There are certain moments from childhood that I look back on fondly, and somewhat wistfully. Rarely have I experienced the feeling from those moments as I felt them as a child. There are some things that seem lost in time in that way. But last night, something I thought was lost in time was found again.
I lived in L.A. growing up. Going to Disneyland wasn’t a frequent thing, but we probably went once a year or so, probably a little more as we grew older. One thing that stands out in my mind was one of the first times we went to Disneyland after moving out to L.A. Somehow, my brother and I had acquired a wall map of Disneyland. We would pour over that map, admittedly, me more than my brother. And then, at night, after we went to bed, we would plan out our visit in our imaginations, talking back and forth about which rides we wanted to ride, and in what order we should ride them. In hindsight, those late night conversations with my brother were often more fun than the actual trip to the park.
Last night, the Little Miss wasn’t tired when it was time for her to go to bed. So she came into our bed. The lights went out to 9 pm, and Kelly was asleep almost at once, but the Little Miss still had energy. So we started talking in whispers. She asked me how long before we went to Disney World.
“Three and a half weeks,” I whispered.
I then started reminding her of the some of the rides that they had. She’d been there once before, when she was about 17 months old. I told her about the carrossel and she got very excited.
“What other rides can we go on Daddy?” she asked.
I told her about Dumbo, and then Tea Cups, and Peter Pan’s Flight, and the Arial ride, and It’s a Small World After All. This went on for more than 40 minutes, back and forth, back and forth, all in hushed whispers. She seemed delighted by it all. And as she finally grew sleepy, and only muttered, “What other rides can we go on, Daddy?” as her eyelids flickered, I realized that I had just had as much fun with my daughter as I had with my brother when we much younger.
I slept pretty good last night.
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Awhhhh. I remember doing that the night before we went to Disneyland waaaay back in the late 60’s. We planned out how we would use all of our tickets all the way down to the A’s! You’re right, planning it was as fun as actually going there!