My Small World

Somewhere between riding through “It’s a Small World” when I was 5 and becoming a parent at 32, I became cynical about Disneyland. It served as an example of commercialism and hokeyness that I just couldn’t relate to.

But everything changed a few years ago, during a Disneyland trip for our oldest son’s third birthday. Benjamin’s wide-eyed delight in seeing the characters and flying on Dumbo brought back so much of my own stardust that I realized, for all its capitalist subversiveness, Disney made children really happy by appealing to the best in their imaginations.

Even with minimal exposure to Disney entertainment, our second son, Jacob, also caught the Mickey Mouse bug early. For his third birthday, in the fall of last year, we told him we had a really great surprise. He responded with a Cheshire cat grin,
“Are we going to Disneyland?”

Jacob had to settle for a Power Rangers scooter at the time, but by spring, we had saved enough for a two-day vacation to visit Disneyland and California Adventure. On the morning of our departure, Jacob buckled himself into the minivan while we were still loading – a full half-hour before we left.

When we finally arrived at the animated Valhalla, I shelled out close to $200 bucks for my family of four-plus-a-baby. “That should leave us enough cash for us to ration a hamburger for the next two days,” I cracked to my wife.

“Be nice,” she said. “Just look at Jacob skipping toward the gates.”