Disney lights heavy prowling tiger and happy goat
Last week we sent Darius off — back to Lebanon and Christiane, his fiancee. This week, Melika and Tom left — off to Burning Man 2015. They left on Tuesday with plans to come back..
“.. in four or five days,” Nazy confirmed. “In the meantime, we will be taking care of the baby.”
“We? Like you and me?”
“That’s right! Burning Man is not child friendly. It will be easy. We have a ‘Pack and Play’ for him to sleep in and Melika says he sleeps all night.”
“Yes, my dear, that is exactly what Melika ‘said.” I replied. “But I wonder what Melika thinks,” I thought.
I should have been wondering what the baby was thinking:
“No problem at all,” Nazy said after she tucked young Tiger in. “Fooled her,” Tiger thought as he deviously pretended to sleep. In actuality, he was waiting until Nazy and I closed our eyes. Using almost forgotten skills, honed during early fatherhood, I feigned sleep through most of the problems. Nazy rocked him back to sleep. She was singing Persian lullabies and:
“This house is for playing, not sleeping,” Young Tiger thought. “Grandparents are so dumb. Why can’t they understand? Sleeping: my house and my crib. Playing: their house and their pack and play?”
He was awake from 2AM until 5AM. He fell asleep at 5:00AM. He woke up at 6:00AM. This time. I got up and played with him.
“You! Did! not! sleep! last! night!” I exclaimed unnecessarily. “He is going to stay awake until we give him to Yari, the Nanny,” I thought. Accurately.
Things got better the next few days mainly because he was too exhausted to stay awake all night. (Alternatively, I was still too exhausted to hear him when he work up in the middle of the night.) During the day, I was regressing — watching snippets of Sesame Street with Tiger. There was a segment where…
“They were trying to turn Cookie Monster into Veggie Monster,” I told Nazy. “This Political Correctness is going way too far,” I thought.
On the weekend, Nazy and I took Tiger to Disneyland where we joined Yari and Joe. Both of them, it turns out, are Disney season ticket holders. They knew the ropes. Before meeting them, of course, we had to get there. And, because we planned to stay overnight in Los Angeles, we had to pack. Predictably, Nazy planned for every eventuality - a fact that I noticed while I was making the 37th trip from the house to the car.
“You do know that we have a two door sport-ish car, right?” I asked when I came back for a large container of babyhood and clothes.
“We may want to eat at an elegant restaurant,” Nazy replied.
“We’re going to Disneyland. Did you pack my mouse ears?”
We left the tux at home and I used the multidimensional luggage-stuffing accessory that I had had borrowed from Hogwarts, we got everything into the car. As we left, the baby began to cry.
“This is very unusual,” I said to Nazy.
“Diaper kaseeif?” Nazy asked Tiger. (English: “Is you diaper dirty?&rdquo
If everything is okay, Tiger responds to that question with a ‘Na’ (‘No). Preparing for management, he has mastered ‘No’ but he hasn’t learned to say ‘Yes’. This time, he did not say: ‘No’. We pulled over and changed the diaper before setting off for Los Angeles - now cleverly scheduled to arrive during the morning rush hour. We eventually arrived at our hotel - where Tiger, once again, refused to say ’No’ when asked about a dirty diaper. Luckily, we had a lot of spare clothes. In fact,
As we walked through California Adventure, en route to the Toy Store ride, we traipsed through a depiction of a rustic village. There was an American Motors Rambler Station Wagon parked outside of one of the camping stores. It was …
“… exactly like the 1959 Rambler Station Wagon that was the first new car my Dad ever bought!” I exclaimed.
“Wow!” Nazy replied - oozing excitement.
“We drove from New Jersey to Iowa and Nebraska in that car,” I continued. “Five kids and two parents.”
“Where did you put the luggage?” Nazy asked.
“Under the canoe,” I replied. “We had no air conditioning. We dodged tornadoes on the way and arrived in the midst of a cresting flood waters. I helped Uncle Marion put stuff on top of the piano before going out to fill sandbags.”
“And the luggage?” Nazy reiterated.
“Life was simpler then.” I said. “My Mom packed less luggage for a two week trip with seven people than we brought on overnight stay in Disneyland,” I thought.
The second word that the Grand(est)son learned to say was ‘light’. So you may think that you can imagine his excitement when he saw the “Paint the Night” parade. You would be wrong. If the baby excitement was measured on the Richter earthquake scale, this would have been ‘The Big One’ — i.e. the one where, much to the satisfaction of many US states, California would have drifted off the continent and into the Pacific Ocean. Young Tiger bounced and screamed and waved his arms as he watched from my shoulders. The parade was followed by fireworks - which he also enjoyed.
It took a while to retrieve the stroller after there fireworks. There were more ‘parked’ strollers in Disneyland on a holiday weekend then there are stationary cars on the 405 during rush hour. We used our stroller to carry things - the baby strongly preferred pushing the stroller to riding in the stroller.
Leaving the park, we joined an enormous queue for the shuttle bus to the parking lot. There was no shortage of buses, but loading them took a long time. Strollers had to be collapsed . The parents lucky enough to have sleeping babies had difficulty with the strollers, those with wide awake babies had difficulty with the babies. The backlog was incredible. (Our baby was wide awake.) We waited in the queue while Yari and Joe charged ahead. A while later, Yari returned - and beckoned us forward. Her season pass and her undoubted talking skill had been deployed to allow us to bypass the queue. (It sill took about ten minutes to walk from our position to the front of the line.)
The baby slept the whole night. (After he had wound down - a process that took about another hour or so.)
“.. in four or five days,” Nazy confirmed. “In the meantime, we will be taking care of the baby.”
“We? Like you and me?”
“That’s right! Burning Man is not child friendly. It will be easy. We have a ‘Pack and Play’ for him to sleep in and Melika says he sleeps all night.”
“Yes, my dear, that is exactly what Melika ‘said.” I replied. “But I wonder what Melika thinks,” I thought.
I should have been wondering what the baby was thinking:
“No problem at all,” Nazy said after she tucked young Tiger in. “Fooled her,” Tiger thought as he deviously pretended to sleep. In actuality, he was waiting until Nazy and I closed our eyes. Using almost forgotten skills, honed during early fatherhood, I feigned sleep through most of the problems. Nazy rocked him back to sleep. She was singing Persian lullabies and:
“This house is for playing, not sleeping,” Young Tiger thought. “Grandparents are so dumb. Why can’t they understand? Sleeping: my house and my crib. Playing: their house and their pack and play?”
He was awake from 2AM until 5AM. He fell asleep at 5:00AM. He woke up at 6:00AM. This time. I got up and played with him.
“You! Did! not! sleep! last! night!” I exclaimed unnecessarily. “He is going to stay awake until we give him to Yari, the Nanny,” I thought. Accurately.
Things got better the next few days mainly because he was too exhausted to stay awake all night. (Alternatively, I was still too exhausted to hear him when he work up in the middle of the night.) During the day, I was regressing — watching snippets of Sesame Street with Tiger. There was a segment where…
“They were trying to turn Cookie Monster into Veggie Monster,” I told Nazy. “This Political Correctness is going way too far,” I thought.
On the weekend, Nazy and I took Tiger to Disneyland where we joined Yari and Joe. Both of them, it turns out, are Disney season ticket holders. They knew the ropes. Before meeting them, of course, we had to get there. And, because we planned to stay overnight in Los Angeles, we had to pack. Predictably, Nazy planned for every eventuality - a fact that I noticed while I was making the 37th trip from the house to the car.
“You do know that we have a two door sport-ish car, right?” I asked when I came back for a large container of babyhood and clothes.
“We may want to eat at an elegant restaurant,” Nazy replied.
“We’re going to Disneyland. Did you pack my mouse ears?”
We left the tux at home and I used the multidimensional luggage-stuffing accessory that I had had borrowed from Hogwarts, we got everything into the car. As we left, the baby began to cry.
“This is very unusual,” I said to Nazy.
“Diaper kaseeif?” Nazy asked Tiger. (English: “Is you diaper dirty?&rdquo
If everything is okay, Tiger responds to that question with a ‘Na’ (‘No). Preparing for management, he has mastered ‘No’ but he hasn’t learned to say ‘Yes’. This time, he did not say: ‘No’. We pulled over and changed the diaper before setting off for Los Angeles - now cleverly scheduled to arrive during the morning rush hour. We eventually arrived at our hotel - where Tiger, once again, refused to say ’No’ when asked about a dirty diaper. Luckily, we had a lot of spare clothes. In fact,
“So you’ll be here for a week or so?” The bellman asked as he struggled to pull the coupled luggage carts out of the elevator.
“Just the one night,” I replied.
“Wow!” the bellboy replied.
Yari, dressed in a red tutu and sporting a clever pair of Minnie Mouse ears, knew the Disneyland ropes. She helped us bypass lines, find free parking and get a 20% discount on anything at the park.
Young Tiger was soooooo excited. He liked riding on Dumbo and loved the Peter Pan ride. He pushed his stroller and hugged - well ‘high-fived’ Mickey Mouse. He patted the horse and fell in love with the goat at the petting zoo. He danced with Mary Poppins (he can already hum Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). He shunned naps. And, just to demonstrate his scientific ability, he increased ‘Big G’ - the universal gravitational ‘constant’ by increasing in weight as the day progressed.
As we walked through California Adventure, en route to the Toy Store ride, we traipsed through a depiction of a rustic village. There was an American Motors Rambler Station Wagon parked outside of one of the camping stores. It was …
“… exactly like the 1959 Rambler Station Wagon that was the first new car my Dad ever bought!” I exclaimed.
“Wow!” Nazy replied - oozing excitement.
“We drove from New Jersey to Iowa and Nebraska in that car,” I continued. “Five kids and two parents.”
“Where did you put the luggage?” Nazy asked.
“Under the canoe,” I replied. “We had no air conditioning. We dodged tornadoes on the way and arrived in the midst of a cresting flood waters. I helped Uncle Marion put stuff on top of the piano before going out to fill sandbags.”
“And the luggage?” Nazy reiterated.
“Life was simpler then.” I said. “My Mom packed less luggage for a two week trip with seven people than we brought on overnight stay in Disneyland,” I thought.
The second word that the Grand(est)son learned to say was ‘light’. So you may think that you can imagine his excitement when he saw the “Paint the Night” parade. You would be wrong. If the baby excitement was measured on the Richter earthquake scale, this would have been ‘The Big One’ — i.e. the one where, much to the satisfaction of many US states, California would have drifted off the continent and into the Pacific Ocean. Young Tiger bounced and screamed and waved his arms as he watched from my shoulders. The parade was followed by fireworks - which he also enjoyed.
It took a while to retrieve the stroller after there fireworks. There were more ‘parked’ strollers in Disneyland on a holiday weekend then there are stationary cars on the 405 during rush hour. We used our stroller to carry things - the baby strongly preferred pushing the stroller to riding in the stroller.
Leaving the park, we joined an enormous queue for the shuttle bus to the parking lot. There was no shortage of buses, but loading them took a long time. Strollers had to be collapsed . The parents lucky enough to have sleeping babies had difficulty with the strollers, those with wide awake babies had difficulty with the babies. The backlog was incredible. (Our baby was wide awake.) We waited in the queue while Yari and Joe charged ahead. A while later, Yari returned - and beckoned us forward. Her season pass and her undoubted talking skill had been deployed to allow us to bypass the queue. (It sill took about ten minutes to walk from our position to the front of the line.)
The baby slept the whole night. (After he had wound down - a process that took about another hour or so.)
For last week's letter, click here
Tiger with Goat at the Petting Zoo
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