Disneyland Top 10

This past weekend in honor of my niece, Dalanie's, 6th birthday we went to Disneyland. As loath as I am to sound like one of those crazy adult Disney fans.... it was awesome. Here are my top 10 
Disneyland moments.

10.  Dalanie quietly asking “Is this real?” while sailing past the giant boa constrictor on the Jungle Cruise. (And the whole family nodding yes).

9.  Zayden watching a video of himself on Autotopia and exclaiming “Bubba driving!!!!” (yes, my nephew refers to himself as Bubba....) .

8. Dalanie spending half of Fantasmic sticking her tongue out at the evil queen from Snow White.

7. Zayden yelling “Hi Buzz!” at top volume whenever a Buzz Lightyear picture, robot or character should appear in the park.

6. Dalanie screaming at me to put my hands in the air before the Big Thunder Mountain railroad has even started up the first hill.

5. Kurt helping Zayden moon his mom from the window of our cart on the California Adventure ferris wheel. (and Dalanie jumping up pants half down for a the follow-up moon).  (Appreciation for the hilariousness of bare butts is my brother's main gift to his children).

4. Zayden posing for a picture with Goofy and at the last minute sticking up his little thumb to copy Goofy (who clearly is a cool dude who makes awesome posing choices).

3. Dalanie asking me which princess was my favorite, which princess dress was my favorite, which princess tiara was my favorite and which princess boobs were my favorite..... (“I don’t really think about that much but they all seem nice.”).

2. Geoff trying in vain to maneuver Dalanie onto his shoulders to view Fantasmic and crying out in frustration, “I don’t know how to do this! I’m not a dad!”

1. Dalanie exclaiming at the end of Fantasmic when the paddle boat emerges carrying pretty much every princess, “This is the best day of my life!!!!!”

On Being a Big Sister

It was always the same repeat played weekly throughout my elementary school years. I’m in the backseat of a nondescript car with my parents up front and my younger brother seated beside me. We’re on a cartoonishly twisted dirt road climbing up the side of a mountain and for some reason I’m not challenging my brother to scooch over to my side of the car and meet his doom. This is how you know that everything is a dream – Childhood Brianna never missed an opportunity to cajole her brother into a punch in the face.

We’re traveling somewhere far from home and my brother is inexplicably ill and we’re taking him to a doctor who, of course, lives at the top of a craggy mountain equipped with a road designed by the Cambodian Transit Authority (this is the most realistic part of the dream – my parents eschewed asphalt and never took us anywhere with a paved road). When we reach the top of the mountain the doctor's office is a scene plucked straight from Scooby Doo – wooden shack, peeling paint, cracked windows, flower beds full of wilted pansies – things could not look more ripe for evil-making. The scene gets no better as we walk over the creaky porch and through the door only to be greeted by Witch Hazel herself.

My parents seem nonplused and hand over my brother to the good doctor who whisks him away into her lair while Mom and Dad basically sip tea and take a nap. So finally I have to step up to the plate and point out what is obvious to any 5 year old: That lady is a witch doctor! Baby brother is gonna die in there! Of course no one takes me seriously and I start crying and freaking out which, thankfully, wakes me from my slumber.

Suddenly there I am, lying in my pink loft bed only 2 feet from the ceiling suddenly remembering, “Dude, I hate my brother! Not only does that little twerp ruin my waking hours but now I can’t even make it to first grade well rested! And we have finger painting today!”

Then Again I Don't Seem *That* F-ed Up

Lately you hear a lot fist clenching and concerned look-making over the topic of just how badly the children of mommy bloggers will need therapy. The theory goes that once 4 year old Blog Fodder Jr. grows into 14 year old Googling Alldaylong he will find mommy's little online journal where his every goo and poo was documented and commented on by the mothers of half the population of his freshman class and the mere thought that Ms. Nextdoor has heard about the stinky green turds he layed down from ages 1-3 will cause our good teenager's head to explode. The end.

I have never been capable of taking this tsk-tsking very seriously since I choose to document my own goo-ing and poo-ing for all to read and look! I'm totally fine! (seriously.). But today as I tried to make sense of this story over on The Sneeze where his kid runs around "drive-by anusing" his parents I finally felt a little sympathy for our perhaps over loved tots because for some reason this story reminded me of a little story of my own....

*cue wavey screen effect signalling blast from the past*

When I was really young -- probably from age 2-4 we had a family, we'll call them The Yothers, living in the house located pretty much in our backyard. I have little recollection of these years which is unfortunate because the older sister of the Yother clan turned out to be much more popular than me in high school and if only I'd had some good blackmail material ages 15-18 may have been smoother. But alas.

Periodically throughout my later child years (say 8-18) my family would run into Mr. Yothers, the dad of the family, and he would of course take every opportunity to reminisce about when they lived in our back yard. This might not have been so terrible except for that fact that his only memory from that time period if of me at age 3ish coming out of the house to tell my dad that I had pooped my pants. For Alex this is the best and most hilarious story ever told. For Brianna not so much. In fact I distinctly remember dying on at least 47 different occasions, death by poop story embarrassment is not pleasant.

A horrible tale, no? Now picture that little nightmare repeated over and over only this time everyone you know can access the play by play of your greatest pooping hits. They can print out a poop score card and plaster the school with it. They can do dramatic readings at open mike nights. Frankly I doubt these kids will live past age 12.

In the Beginning There was a Really Big Belly Under a Christmas Tree

This is the story of my birth as I've always told it and I fully expect that my mom will read this and immediately be scandalized by my bastardization of the details in a story that is rightfully much more hers than mine. As a bonus I'm also going to throw in the story of my brother's birth because it's related and because it might further annoy my mom which will teach her for learning about the internet. (Private to AngryMom in CA: At least your daughter shares her blog with you, most moms aren't that lucky! Let her slide on the embellishments, after all she's been stuck in an entire year of writer's block, she needs this!).

I was born on January 5th 1978 (mark your calendars! shop post Christmas sales for presents!) which was about 2 weeks later than I was supposed to be born thus affording my mom and dad the luxury of taking a hilarious picture of her huge belly under the Christmas tree with a big bow wrapped around it -- to this day I'm sure my mom finds much irony in the thought that I would be a great gift and not just a never ending source of lost sleep and so much eye rolling (like all babies I'd like to thank Mother Nature for those awesome post pregnancy hormones that made me lovable despite not being very lovable -- I'm not sure who I should thank for giving mom the strength not to try literally slapping me out of my funk every day of my life from age 13 through 17).

I actually know very little of what happened between me playing the part of Christmas package and being born. I assume at some point on the 4th or 5th of January there was a rushed ride to the hospital and hours of screaming and you know, blood and doctors and such but mom was never one to regale me with "Do you know how much pain I went through to bring your sorry ass into the world?" I was born in the hospital where my mom worked as an ER nurse (and now works as the Nursing Supervisor) so the birth was well attended and mom claims much of it was broadcast over the nurses' walkie talkie system. This seems insanely cruel -- can you imagine all of your coworkers listening in on you giving birth to your first kid? Strangely mom never mentions killing whoever made this happen (I assume not talking about the murder is all part of the mass cover-up -- good job mom.).

And then, you know -- here I was (the sun came out from behind the clouds, the heavens smiled, the birds sang, national holiday, etc). But the real hilarious bit of this story starts when we get out of the hospital. I'm not sure how long my new family was actually home before my mom had to be returned the the hospital because there was a lot of blood not staying in her body where it belonged, but it wasn't long -- maybe a day or so. So back to the hospital where mom is admitted to the ICU (that's right folks, the hilarious part of the story is when my mom gets put into intensive care! good times!) and so they're wheeling her away and dad's standing there all "Hey, dudes, you forgot the baby! HAHA!" and the dudes (in this case doctors) are all, "No, it's cool the baby is FINE, take her on home!" And then dad is all "But! DUDES! Please god take the baby back! What the hell am I supposed to do with her when I don't have the magic milk producing body parts!?!?" And then I think his head explodes and he gets put in ICU too. No, just kidding, he goes home and calls my aunt all "Doctors are such bitches, please come help me before I kill your niece."

Let me pause here to say that my dad is super amazing and I'd hate for this story to make him sound incompetent but that's kind of what makes it a good story and my dad is hopefully so awesome that he doesn't mind being the butt of this particular joke. But just in case he's a little miffed I offer this proof of his awesomeness as a counterbalance: Because my mom worked nights growing up my dad was Mr. Mom every morning and he kicked major ass at everything from packing lunches to making a full breakfast (seriously people we had eggs and fruit and bacon or banana pancakes or french toast EVERY MORNING, dude was not fucking around). He was slightly less awesome at doing my hair as evidenced by my 3rd grade school picture where I appear to be rocking some sort of half crimped/half bed head combo do but I've mostly stopped blaming him for my "nerd table" lunch status that lasted through to high school (after all it wasn't him who forced me to join the math team, that was ALL ME). And also: I'm fine, he took me home as a newborn without my mom and totally didn't kill me so GOOD JOB DAD.

Now back to the story. Mom gets better, I learn to walk, everyone is happy.

So fast forward a couple of years and mom is rocking the bump again, my only real memory of her being pregnant with my brother is a conversation about baby names that took place in the car in which I refused to even discuss the possibility needing to consider boy names. I also seem to remember having strong feelings about naming my baby sister Michelle. So April 9th rolls around and again with the hospital and the pain and the breathing exercises. Only this time it sucks even more because my baby brother was born breach (As an older sister this was a god send -- oh the years of "born butt first like a real butt head!" jokes! HILARIOUS) and things really did not go well. Basically my mom died. She lost a ton of blood, she flat lined and while the doctors worked on bringing her back to life (note: successfully, thanks dudes!) she went on a little ride through the dark tunnel to meet with none other than Jesus Christ.

Mom and JC are up on a hill you know, chillin' when he brings up the awkward elephant in the room (er... the field...the heaven?). "So, Kay, umm you have a couple of kids back there in the world who kind of need a mom, you can't let Horst raise them alone, he can't handle it." That's right folks -- JESUS didn't believe in my dad's single parenting skills. And my mom is basically all, "no J-dawg, it's groovy, Horst has this shit! I'm gonna just chill here, lay back on a cloud, take some harp lessons, you know, angel stuff." Luckily our lord and savior is having none of it and basically pushes my mom back down the long dark tunnel and into her body. So big thanks to Jesus for giving me my mom back, I totally forgive you for misjudging my dad's parenting skills. And mom? I'm not even angry about you wanting to dessert me for heaven, I'm sure it would have totally beat changing Kurt's diapers and teaching my stubborn ass to tie my shoes.

I Think My Ovaries Just Fell Out*

I love my cousin and open bars and sponge cake but for me last weekend’s wedding was really just a convenient excuse to spend some quality time with my favorite niece. Miss D easily held onto her “cutest little girl in the world” status via the following impressive performances.

• Following being chastised during dinner for using the naughty word “stupid” with the pre cake cutting announcement, “Cake! That’s not a bad word!”
• Refusing to believe that people have parties (and cake!) for reasons other than birthdays and breaking out into a chorus of “Happy Birthday to You!” during dessert.
• Getting over her tendency to deny the world the enjoyment of checking out her ass. She now encourages adoration by often bending over, lifting up her dress and demanding “Hey! Look at my butt!” She also spent much of the wedding crouched over in a duck-like waddle (see above photo) asking everyone around to join her and “shake a booty!!”
• Being somewhat obsessed with people other than her getting into trouble and telling me at least 3 different accounts of her friend Juliana getting a time out for biting another kid at daycare. When real trouble fails to present itself she is not above making up a story or two including claims that Mommy is in big trouble for hitting me (which she did not do). God help my poor brother and (soon to be!) sister.
• Making clear where her support lies in the taste vs. beauty war by constantly asking women at the wedding if their necklaces were made of candy.
• Spending the ceremony on my lap and whispering in my ear, “I love you Brianna!” every time the officiate mentioned the L word.

  

*Title thanks to Gillian

Elvis Was Not Present

When this blog’s low comment and subscriber counts force me to ponder why my ramblings are not the E-Ticket ride of the internet I often come to the conclusion that my posts are simply too long for the average, short attention span, modern day reader (rejecting outright any inkling that every word I write doesn’t glow with brilliance). No one who has spent more than 20 minutes with me in person can honestly be shocked by my verbosity – shutting up has never been my strong suit and I fear this post will only perpetuate the long post problem since I have next to no story arc in mind. At least the few readers who make it past this paragraph can lay claim to a certain level of exclusivity – this blog has to be the online equivalent of that cool band that none of your friends have heard of.

I am writing this post from seat 20F on my return flight from a long weekend in Las Vegas. This spring’s annual pilgrimage to family fun in Sin City thankfully did not include any unscheduled nights in Denver despite my arriving at the airport without government issued ID. It turns out you don’t need ID to fly. After checking in for my flight on Wednesday I failed to locate my driver’s license amongst the ATM receipts and “buy 10 sandwiches get 1 free” cards in my wallet. I panicked, figuring I’d have to get a taxi home and grab my passport before I’d have any hope of getting past the security check point. On the slim chance that my work issued ID or Flex Spending card would somehow sneak me onto a flight I asked the official looking guy directing traffic at the United ticket desk what type of ID was deemed acceptable by the FAA. He responded that I needed a driver’s license, a passport or a military ID and then, after a lengthy pause where I valiantly resisted bursting into stress induced bawling, said “unless you want to get your boarding passes reprinted.” After much confusion about why anyone would choose a trip home over a simple reprinting I found out that if I stood in line and got a new boarding pass and then agreed to submit to the public airing of my underwear and a hearty wanding I could fly without the government vouching for my ID. Shocking! Even more shocking -- I think that due to the sparse population in the “extra security” line flying without ID might actually be FASTER than submitting to normal security procedures.

The excuse for this trip was my cousin Donia’s bachelorette party and (failing an overly rambunctious evening with a stripper) nuptials. The female wedding VIPs and I spent Thursday afternoon at the spa at Red Rock Hotel and Casino where I discovered that the most wonderful invention on in the world is the steam room. The evening was reserved for more traditional bachelorette fair in the form of an evening at a dance club. I hate dance clubs and feel very strongly that I should at least be granted 15 karma brownie points every time I submit to a red velvet rope, thumping music and the unwelcome advances of creepy boys in service of some other girl’s last night of freedom. Lucky for me (and unlucky for my cousin) the hotel screwed up our dance club reservation so instead of a $300 bottle of vodka and all the pop song remixes we could ask for we were sneaked into a Midway Games company party at one of the casino’s other bars.

The red wrist straps that the embarrassed hotel staff slipped onto our hands granted us not only a chance to party with programmers (leave it to me to locate nerds in the wild wherever I roam) but unlimited free drinks and front row seats for the bar’s midnight show. The modern day Vegas lounge act is a whiter than vanilla rapper flanked by a Carrie Underwood look alike and that skater dude’s huge black body guard singing snippets from top 40 songs. Which I’m sure sounds awful but much like Rock of Love or The Girls Next Door it was thankfully just awful enough to be awesome (but I guess that could have been the vodka talking).

Sadly this bar was not without a dance floor and so I had to employ numerous avoidance techniques to ensure that the whole of Midway Games not be subjected to my awkward attempts at shaking my groove thing (or lack thereof). While avoiding the requests that I join my cousin and her entourage on the dance floor in favor of scribbling blog ideas into a notebook (I am not kidding) I came up with the BEST excuse not to dance ever – “I’m sorry, I can’t, I’m pregnant and the vodka is already so hard on the baby.” Look for that at a bachlorette party near you.

The wedding itself was fairly uneventful (you know assuming that you, like me, attend roughly 500 weddings a year and no longer consider 2 people pledging eternal love worthy of the “event” moniker) – the outside ceremony was unfortunately subject to 45 mile per hour winds which had Donia cursing the long veil that her mother talked her into for the sake of tradition. My uncle is from Tunisia and brought a little bit of North Africa to the shindig in the form of 3 large hookahs which most of the very white wedding guests smoked in a fit of giggles once the open bar got flowing. As usual my father was the best sport ever and, among taunts that he “think back to 1968!” flashed us all a peace sign mid toke. (more photos here)

No Brianna trip to Vegas would be complete without my continual avoidance of all gambling related activities. I again managed this goal successfully despite a friend’s repeated requests that I bet $5 on 15 at the roulette table. I have to admit that my failure to act on this plea was mostly due to a certain amount of intimidation around being a roulette novice. While I understand the game’s concept (give casino money, watch little ball bounce around a wheel of numbers, walk away poorer) I felt paralyzed by not knowing the lingo or intimate social mores of standing around the table and so avoided it at all costs for fear of saying something wrong and appearing stupid. This is ironic considering that roulette is a game specifically designed to be played by stupid people with no grasp of simple math.

I’ll be back on the west coast in a month for 2008’s wedding number three this time starring my own baby brother. Where I will most likely die of old age.