Twenty years ago, I was preparing for my wedding. I wore a gown I sewed myself from ivory taffeta. My poor bridesmaids wore purple dresses with bubble skirts . . . which are coming back in style now, which is how you know it was a very long time ago that my wedding occurred.

I would have something profound to say about marriage and generous to say about my husband, but my feet ache and my hair is crazy and my eyes a bit gritty and the fun hasn’t ended yet, for we’re heading to California Adventures today and then Disneyland again tomorrow.

Last night, I took the four kids back to Disney where we rode the monorail, ate expensive food at the Rainforest Cafe’, saw the parade, watched fireworks and then tried to see “Fantasmic,” the amazing show that takes place on the river.

(What a disaster–the viewing was terrible . . . no seating anywhere–unlike Disney World where this show’s in an amphitheater–and then a man six and a half feet tall lifted up the rope and stepped in front of us, apparently feeling no guilt about suddenly blocking our view, which wasn’t good to start with . . .  and then there were the other parents, already in the front, who perched their little ones on their shoulder, thus dooming the people behind them to hopelessness. People are thoughtless, especially when they are in a crowd.)

We returned back to our room at 11:30 p.m. and for once, my kids didn’t wiggle or talk but fell asleep immediately.  Oh, did I mention that the hotel management didn’t put us in adjoining rooms? So, I’m in one room with two kids and my husband of twenty years today is in a room across the hall and down one with the other two.

Yes, it’s very romantic.

So today, my daughter woke up at 7:37 a.m. even though we are on vacation. She wanted a bath. We finally got ourselves together and met (who else?) a blogger for a day of fun and frivolity. And also, sand and sun. The aforementioned blogger, Gina of Just Another Day has been a friend of mine (even though she adores Al Gore) for a long time, since our paths crossed on an AOL pregnancy message boards years ago. Neither of us post on that board anymore, but we are devoted to our blogs. If you aren’t reading her blog, you really should because she posts regularly and amusingly and occasionally, provocatively. (I dare you to write a sentence with more adverbs in it than that!)

Anyway, so the lovely Gina and her darling son, Mr. Personality, met us in the lobby of our hotel at 10:15 a.m. on the dot. She scored a perfect parking spot in front of our hotel, so we transferred beach paraphernalia from her car trunk into my van and off we went, me driving, her giving directions, the kids all plugged into various DVD players to distract them from actually seeing the world here in Southern California. The funny thing about traveling with kids wearing earphones is that they don’t even here you when you say, “Hey, look at that truck carrying hundreds of bunnies in cages!” or “Hey, that’s Mt. Shasta!”

After a stop for Subway sandwiches, we arrived at Corona Del Mar beach. The boys took off with Gina’s boogie board to catch some waves (thankfully, small waves since that beach is protected by a jetty so I didn’t have to worry about my kids being swept to sea because they would have if the disinterested lifeguard had his way . . . where is David Hasselhoff when I need him?). Grace stood in the surf, jumping over waves until one knocked her backwards onto her adorable behind. Her face remained above water, but she was pinned on her back like a wayward turtle for a few terrifying moments and then, she became very cautious. For awhile.

Eventually, she ran to meet the waves, then turned and fled from them while screaming and laughing with glee. Gina and I were able to chat some while we stood with our feet in the wet sand, which I decided feels exactly as I imagine brown sugar would feel if you were to tromp on an acre of it in your bare feet.

The kids were mostly sunscreened . . . but I neglected to protect my neckline so I have a crescent of hot pink skin from chin to . . . uh, well, were the buttons of my shirt begin. It’s quite attractive. The rest of my farmer’s tan is intact, only a bit pinker than before.

The kids frolicked in the ocean for three, maybe four hours, before we rounded them up, tried to remove some of the sand from their feet and headed home. Back here, they all rinsed and dressed and off we went to Red Robin for an early dinner. After that, we put in two loads of laundry (Laundry: Even on Vacation!) and then went back to the pool for another three hours of waterlogged fun. I met another mom from the AOL pregnancy message board and Grace was able to swim with her 4-year old daughter for an hour while Tiffany and I visited. Tiffany is quite a trooper–she brought her not-quite-3-week old son with her, and this despite having a c-section for his breech delivery. (Thanks, Tiffany, for the effort!) I also met her very kind husband.

After all that, the kids were asleep by 9:30 p.m. and I had a little time to plan our day’s adventure in Disneyland tomorrow. Any surprise that I am one of those by-the-book planning types? First stop? Space Mountain, followed closely by the Buzz Lightyear ride. I just hope everyone marches along to the beat of my drum.

When my husband and I were first married almost twenty years ago, we had most of our fights in the car. This was because he refuses to look at maps, he has no natural sense of direction, he does not immediately step on the brakes when brake-lights turn red in front of us, and he occasionally says to me, “Can I get over?” even though I am the passenger, completely not paying attention to the road. (None of this is because I am irrationally sequential, prone to irritability and easily exasperated.)

He says I just don’t trust him, which is not true at all. He reminds me that men and women have different perceptions of distances, which may be true. But it doesn’t make me feel less like we’re going to bash into the cars in front of us when they slow down and we do not.

However, age has mellowed us and I keep my lips zipped more than I used to do. Why have the same argument over and over when you can just avert your eyes and concentrate on your novel?

Here’s the only mini-argument we had. We stopped at a service station because the 4-year old insisted she needed to pee even though we hadn’t driven more than an hour since the last time she peed. So, we stopped at a service station. He parked in what I insisted was a parking spot, but he didn’t believe me, so he stayed in the van to “guard” it while I and the four children went in.

My daughter and I went into the bathroom and when we came out, the boys were gone. I thought that was amazing since there are three of them. How did they pee so fast? So, I let Grace pick out a candy bar, got my husband the Diet Dr. Pepper he’d wanted, selected a Diet Coke for myself and Hot Tamales for him and said to the guy behind the counter, “So, my boys left already?” and he said, “Yes.” Then before I finished paying, he said, “Oh, there they are.” They appeared again and then my husband appeared and I paid for a cup of ice and my husband said, “What are you doing?” there was a brief flurry of confusion and tense words and finally, when the boys peed and picked out a snack I said to them, “I’m going to wait to yell at you until we get outside,” and so I did.

The boys, apparently, discovered the men’s bathroom occupied. So they each bought a drink and went back to the car. Meanwhile, I’m still in the bathroom. The children appear at the van with drinks and my husband says, “Did you pee?” and they admit they did not. So he sends them back inside. He must have thought that I okayed this non-peeing, drink-buying and so he marched in to find out what was going on . . . how was I to know? I’d been peeing! And supervising peeing! And washing my hands without soap and drying them on my jeans because this was a service station.

So, I gave this little lecture to the kids: “When we stop, you pee! Always! And don’t do that again, what you just did because now your dad is mad at me!”

When we were all underway, my daughter piped up and said something like, “Mom said you’re mad at her Dad,” and he said, “No, I’m not mad, but when we stop, you need to pee!”

And then all was well again in the world. Those kind of arguments are the worst because they are based on misunderstanding and magnified when your bladder is full (kind of like how crabby I was tonight with the kids because I was still wearing a wet swimsuit as I was barking orders at them). Forgive, forget, move on.
Then we saw Mt. Shasta.

All told, we were traveling for eleven hours today. We left at 9:15 a.m. and arrived in Red Bluff at 8:30 p.m. And tomorrow, we do this all over again, only in more traffic.

My laundry is finished, except for the load still in the dryer.

This can only mean one thing.

What?

Hint:  You should know that we have a large, vicious dog named Spike and he will gnaw off your face should you attempt to break into our house.  Also, please join me in a chorus of “It’s a Small World After All. . . ”

Don’t you hate it when that song gets stuck in your head?  The only thing worse is when the Elmo’s World song gets lodged in your brain and when you wake up to pee in the middle of the night, Elmo’s sing-song voice belts out a chorus:  “That’s Elmo’s world!”

Because just running Avalanche Ranch isn’t stressful enough (though I have to say it’s going so smoothly that I have nothing to complain about), sirens rang out, a police car appeared in the parking lot, then a firetruck rolled up.  My husband went out to investigate and the police officer told him he was managing a crisis and couldn’t talk then.  I walked around outside, saw the construction workers all drift down the street, assured myself that the kids playing outdoors across the street were all well and returned inside.  Then a Puget Sound Energy truck drove up.  An aid car completed the traffic jam on the street in front of the church.

The construction guys hit a natural gas line, poked a 2-inch hole in it, so the emergency management people arrived to manage the potential emergency.  We had to direct all the parents around to the back of the church to pick up the children.  That was pretty exciting.
But all’s well that ends well.  Nothing exploded, no one caught on fire.  Crisis averted.

In other news, it was blazing hot today in the land of the mild summers.

That is all.

*whew*

You know what drives me crazy?  I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again:  seeing a child in a movie theater watching a movie that is completely inappropriate for a child.  Why in the world are parents in such a hurry to expose their children to adult themes and images?  And I’m don’t just mean gore or sexuality . . . I think children should be protected from ideas with which adults must grapple.  I don’t want my kids to worry about things that adults worry about.  I take my job very seriously and a large part of my job is keeping my children safe, both physically and emotionally.  Thus, I guard their minds and hearts and eyes.  Judging from the local theater, not everyone thinks like me.  Shocking!  (No, really, how can that be when I am so smart and . . . well, so right?)  You might call me overprotective, but I prefer to think of myself as the protective wall between my kids and harm.
That’s one reason I appreciate the newly launched website “We Believe in Girls.” I can stand behind a site that says:

We also believe that the pressure on girls to grow up fast, to dress up “fast,” to cut the midriff shorter, pout the lips out further, pierce everything earlier — that all this mad, headlong rush toward early sophistication* may have gone a bit too far.

I believe that, too.  I want my daughter to play with dolls, to be oblivious to teenage concerns (make-up, boys, high-heels, shorts with words written across the backside!), to be as unselfconscious for as long as possible.  I don’t want her to want highlights in her hair and lipstick on her mouth and a sparkly cell phone with which to call boys until she is . . . well, twenty-three.  Or at least thirteen.  What’s the rush?

The 300 Spartans the movie

When my daughter grows up, I want her to have choices, true choices about what she wants to be and do with her life.  I  hope I can give her the tools and education and confidence to become a doctor . . . or an artist . . . or a stay-at-home mother . . . or a secretary . . . or an accountant . . . whatever she wants to become.  I want her to understand that you don’t have to do it all, be it all or have it all at the exact same time.  Life is a journey with many stops along the way . . . but if you are lucky, you choose a good companion and fill your suitcase with stuff that will help you along the way (excellent reading material, a great education, solid friends, a sturdy belief system, confidence).

Anyway, join in on the conversation.  Take the poll.  Poke around on that website and see if anything resonates with you.  I know it did with me.

Linda has a great list of things she wishes . . . I wish I had time to think of an excellent response to leave in her comment section, but alas, I do not.  Do you?

I wish I had more time to leave comments wherever I go!