May 20, 2005
Toddler Nirvana
filed under: Dadditudes
And there you have it - probably the highlight of my son's not-quite-two-years of existence.
2 weeks ago we went with my brother and sister-in-law and his step-grand-daughter (it's all very confusing, and that's not even getting into the fact that he's actually my half-brother, making little Mia my half-step-great-niece or some incomprehensible crap like that) to Sesame Place.
Sesame Place turns out to be a little gem of a theme park, even when it's cold and rainy and the water park part (which is most of it) isn't open yet. It's a wonderland for toddlers, many of whom - Max included - spend the whole visit in a daze of ecstasy at seeing their favorite tv show come to life.
We were there for the grand opening/season preview/kickoff to the 25th anniversary celebrations (it turns out Sesame Place and I were both born on May 7 - who knew!), complete with a red-carpet arrival for all the big headed characters, which finally tore Max away from the express ticket kiosks he had been running laps around for 20 minutes:
(click on pix for full size)
We got snubbed by Elmo, which almost caused an insurrection as Max writhed to get free from my arms and chase him down, but Ernie stopped by to press the flesh:
More pix after the jump...
We finally tracked down everykid's favorite furry red menace, at the "Take A Picture With..." booth.
[A quick tip of the hat to Sesame Place - they let you take pictures with your own camera while their photog snaps away, so you're not stuck buying their prints (which aren't that outrageously priced anyway) if you don't want to. It's a classy, classy touch - and, perversely, probably why we went ahead and bought the official prints from them.]
Here's my shot of Max going for the takedown:
Lisa pretended to nobly volunteer to accompany Mia on the amazing system of net tubes and ramps and treehouses they have set up:
In reality, if Mia hadn't been there, Lisa would have probably gone alone, and would've had to spend the whole time elaborately pretending to follow some child who had just gone out of sight. On her re-emergence, Lisa declared it "seriously the most fun I've had in years" which I took a little personally.
We took Max on the "balloon ride," which is like a teacup ride that goes 30 feet in the air. In the following triptych, Max is (1) freaked out by being strapped in, (2) freaked out by Mommy freaking out at him, and (3) totally blase about the whole thing by the time it was over:
Max then, expensively, fell in love with the toss-a-wiffle-ball game. Here he is, winding up for another $5 pitch:
He looks all impressive, like he's really going to get some distance, right? Yeah, no. He spent 20 minutes throwing wiffle balls no more than six inches in front of us, straight at the ground. Eventually he let me help, and we won a strange embryonic lopsided stuffed cow, which Lisa immediately christened "Loppy":
Notice the professional cheerfulness of the Game Girl, despite having spent the last 20 minutes stooped over picking up Max's earlier attempts. Well done, Miss.
Eventually, well merch'ed, ride'd, painted and fed, Mia and Max were starting to show the surly signs of their three hour bender of delight:
Despite the overload, I think it's fair to say a good time was had by all. Well done, Anheuser Busch!
Posted by rjt at May 20, 2005 03:30 PM