Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Jedi Training Academy: Trading Mouse Ears for Lightsabers

Mickey Mouse has delighted millions of children for generations. He and his endearing ears are iconic to Disneyland.

He is cute.

Yet for all the things Mickey Mouse represents, to my boys this beloved character is more defined by what he is not.

He is not Luke.

He is not Anakin.

He is not Darth.

He is not a guy with a lightsaber.

When we visited Disneyland last month, my boys blew past the Mickey this and the Mickey that. They poo poo'd anything with a princess on it. They pronounced the Winnie the Pooh ride as "for babies." The only other character at Disneyland to give them pause was good old Buzz Lightyear and his futuristic zapper. They love Buzz, but they love and fear Darth.

This year, in 2009, it's all about Star Wars.

My boys are obsessed. It began small, in preschool, then quickly blossomed into a full-blown obsession.

I don't fuel the obsession by showing them Star Wars or Clone Wars movies. But I do indulge them with the occasional Star Wars Lego set or Star Wars action figure...oh, and I might have shown them a You Tube video (or ten!) of children at the Disneyland Jedi Training Academy.

A Halloween Birthday at Disneyland

My twin boys will never not know that their birthday is coming. The signs will be few at first, a falling leaf, a chilly morning. Then, a dot of orange here and there, and finally, a sea of orange pumpkins and they will know. Fall is in the air, our birthday.

My boys are fall birthday boys, born in my favorite season. So what did we do to celebrate their big fifth birthday this year? We headed to Disneyland!

Looking over the Halloween at Disneyland site, I was mesmerized by the promises of a Disneyland transformed for Halloween. Disneyland is a special place when it's not a holiday, but dressed up in spookatcular style? There's nothing else like it. What a visual treat!

We'd been to Disneyland once before, in the unadorned month of May back when my boys were just three. At the time, I'd fretted over the type of stroller I should bring. This time, I'd planned to go on my twins' birthday. I'd heard that 2009 was like a twins convention at Disneyland -- but we didn't end up going on their actual birthday; it just didn't work with our schedule. The nice folks as Disneyland did treat us to a one night stay at the Grand Californian hotel and that was a gift the entire family enjoyed.

The Grand Californian made me smile from the very instant we pulled up to the front doors on a warm October Saturday. Tourists, most dressed in sunny weather attire, were bounding in and out of cars. I looked at my boys and hoped they were making a memory out of this. I love my own summer vacation in Southern California memories but mine were full of motels and neon signs, not Craftsman artistry!

In the warmly decorated lobby, my boys made themselves comfortable in front of a television showing classic Disney cartoons. They were in stitches over the classic slapstick fare of Donald Duck and Goofy - they'd never seen anything like it! It was so nice to have my boys sit still during the 15 minutes it took us to register at the front desk. A few minutes later, with our luggage stowed until our room was ready, we settled in for lunch at the hotel's Storytellers Cafe, future home to almost all our meals (let's say it was convenient and family friendly - oh, and yummy!). 

After lunch, we headed to the adjacent California Adventure Park which we told our children was really a part of Disneyland (it is, in a way...). "Where are the Pirates of the Caribbean?" they kept asking us to which we'd replied, "We don't know...let's keep walking." I suppose we could have used our tickets for two days at Disneyland rather than splitting up the parks by days but I'd wanted to take advantage of the hotel's close proximity to California Adventure and there were a couple of rides I'd really wanted to check out (Toy Story Mania, Soarin Over California, Tower of Terror). For the record, I forgot to wear the 3D glasses on Toy Story Mania until the ride was nearly over and kept wondering why puffs of air kept shooting past me. My boys didn't love Toy Story Mania and they much prefer the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland instead. Soaring Over California was amazing and exhilarating and we loved breathing in the scent of the orange groves! At night, once the kiddos were tucked into bed (a bunkbed AND a trundle bed!) at our luxurious hotel, I made my way over to the other hotel...the Tower of Terror which I LOVED, with apologies to the strangers into whose ears I SCREAMED and SCREAMED.

My boys ended their day in bubble wrap bliss. Our kind friends at Disney Resorts had sent over a fun-filled gift basket plus balloons for their birthday. My kids were thrilled to have received such a special gift! They got mouse ears and markers and autographed photos of Buzz Lightyear and Peter Pan. But imagine a big hotel bed filled from corner to corner with bubble wrap! I don't know, in my mind, that runs a pretty close second to a fun-filled day at Disneyland.

The following day was the Big Day and by that I mean, my boys both realized their recent dream of attending the Star Wars Jedi Academy. My biggest worry had been how to deal with the sibling rivalry repercussions if only one of the boys had been chosen. I'd cautioned my boys, prompting them to be prepared to be disappointed if only one or none of them had been selected but I think because we planned our outing so well, the boys did both get chosen and it was exciting for them and exciting for their parents! I'm not a Star Wars fan and everything I know about the genre is by proxy and still, I was terribly excited to see my boys become full-fledged jedis on their fifth birthday. What a gift for my 5-year-old boys!

By midday, the crowds at Disneyland were enormous, but we'd been able to already see and do so much because we'd done everything between the hours of 7am and noon, before the heat of the day, and before the groundswell of crowds. Why was it so crowded during what I'd thought was the off-season? In talking with another twin mom friend of mine who'd also battled crowds there in October, we think it's because Disney has done such a effective job of marketing a Disneyland transformed into a whimsical pumpkin patch. Indeed, what a sight it is -- if you can look beyond the crowds.

So back to the hotel we went, fleeing the heat and the throngs of people. There are three pools at the Grand Californian, all of which were easily accessible via back elevators which pretty much deposited us ten feet from our hotel room. Sweet! I'm swimsuit averse, as I have been since I was a self-conscious adolescent so I monitored my boys from the sidelines while daddy took the plunge with our boys. They tested all three pools. The first was large and inviting - and in full sun. The second was round and fully shaded and so slightly chilly. The third had a mini slide for toddlers and a longer twisty water slide for stronger swimmers. My boys did both! How better to top off a morning at Disneyland than with an afternoon at the pool? My boys were having the time of their lives. The pool supplied towels and if needed, life jackets, so we really didn't have to bring those bulky items with us.

After the pool and after a gluttonous run on the buffet at Storytellers Cafe, we pushed the limits of  exhaustion for one final evening visit to Disneyland, hoping to catch the 9pm showing of Fantasmic. But the crowds were just too immense so we didn't have the patience to stand in line for any more rides. I pined for the empty streets of Disneyland at 7am... We ended up using our single strollers that evening and just strolling about the park. By the time 8:30pm rolled around, our little birthday boys were passed out.

And with that, my children exited Disneyland in the fashion of generations of children before them, collapsed in utter exhaustion!

Thank you Disneyland and Disneyland resorts. We can't wait to go back!

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

You Checked the Tide Tables, Right?

I spent many a childhood weekend perched precariously over wet and craggy rocks, peering into tide pools. My father would wedge his fishing pole into the rocks while we played and played. My mother stayed behind in the parking lot, reading Sunset magazine in the comfort of the car (and this was way before the advent of cell phones, so I imagine she sometimes had a very long wait.) I recall going tide pooling out at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay, but it's been built up a bit since then and for the life of me, the exact spot where we used to hunt for Starfish and sea anenomes must be no longer accessible because I can't find it.

Now that I have my own children who, at nearly age five, can easily

scamper across those tide pool rocks, I've been wanting to take them to the tide pools. We have an

Usborne book called On the Seashore, which I've been reading to my children since they were barely able to walk. It introduced my boys to the concept of tide pools and then we pulled it all together with the first of many visits to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Tide pools are the perfect touchy, feely play areas that children love. Use one finger, I always cautioned and never lift an animal out of its habitat. Play gently, learn fiercely and leave it alone!

Finally, a friend mentioned that she and her husband had taken their son to the tide pools in Half Moon Bay recently and that they were thinking of going back, they'd had so much fun. We decided to tag along because, for one thing, it's always nice to follow someone who knows how to read tide pool tables what they're doing.

So last week, we set out together for Half Moon Bay by way of Lemos Farm. Low tide wasn't expected until 6pm so we pretty much had the stretch of the day to play amongst the pumpkins and ponies.

"We're going to the beach beneath the Ritz Carlton," my friend said, "then we can have the kids use the clean restrooms there afterward." She's a little OCD about the clean bathroom thing, but then again, so am I. I thought it was a winning idea!

We ended up reaching the tide pools around 4:30pm. I looked at the beautiful, tiny stretch of windswept beach. Where were the tide pools? We continued walking, waves crashing on our left, sheer cliffs on our right. I kept eyeing the surf with trepidation, crossing my fingers that they'd checked the tide pool table correctly. "Low tide is at 6pm, right?" I asked nervously. "Right," they assured me. Still, I couldn't help but look up and down those sheer cliffs, looking for a spot where we might be able to escape the pounding surf, if need be. It was kind of like knowing the location of fire exits in a hotel.

Ok, so I was a little nervous. I don't know, it's just something about the cold, hard Northern California surf that intimidates me.

Where I thought the stretch of beach ended actually continued around a bend but the frothy surf was still licking the part of the cliff that formed the bend. When the surf receded, our friends scurried to the other side, before it returned, leaving me to think that I might very well high tail it back to the safety of the car and check my email on my phone read my magazine like my mother had done.

What if they were wrong and the tide was coming IN? We'd be stranded. How would we manage to hold our boys up on that cliff all night long until help came? (Obviously, I know nothing about tide tables and yes, I'm a worry wart at times.)

We decide to follow our friends and oh my, oh my, am I ever glad I didn't give in to my fears. Suddenly, the familiar black, craggy rocks of my childhood appeared. Tide pools! Even at 4:30, the ocean revealed more than enough for us to revel in. The sky was slightly overcast. It was windbreaker weather, utterly and purely refreshing. Immediately, we got down to business hunching our backs over stranded pools of sea life. I can't believe that I'd been missing out on all of this. It had been decades since my last visit to any substantial tide pools. Decades!

We tried to teach the boys to be attentive as to where they walked. We pointed out starfish, hermit crabs, sea anemones and even somebody's lost sunglasses. I hope it won't be decades before my boys visit tide pools again. In ten years time, even, so much will change.

Original post to Mad About Multiples.

Most Enduring Toy, the Denny's D-Fusion Rocket Cup!

Denny's. I didn't want to go there. I wanted a charming breakfast nook. The Sunday paper. Piping hot coffee. Crepes. A crispy salad. That's how I prefer to settle into a lazy weekend. But there was nothing around. The best of our dining out options was Denny's, land of the Grand Slam. This was Klamath Falls, Oregon and we were on a road trip!

So we went, following my parents through the double glass doors, past the gumball machines and the lilting potted plants to the brown formica of our table. Breakfast. Besides, the whole crepe-coffee-morning paper thing was just a dream in my everyday life as well. With two exhuberent 2.5-year-old boys in my life, enjoying a leisurely breakfast out was unheard of, except perhaps when we joined all the other families with young children at the sticky tables of our local Hobees.

We probably ordered a basic Denny's breakfast of scrambled eggs and pancakes for the boys. I remember my boys had the road trip crankies, so I must've pinned my hopes on the novelty of the kids' D-Fusion Rocketship cups as a mood enhancer for my tired kids. I think I negotiated with the server to fill it up with milk rather than whatever it was this drink came filled with, probably something like a chocolate chip shake. Just get me through the meal, I begged.

We left Denny's with our new rocketship cups. And my boys played with them and played with them and played with them. At my parents' vacation home, the rockets were plunged into the jacuzzi style tub. They filled the rockets with bubbles, with water, with soap. Into the rockets went tiny plastic animals, rocks and assorted trinkets. This went on the length of our 10 day road trip.

I should have bought MORE!

Motherhood Hit the Pause Button on my Wanderlust.

People are always remarking that I take my kids everywhere. They're right, we do. My husband and I see each weekend as a opportunity to explore, but by explore, I mean we're not global explorers, we keep it local. It's more of a practical choice. When I was a grownup without kids, the ONLY thing I wanted to do was travel abroad. I dreamed about it, made plans in my mind to find a place to skip off to for a year. "We'll work as nannies in Europe somewhere," a friend with a similar case of wanderlust had suggested. "Let's do it," I'd replied. But we never did. Soon after, motherhood and marriage hit the pause button on my wanderlust.

There was a period in which I spent the bulk of my time trying to find my inner French woman. For about a year, my schedule allowed me to indulge in three French classes at the same time. I took courses at a local college, at my local Alliance Francaise and joined a book club in Woodside where we read French classics (ok, well, I stumbled through it, but I didn't care, I was poolside with my fellow francophiles, eating brie and drinking strong coffee.) When I wasn't studying all things French, I was busy making plans to visit France. My wonderful friend Claire and I would schedule time off work to go play and have early morning caffeine withdrawal feuds in France. We had friends there and when no one was looking or listening, we'd pretend we were French. I remember driving home from the Quimper factory in our little rented car, chatting away in rapid fire, cringe worthy, broken French, just the two of us, Frenchies for the drive home. In a crowded room, I can still hear a French conversation float to the top of all that noise, taunting me to chase a life I didn't have. 

Goodbye Mini-Van, Hello Lincoln MKT

For four days spanning the Labor Day weekend, I got to abandon my work horse of a mom mobile and test drive the new Lincoln MKT. I was looking forward to the Lincoln's arrival. Goodbye mini-van, hello Lincoln MKT.

By the time the car was delivered, I was already running late for a meeting. So with keys to autotopia in hand, I hopped in and then spent a record 10 minutes trying to work out how to get the darned vehicle to start. The push button start was a novel feature for me, and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed.

Then, I got hot and sweaty. The afternoon sun was blazing and there I was, an automotive illiterate, with the windows rolled up in a car that wouldn't start. My vision of a smooth sailing air-conditioned ride across town was fading fast.

It was almost like that scene out of that 1980s film, Risky Business. Worse, even. At least they were able to get the engine to start.

Finally. I noticed a friendly little suggestion flash across the in-dash screen: Step on brakes to turn on motor.

Duh! Bingo!

Vrooom...and I was off. A little late, but driving down the highway in climate controlled style.

That night, I opened the glove compartment to search for the car owner's manual. I'd wanted to give it a brief read through, so I'd be familiar with some of the car's features. I'd particularly wanted to figure out how to use the Active Park Assist, especially as we'd planned to head to San Francisco the following day. Ever try to parallel park in reverse up a San Francisco hill? In a stick shift, I could never do it. Would the automatic drive Lincoln MKT be up for it? Not sure if I was...what if auto-assist failed?

But...no manual. Uh oh. I was on my own.

The glove compartment only revealed a manual for the navigation system, nothing more. I queried my fellow Bay Area Lincoln MKT testers (@mamaspeak / review, @glennia / review , @bonggamom / review,  @citymama) on Twitter and learned I needed to push a button on the gear shift in order to activate the Active Park Assist. I totally see the need for the Active Park Assist feature because there really isn't a whole lot of rear visibility using traditional methods of glancing at rear and side mirrors and of course, the old-fashioned head turn to look behind.

Apparently, I'm no good at pushing buttons because I swear, I pushed that gear shift button and nothing happened. Not that I devoted more than a minute to the task (I had cranky kids in the car at the time), but I just couldn't get it to work.

No matter. I soon got back to enjoying the experience of driving a new-to-me car.

The following morning, our family of four set of for San Francisco, about a 45 minute drive away. My husband noticed the Michigan plates on our car and predicted we'd be mistaken for Michigan tourists <eye roll>.

San Francisco is one of my all time favorite cities, a way to see a microcosm of the world when we no longer have the time or finances for far flung adventures.

The Lincoln MKT handled the drive beautifully, gliding up scenic highway 280 and climbing up and down the city hills with minimal effort. It felt like a car commercial. The navigation system was a hit with my directionally challenged husband; while it took some getting used to for me and my innate good sense of direction (yep, stereotype reversal). But I enjoyed connecting my cell phone to the car's built-in Bluetooth, it was so much less distracting to drive that way than with an ear piece.

We stopped briefly in Pacific Heights for lunch and then headed over the Golden Gate bridge to the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Our two children occupied one space each in the second and third rows and they were in awe of the foggy view that unfolded as we opened up the Lincoln's two ample sun roofs.

Riding in the Lincoln MKT seems like a dummy proof, fail proof experience. They've got you covered. Someone in your blind spot? Small dots on the side mirrors light up. Blind spot! Blind spot! Lost in an unfamiliar city? Turn on the navigator. Backing out of the driveway? Rear view cameras show the world behind you. (Again, I suspect that this warning system is needed because visibility out the side and rear windows is obstructed by the car's headrests and exterior design.) There's just so much luxury that I feel I almost don't have to do anything for myself. Even my butt can get cooled down or warmed up with a push of a button via the handy seat warmer and cooler controls.

On Labor Day, we drove down the coast in the opposite direction, heading down to Monterey and Pacific Grove. We worked this car!

On a side note, we decided to take our newly purchased Graco backless Turboboosters out for a test ride in the Lincoln MKT as well. We've got 5-point Latch Britax Marathons in the mini-van and 5-point Latch Safeguard Go car seats in my husband's car but we needed a third set of seats for when my boys go off on playdates or ride in grandma's car. So we opted for the wallet friendly, ultra portable Graco Turboboosters for which my nearly 5-year-old twins were now height and weight qualified to use.

This is a classic example of what not do  - can we say D A N G E R O U S? (And yes, I know about car seat safety.) My boys were actually fitting into the boosters just fine...when they were awake, but lulled by the boredom of the road, they quickly fell asleep. The backless Turboboosters offered no head and body support and neither did the seats of the Lincoln MKT. Fortunately, everything turned out okay and the Turboboosters will be stored away for a while.

It was really nice to have that third row seating in the Lincoln MKT. My boys tend to fight when seated next to each other, so as we do in our mini-van, we put them in separate rows. The one disadvantage of the Lincoln's third row seats is access. You need to be a tiny person to get back there. There's no way my dad could ever get back there - it's just not physically possible. I also didn't like the center storage console (probably an optional accessory) as it made the car feel bulky inside. To access the third row seating my kids had to scamper over either the center console or the folded up second row seat. Either way, they had to STEP on something, leaving footprints or tiny scuff marks; I'd rather that they could access the very back row by being able to keep their feet on the car floor. Another disadvantage is that there is far less trunk space in the Lincoln MKT than there is in my mini-van.

Overall, we enjoyed our time with the Lincoln MKT. It's probably the maximum size I would ever opt for in a car and feels a bit more like a chunky station wagon than an SUV. It felt safe and gave a smooth ride and I was constantly entertained by the endless features available in the car. We subjected that car to our active lifestyle and it passed the test. We ate in it and spilled crumbs. We drove it near and we drove it far and some of us (see above) even slept in it. I'm not a car techie, but as an ordinary mom who needs a car for an active lifestyle, this car works.

A big thank you to the folks at Ford for making the new Lincoln MKT available for me to test drive. This was not a paid test drive and I received no compensation.

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

Safari West: Best for Older Kids

This past weekend, we joined our good friends Donn and Nora and their 4-year-old twin boys for a 20 hour visit to the Sonoma Serengeti, better known as Safari West. We'd been planning this trip (about a 2.5 hour drive from Silicon Valley) for about a year, initially deciding upon an October stay until a rainstorm panicked us into pushing out our reservation to the warmer month of May. Can you imagine four boys sloshing about a muddy campsite? Can you imagine said muddy boys then holed up in a cold tent, muddy feet jumping atop plush bedding? Neither could we.

It was quite a bit more expensive to push out our reservation. It was several hundred recession dollars more expensive to do so.

Still, we thought pushing out the reservation by 6 months would not only give us a warmer climate but also, give our 4 boys ample time to mature into well behaved 4-year-olds. Turns out, we'd exchanged a rain storm for a heat wave. Temperatures rose above 100 degrees last weekend and I very nearly succumbed to heat stroke. We didn't exactly get the well behaved 4-year-old boys we'd hoped for either. But I blame that one on the spray bottles of water distributed by Safari West to their hot and sweaty guests. And the bunk beds. 4-year-old boys and bunk beds = monkey time!