From the simple thrills of sharp drops in the dark to the lighthearted space travel theme, I was grinning from ear to ear. All of the adrenaline that had been pounding through my head found a release and I was more relaxed than I had been the whole trip.

But while Space Mountain relieved me of the physical tension, I was still carrying a lot of emotional baggage. Which is how I ended up ugly crying, my face full of tears and snot, belting out Let It Go in the middle of the street in Hollywood Studios that night. Sprout was on my shoulders watching fireworks, so I didn’t have to worry about him. Everyone was singing and the fireworks were loud, so no one would notice me being off-key. My family was elsewhere in the crowd, so no one was there to judge me. I could just, well, let it go.

Even though I don’t have any magical superpowers – except maybe my Mama Cape – I relate to Elsa’s journey. I can’t keep covering up my imperfections; hiding them deep down just destroys you in the end. I have to embrace my fallibility, acknowledge that I will contradict myself, and rely on the fact that sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing. When I hold on to the person I want to show the world, I give up who I really am. And it’s not just a one time deal – exposing my heart, facing the fear and letting go of my pride is a process that I will have to repeat over and over again. But I have to keep doing it because my kid deserves having a mother who is so herself through and through, faults and all.

Walt Disney World Week: What I Learned About Visiting with Babies and Toddlers

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Walt Disney World is a whole different vacation spot when you’re traveling with a small child. You start being worried less about what rides have the longest lines and more about where you can change the baby. You learn all of the resources Disney has to offer that we never needed as adult-only visitors. So even though Chris is a Disney Expert due to his family’s many trips there, we learned a lot on this trip:

1) The awesomeness of Disney’s Baby Care Centers.
I had never even heard of these until I started seeking out advice about visiting Disney with a baby. There’s one in each park, all fairly tucked-away and not that advertised. We mainly used them to change Sprout, and for that alone they were worth seeking out. They had the largest, most luxurious changing tables I’ve ever seen. While we didn’t need them, they also had private rooms for nursing mothers (a godsend in the heat), and baby supply stores selling diapers, wipes, formula, bibs and baby food.

2) That the Harmony Barber Shop on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom is the best value in all of Walt Disney World.
Yes, the Magic Kingdom has a working barber shop! I thought it would be super adorable for Sprout to have his first haircut as Disney World, so I made an appointment ahead of time. This place totally exceeded my expectations. It’s tiny – only three chairs – but period accurate, with spinny chairs, large mirrors and lots of dark wood. The barber we had was very personable and patient, clearly experienced in working with very small children. Before he started, he stuck about eight Mickey stickers on Sprout, all over his shoes, legs, and shirt. After he finished, he signed a certificate, put the cut hair in a little bag, and gave Sprout a pair of Mickey ears with “My First Haircut” embroidered on the back. And the cost of all of this luxury? $18! You can’t buy Mickey ears by themselves for that price. Even if your kid (or you) is too old for a first haircut, they offer very reasonable kids and adult haircuts. For just some fun in the park, they’ll also gel and glitter your hair for $5.

3) Never underestimate the value of a good baby playground.
As a new participant in the Toddler Brigade, Sprout is obsessed with walking as much as possible and going up and down stairs. However, the main areas were way too busy for toddling very far. Fortunately, we found almost every little kid play structure and spray ground in the parks. In particular, the small structure outside of Splash Mountain and the interactive fountain in Epcot between Mission Space and Test Track were just the right size for him. In fact, watching him run so confidently down the little hall and up the stairs at the Splash Mountain playground was one of my proudest moments so far.

4) Some of the rides kids enjoy the most are the least appropriate for them.
While Disney has plenty of rides that appeal to teens and adults now, the original ones at the Magic Kingdom are still some of the most appealing to little kids. They’re really simple and engaging, with lots of colors and animatronics. While some of them still hold up well – I adore the Haunted Mansion – a lot of them clearly reflect the cultural baggage of the time period they were created in. It’s A Small World’s racial and cultural diversity may have been well-intentioned at the time but comes across as trading in some nasty stereotypes now. (Apparently Africa doesn’t have any buildings!) Country Bear Jamboree mocked the maudlin country songs of the time on Roy Rogers, but what is considered appropriate for children has apparently changed a lot since then. I’m not into overly protecting Sprout, but lyrics like “Mama, don’t whip little Buford…I think you should shoot him instead,” “Tears will be the chaser for your wine,” “Every boy who turns me on turns me down,” and “And a great big puddle of blood on the ground” left me giggling in horrified amusement. You expect the radio to talk about sex and murder, but not the critters at Disney! But perhaps the worst is the Pirates of the Caribbean, where the PG-13 movies arguably toned down the content from the ride. Scenes of pirates burning entire cities and selling off enslaved women were originally supposed to evoke lurid fascination, like the horror comics of the 1930s. But now that we’ve so romanticized the idea of a pirate – reinforced by the gobs of pirate merchandise for kids available right after the ride – the whole thing turned my stomach. No, Disney, I don’t want my boy to be a pirate. We’ll stick with the Jedi Training Academy at Hollywood Studios instead. As problematic as Jedi are, at least they’re on the side of good. Or we’ll hang out with Tom and Huck on their island across the way.

5) Where all of the produce stands are.
While I’m fine with having dessert and junk food some of the time, I don’t think vacation means an endless supply of fries and ice cream alone. Fortunately, Disney actually has some healthy snacks available if you know where to look. Every park has a stand selling fresh fruit (and often other healthy snacks): in Animal Kingdom in Harambe in the Africa section, in Hollywood Studios on the way to the Tower of Terror, in EPCOT in the Land pavilion, and at Magic Kingdom in Liberty Square.

6) That all of the outdoor rides close when it thunders.
One of the major disadvantages of going in August are the afternoon thunderstorms. As we had storms almost every day, we also found out that for safety reasons, Disney closes all of the outdoor rides and playgrounds for an undetermined period of time when it starts thundering. This isn’t too much of a problem in EPCOT and Hollywood Studios because they have very few outdoor rides. In Magic Kingdom, it shuts down Dumbo, which was disappointing to me because Sprout and I were in the midst of waiting for it. But where the thunder really becomes challenge is in Animal Kingdom, which has a ton of outdoor rides. The best bet is actually the safari ride, which does stay open, allowing you to see all of the animals that come out to enjoy the rain.

7) That Disney World has a petting zoo.
This is something that was of zero interest to me an adult but immediately appealing when visiting with a little kid. It’s in Rafiki’s Planet Watch in Animal Planet and beautifully well-run. Instead of having the animals in cages or behind fences, they had roped areas that the animals could retreat to when they were sick of being pawed at by kids. Because they didn’t have the kids feed the animals, they were all pleasantly calm, even the goats. And of course, they were wonderfully clean. Because the area is far away from the main park, it was also blessedly uncrowded.

8) Even Daddies can’t resist the siren call of a plush Olaf. Even if the kid only saw the first ten minutes of the movie.

Walt Disney World Week: What I Learned About My Family

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 6 Comments

Last week, we returned from Sprout’s first trip to Walt Disney World. Normally, I wouldn’t bring a kid that young, but my in-laws are hard-core into it and volunteered to pay for the entire trip. So off we went to see the Mouse.

Now, I’ve been to Disney World as an adult, but nothing could prepare me for visiting with a small child. It becomes an entirely different experience, rife with its own set of joys and frustrations.

Here are a few of the things I learned about my own family along the way:

1) How little sleep my son can survive on.

One of my main areas of concern was getting Sprout back to the hotel for a daily nap and his normal bedtime. Due to extenuating circumstances, that plan went out the window almost immediately. While we managed some lengthy stroller naps – one was a full two hours – most days had very short naps and a bedtime at least an hour past the norm. But despite this shift, Sprout was mostly good-tempered. As long as he had something to look at (which there almost always was, being Disney World), and had enough time to walk around, he was pretty chipper.

2) The difference between listening to someone complain about the challenges of bedtime and experiencing them firsthand.

Sprout is not a good sleeper. He hates going to sleep and bedtime can end up being 45 minutes of him yelling at me in Baby. I’ve explained this to my in-laws, but I don’t think it set in until the night they put him to bed. While they had put him to bed at our house before, vacation radically upped the excitement level. From patting on the back to classical music, they tried every trick they knew of, only to be foiled by a loud whine the second they closed the door. They finally got him to sleep after nearly an hour. While I felt bad for them, it was a relief to see that it’s not just us he’s pain about when it comes to bedtime.

3) Sometimes folks need more comprehensive instructions than you would expect.

My father-in-law volunteered to put Sprout to bed one night so the rest of the adults could go out to dinner at a restaurant he didn’t like. As Chris and his sister came out pretty great, I figured he had the basic baby wrangling skills covered. Unfortunately, it had been far too long since he had changed a diaper. As such, he didn’t recall Cardinal Rule #1 of diaper changing – have everything ready before taking the diaper off. Even though he strongly suspected there were poops present, he failed to get the wipes out beforehand, leaving him without the needed resources. Instead, he said something hand wavy about “rinsing him off in the tub” and left it at that. Ewwww.

4) Don’t read the news while you’re on vacation.

While we were relaxing in the room, I happened to read a post on local news blog Greater Greater Washington. Unfortunately, this particular post mentioned that there had been torrential rain at Baltimore National Airport. In fact, a number of vehicles swamped and became totalled – in the parking lot we parked in. So I spent the whole week worrying that we might not be able to start our car when we got home. As it turned out, nothing was wrong. I wouldn’t have even known there was a problem if I hadn’t read the news post.

5) How rewarding it is for your kid to enjoy something you remember fondly from your own childhood.

Being a giant nerd, EPCOT was one of my favorite parks as a kid. I really loved the Journey into Imagination ride and its mascot, the purple dragon, Figment. I had a little stuffed version of him that was worn out from hugging. So I was thrilled when Sprout enjoyed the Journey into Imagination ride, looking around at the bright colors and funny sounds. He was also really engaged by the activities afterwards, from the squares that played instrument noises when you jumped on them to the machine that changes tone when you wave your arms. And perhaps most importantly, his face totally lit up when I bought him his very own Figment.

6) Respecting your kid means sometimes giving them something they want even when you know they won’t like it.

I’ve believed in this as part of my overall philosophy of respecting my kid as a person, but never had the chance to put it into practice. So when Sprout pointed to my curry noodle soup, I hesitated over giving it to him. It was a little too spicy for me, so he certainly wouldn’t like it. And he didn’t – he spit it out and batted at his tongue with his hand. But you know what? Maybe he would have loved it!

7) How much a kid can grow up in 10 days.

I’ve believed for a long time that travel can help lead to incredible personal growth. It exposes you to new cultures, natural and crafted beauty, and challenging situations. However, I would have never guessed that it would be true for a kid as little as Sprout. But it certainly seems like our trip sparked that growth in him.

The first full day at Disney, he decided he no longer wanted to hold my hand when he walked, motivating me to buy a “toddler tether.” The rest of the trip, he wandered around with Chris or me in tow.

In addition to mobility, he also wanted to do things that mommy and daddy do. Suddenly, he decided he wanted to push his own stroller instead of ride in it. A few days later, he kept whining and pushing his plate away, so we thought he was done eating. We finally figured out he was still hungry – he just wanted to eat the whole tacos, not the cut-up ones. Now, whenever he’s complaining and I can’t figure out why, I just start to think, “Is this something ‘grown-up’ that he wants?”

But perhaps his social growth has been the greatest. Sprout has been charming folks at restaurants now for a while, but we hadn’t seen the extent of his ongoing nature until this trip. He waved and said hi to almost everyone around us in line, on the bus, and at restaurants. He even walked up to people in the airport in the middle of conversations and would start jabbering away at them as if he was a natural participant – even though he isn’t speaking many recognizable words yet!