Posts from — October 2011

Josh picked out the Halloween candy this year, so I haven’t bothered to open it yet.  When I buy the Halloween candy, I get something I like (I know — totally counterproductive) and sneak pieces of it in the days leading up to Halloween.  He went with Reeses Pieces, which are fine, but not a candy I crave.  And he bought Hershey miniatures, which again are fine, but since we go to Hershey often it also doesn’t feel like an enormous treat.  If it had been up to me, I would have gone with that chocolate mix that contains Snickers (which go in the freezer), Twix, and M&Ms.

I think the biggest shame of Halloween is that you can only get individually-wrapped candies.  Everyone knows that the best candies do not come individually wrapped, with the exception of Cadbury Easter eggs (though it would probably look a little off to pass out Cadbury eggs in October).

The three best candies I’ve ever had were (1) Koppers cappuccino cordials.  There was a store where I grew up that had candies (including these cordials) in bulk along with a multitude of glass jimjicks.*  If we behaved while we were out, my mother sometimes got us a small bag of candy at the store. (But watch out! It was also a trap because if you — for instance — yanked your sister’s hair while the woman behind the counter measured your candy into one of the clear plastic bags, and said sister pushed you backwards, you could break one of the 3000 glass items in the store.  It was a minefield with candy on the other side if you could make your way around all the glass.)  I’m not even a fan of white chocolate, but these are the most insanely fantastic candies ever.

The store also sold (2) Bogdon’s Reception Candy Sticks.  I was recently in a store that also sold them, and it took all my willpower to not introduce them to the twins.  I felt like it was a responsibility thing as a parent much in the same way that I wouldn’t give my kids crack.  I do not want them to experience the same Bogdon’s Reception Candy Stick addiction that I went through.  I used to like to suck off the majority of the chocolate and then eat the stick using only my two front teeth.  See, just as attractive as a meth addict.

My last candy was (3) a tiny circular tin of mints that I picked up at Disney World when I was little.  Each mint ball was about a 1/4th the size of my pinky nail — tiny! — and matte and pastel-coloured and crunchy.  I’ve never had a better mint, and I’ve never found something like it.  The closest I got were the “refresh” mints the HTC gave out this summer at BlogHer right before the Community Keynote.  We have since finished ours, and they were a damn fine mint.  Only a shade underneath my memory of the Disney ones.

What are you passing out at your house?  What do you wish you could pass out to everyone because it is an insanely good candy?

* Back when Josh and I were dating, he said he wanted to marry me because I was the type of person who used the term “jimjick;” most often as an adjective rather than a noun (eg. “She has the most jimjicky apartment I’ve ever been in.”).  I often wonder if he still thinks it’s a good reason to marry someone.

Earlier in October, there were a spate of blog posts on Scientific American deconstructing a study that was examining estrogen levels and the desire to have children.  It also looked at facial features which were commonly thought of as “feminine” (an admittance: I really couldn’t tell the difference between the low maternal and high maternal faces in terms of femininity).  Researchers found that “higher levels of estrogen correlated with an expressed desire for more children, and higher ratings of facial femininity correlated with an expressed desire for more children. High levels of biological feminization correlate with an expressed desire for kids.”

Okay.

One of the blog posts pointed out the social factors that can’t be accounted for with this study — do women who constantly hear that they’d make a great mother want children more?  In other words, is the drive I found to do anything in order to reach parenthood more tied to a biological impulse, or was it created because I got messages about motherhood since nursery school?

Or even before that — the dolls, the “house” corner in the classroom, the sex ed classes that presented the assumption that all girls would one day be pregnant, the expectation of babysitting, the praise over my babysitting skills, the constant message I received throughout my young adult life: “you would make a great mother.”  And is it reinforced now, is that drive to continue building my family based on my experience with parenting and enjoying it, or is it that external feedback: “you’re a great mother.”  If I was constantly told that I was actually doing a crap-ass job, would I still be saying that I want three kids?

So much for free will.

Another SA blogger covered the paper, an IVFer who admits she had no maternal impulse as a child but developed it hardcore as an adult.  And I like the fears she points out: “But I worry about two things: how the media will frame the article, and how the study authors defined two of their most important variables.”  As well as her end-point: “Not wanting a baby today, or any day, does not make you less feminine. And when the media onslaught begins over these findings, we would do well to remember it.”

Which sort of brings me to my real question: what is the point of these sorts of studies?  Is it knowledge for knowledge’s sake?  An attempt to understand the world?  Can we really use these findings? (And if research isn’t applicable in the day-to-day world, is it worth funding?)  How could we use these findings: to determine who really wants kids in an IVF lottery?  To help us choose a mate?  To have a reason to give prying relatives who insinuate that we need to get started having kids?

Would you want to know your estrogen levels at all those points throughout the cycle (I only know my levels from when we were already messing with my body with stims)?  Would it make any difference?

The discussion of the study is sort of more interesting than the study itself.  The original researcher weighed in with her own blog post this week responding to their blog posts about her study (was that convoluted enough for you?)  She points out that she didn’t disregard those societal factors, but rather, discussing them in the paper would be like discussing how restaurants are constructed when trying to critique the food — of course restaurant structure plays a role in how you enjoy the meal, but if the point of an article is to examine the chef’s skills in the kitchen and discuss the food, it would be off-point to start talking about the history of the building and where the supporting walls are located.

As she says:

I could understand the objection, if we had written only about hormones in the context of a broad review paper of maternal behaviour, or a piece for popular consumption in a newspaper. But scientific research is necessarily specific. We are evolutionary psychologists working in the field of how hormones relate to behaviour; Our research question was investigating possible links between hormones and behaviour (in this case, maternal preferences); We published in the journal ‘Hormones & Behaviour’!

And she gets to the heart of the matter with her question:

I can’t help but wonder, would all these criticisms be made of a research paper looking at … hmm let’s say.. genetic variation and osteoarthritis? …  So why, when it comes to studies like ours, do scientists from other disciplines momentarily forget their scientific training and opt for emotional responses, personal anecdotes, and sweeping generalisations about a broad academic field of study?

She’s right: I would probably not have even clicked to read the whole article if it hadn’t been speaking about maternal desires, a topic that twists a little knife in my heart.  And her final point about treating maternal instincts as a spectrum vs. a normal/abnormal resonated with me.

Maybe this study gets under my skin because if there is a hormonal tie, there is a feeling of “you can run but you cannot hide” from your destiny.  And it could be the explanation for why some people are willing to try anything to reach parenthood and some people are willing to step away.  Perhaps if we knew how our hormones were coming into play with those decisions, we could also have peace of heart; a lack of guilt over our decisions.  We could explain it to others: it’s just as much part of who we are and out of our control as our brown hair or hazel eyes.  Our need to press forward with treatments, third party reproduction or adoption, or our knowledge about ourselves that it feels right to step in a different direction.

What are your thoughts?

SPECIAL PRIZE FOR THIS ICOMLEAVWE: One participant from November’s IComLeavWe will be randomly chosen to move their entry into the 6th slot on the Creme de la Creme list (getting more eyes on their post).

Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

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1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, family)
3. Bio Girl (parenting, infertility, endometriosis)
4. Here We Go Again (parenting, random)
5. Four of a Kind (parenting, secondary infertility, loss)
6. Geebaby (life, early, waiting)
7. Searching for Our Silver Lining (infertility, ivf, life)
8. Life and Love in the Petri Dish (donor egg, 6 m/cs, life)
9. Life As I Know It (twins, parenting, life)
10. The Days of Our Lives (infertility, adoption, marriage)
11. Hiding Scars in my Yarn (loss, children, crafts)
12. The Elusive Second Line (infertility, pcos, fertility doctors)
13. The 2 Week Wait (infertility pregnancy humor)
14. Where Do We Go From Here? (infertility, life, family)
15. Planet Hausfrau (crafts, cooking, kids)
16. Donor Diva: Mother via Egg Donation (egg donation, parenting, TTC #2)
17. A Miracle in the Works (preparing for IVF #1, TTC #1)
18. Someday (expecting, gratitude, home-birth)
19. Searching For the Missing Piece (waiting family, adoption, life)
20. Write Mind Open Heart (open adoption, mindfulness, perfect moments)
21. Somewhere in the Middle (infertility, DIA, waiting)
22. My Lady of the Lantern (neonatal loss, grief, pregnancy)
23. Survive and Thrive (early pregnancy, hope)
24. Endo and Beyond (food, miscarriages, trying to decide what to do next)
25. As Good As It Gets? (parenting, infertility, adoption)
26. BattleFish (ttc #1, ivf #3, life)
27. Ginger and Lime (infertility, religion, trashy TV)
28. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (domestic adoption, being adopted, life)
29. The Pursuit of Pregnancy (surrogacy, adoption, autoimmune)
30. Our New Normal (adoption, pregnancy loss, weight loss)
31. Hobbit-ish Thoughts & Ramblings (expecting #2, parenting, cooking)
32. Created Family (ttc #1, unexplained infertility, social worker)
33. Babylicious Tales (parenting, newbie, life)
34. Ambition: Motherhood (pregnant, donor sperm)
35. Journey to the Finish Line (infertility, running, everything)
36. The Perpetual Aunt (azoospermia, fertility options)
37. Becoming Parents (IVF, TTC #1, habitual aborter)
38. Wistfulgirl’s World (adoption, parent death, life)
39. Digital-Damita.net (clomid, pcos, ttc)
40. CD1 Again (infertility, family, taking a break)
41. Musings of a Hormonal Egg Basket (parenting after IVF)
42. Meier Madness (PCOS, IVF, keeping the crazy at bay)
43. Notes from the Ninth Circle (stalled, frustration, stress)
44. A Year On… Our New Beginning {hopefully} (stillbirth, secondary IF, IVF)
45. Donating Hope (egg donor SIF)
46. The Good Stuff (parenthood, crafts, life)
47. Lessons from and Infertile Social Worker (transracial open adoption)
48. Eggs In A Row (coping, PCOS, marriage)
49. An Engineer Becomes a Mom (adoption, infertility, random)
50. Searching for Serendipity (ivf, faith, randomness)
51. A Fine Mess (miscarriage, infertility, adoption)
52. Hapa Hopes (infertility, life, intercultural)
53. Donor Eggs Journey (FET, Thailand, trying 4 2nd)
54. What IF? (infertility, ivf, health)
55. Hoping for a Due Date in Good Time (IVF, endometriosis, infertility)
56. Cablearms (art, life, miscarriages)
57. Not Just An Army Wife (loss, ivf, military)
58. Detour (infertility, loss, endometriosis)
59. Holly’s Narrative Dream (infertility, life, moving forward)
60. For We Are Bound by Symmetry (TTC#1, IVF#1, clinical trial)
61. Praying for a Pregnancy (ivf, pregnancy, ivf)
62. Kate; Uncensored (life after infertility)
63. Dragondreamer’s Lair (parenting, secondary infertility, crafts)
64. TTC Baby E (ivf, pregnancy, twins)
65. Between the Paper Sheets (infertility, weight loss, marriage)
66. Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed (infertility, writing, waiting)
67. Pink Lipgloss & Prenatals (IVF, FET, infertility)
68. The Rocky Road To Motherhood (life after ivf)
69. Bodega Bliss (recovering from pregnancy loss)
70. Living Our Life In Cycles (endometriosis, IF, hope)
71. Relaxed No More (TTC, pregnancy loss, TTC)
72. Zeroguarantees (Suro twins arrived)
73. Colours of Cattiz (pregnancy after ivf, 1st trimester)
74. So This is Love (love, family, rambles)
75. The Stork Drop Zone (infertility, humor, life)
76. Chasing Our Stork: From ART to Adoption (international adoption, miracle pregnancy, faith)
77. The Cass Family (infertility, parenting, family)
78. Metholic (infertility, fostercare, humor)
79. Taking the Long Way (rpl, MTHFR, new baby)
80. Bring on the Babies… (IVF, recurrent miscarriage, immune)
81. MissConception (infant loss, TTC#1, PCOS)
82. Fox In The HenHouse (infertility, ectopic pregnancy, loss)
83. The Cornfed Feminist (pcos, iui, irony)
84. This Space For Rent (infertility, ivf, army)
85. Lil Family Blog (lesbian, family-life, adoption)
86. Waiting for Little Feet (infertility, PCOS, treatment)
87. Cinderella Wore Glass Slippers (international adoption, life)
88. Stress Free Infertility (stress-free tips, advocacy, success stories)
89. Cherish This Day (finally a family of 4, Sagittal Craniosynostosis diagnosis)
90. Marriage 2.0 (infertility, adoption wait, life)
91. Fit to Parent (adoption, waiting, preparing)
92. The misadventures of missohkay (adoption, pregnancy loss)
93. Mompreneur Mogul (blogging, parenting,humor)
94. Getting There (adoption, parenting, life)
95. Trying to Conceive (life after IVF)
96. Infertiles Laughing (adoption, infertility, humor)
97. Just Waiting for My Turn (infertility, fibroids, life)
98. Historias Secretas (pregnancy after ICSI)
99. All I Ever Wished For (if, ivf, life)
100. Scrambled Eggs (infertility, pcos, life)
101. A Second Line (baby, stillbirth, infertility)
102. Hope Delayed (infertility, ivf, life)
103. The Kay Khronicles (food, infertility, life)
104. A peek into our journey (pg with triplets, IVF #2, infertility)
105. My Life in a Nut Shell (miscarriage, healing, infertility)
106. Connecting the Dots (infertility, parenting, non-profits)
107. Carney Exploits (infertility, debt, homemaking)
108. A Woman My Age (adoption, infertility, parenting after 40)
109. 3hearts2hold1love (parenting after IF, secondary IF, life in general)
110. Plan B: DIYBaby (ivf, yoga, wellbeing)
111. Life is Simple, It’s Just Not Easy (infertility, ttc#1, post-cancer)
112. Weathering the Storm (transracial adoption, parenting, life)
113. The Well-Read Wife (books, life, kids)
114. A Freckled Life (infertility marriage life)
115. Wonderfully Ordinary (parenting, infertility, life)
116. my dusty uterus (humor, first pregnancy)
117. Our Journey (pcos, wife, mom)
118. Our Roller Coaster through IVF (infertility, life, family)
119. Biago – Baby, If All Goes Optimally (secondary infertility fet)
120. Ricecakes & Redemption (infertility, foster parenting, endometriosis)
121. The list is now closed.  The December list opens on the 1st.

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So… I got a bit of exciting news while we were down at Disney World.  My publisher is going ahead with the creation of an audiobook version of Life from Scratch.  It will be on sale this winter — around December or January.  So if you’ve ever wanted to sit in a car or Metro on your way to work and listen to Rachel and Gael having sex… this is your chance.  And no, I won’t be the one reading it.  They have a professional audiobooker (what is someone called who reads for audiobooks?) working on it.

I am pretty damn excited.  And it’s all the more reason to write this Roundup quickly and get back to finishing up the sequel.

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We’re up to 86 on the Creme de la Creme list as of writing this, and again, the posts are amazing this year.  I know I say that every year, but if every blog is like a menu, you’re going to find dishes you love and dishes that fall flat and dishes that simply aren’t to your liking.  But the Creme de la Creme is like a food fair, where every restaurant has put forth their best dish, so it’s freakin’ delicious.  It’s good writing, emotional moments, and deep ideas all boiled down into a single list where you know that every post is going to grab you somewhat, even if it’s just to marvel at the commonality of our thoughts.

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Speaking of the Creme de la Creme list, here’s your first chance to be moved into a great slot on the list.  I will be choosing one participant from the November IComLeavWe list to be moved into the 6th slot on the list (so you’re close to the top and get more eyes on your post).  I will be using the random number generator when the list closes for the month on the 21st, so there’s nothing more to do on your end except…  IComLeavWe.  It’s a win-win: commit to commenting daily on other people’s blogs for a week (and spread some love around) and possibly win a great spot on the Creme de la Creme list.

The winner will either be moved into that position if they’ve already submitted their post, or that slot will be held for them until they’re ready to choose what they want to submit.

The November IComLeavWe list opens this weekend on Saturday.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Fragmented Observation” (My Lady of the Lantern)
• “If Blogging Were Tweeting” (What the Blog?)
• “I Haven’t Done Anything to Your Bum Bullets” (Just Us and the Cat)
• “Revelation” (Built-In Birth Control)
• “Calling All Infertiles…” (The 2 Week Wait)
• “With All the Love in the World” (Mommy Wants Vodka)
• “When Blogger Friendships Become Real-Life Friends” (Bodega Bliss)
• “Pity Party” (Stumbling Gracefully)
• “Rashoman: The Ill-Fated Blogger Sleepover” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “The Fat Friend” (BigP and Me)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Too Many Fish to Fry has a post about a moment when she was the mother she needed to be, swatting away the wasps, and it’s a peek into all the times you had no idea your parents were creating a safe space for you without your knowledge.  I love this part: “Because parenting is so subtle and mysterious and confrontational and mind-numbing. Clear-cut victories are rare. And fleeting. I think all parents chase various monsters with rubber swords. The vast majority of us are incredibly fortunate that our monsters are small, relatively (hopefully) easy to slay.”  Isn’t that gorgeous?

Gemini Girl’s post about names got me thinking.  She talks about a study that looks at how our names affect our employment status, and goes on to admit to why she gave her girls slightly unusual names — names that weren’t as unusual as Apple but certainly less common than Jennifer.  She cringes at the end: “I just hope that they grow up and tell me that they do love their names and that they were happy I named them something that was a bit unconventional.  And if they don’t – well…there’s always the Social Security Office.”  Go tell her if you like your name.

Dead Cow Girl has a post about how IVF has changed her body.  It is possibly the only post you will read today that mentions balls in a vice numerous times and she means balls in an actual vice.  I love reading this point-of-view, of how infertility (and treatments) affects her sexual work.  Okay, and I loved this: “While you see the wrinkles and the dimples (the fat kind, not the sexy butt cheek ones) and the pimples and few extra pounds, most men don’t see past the naughty little knickers. You open the door wearing something naughty and all they know is that you have Intentions and that they are lucky enough to be the recipient of those Intentions. They see the perfection that is you.”  It’s hard to feel sexy during treatments; it’s good to take advice from someone who is professionally sexy.

I love Write Mind Open Heart’s follow up to her two posts about discussing adoption with her son.  And while she points out that she isn’t superhuman, I would tend to disagree.  It’s seven points of excellent advice to keep in mind about adoption discussions.

Lastly, the Stork Drop Zone has a post about surrogacy; about becoming a parent and still being infertile, and how she doesn’t know her place on the spectrum yet.  She’s not pregnant, but she’s having a baby.  But she doesn’t necessarily fit in with people still in the trenches since she’s on her way out.  She writes, “I’m not at all embarrassed that we’ve had to go an untraditional route to have our baby, but it can be very difficult emotionally. It’s hard to go register for baby gear when you’re the only mom-to-be there without a baby bump. things like that kind of make me feel like an imposter at times.”  It’s a lovely post about the offshoots of surrogacy.

The roundup to the Roundup: My book (Life from Scratch) is coming out in an audiobook version this winter.  The Creme de la Creme is trucking along (please keep helping to spread the word).  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 21st and October 28th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Thank you for indulging me in my Disney stories.  I am one of those people who love to talk Disney.  We have boiled down our travels there to a science, mostly thanks to my sister who passes along all of her tips as well.  For instance, this is the order of things when you enter the Magic Kingdom (coming, of course, at the start of the day so you can see the opening ceremony): Grab a Peter Pan Fast Pass (currently, it will also spit out a secret Philharmagic Fast Pass at the same time… shhh).  Go on Dumbo first (long lines combined with the fact that the way it snakes makes it difficult for anyone to join you in line later).  Go on It’s a Small World second.  Grab a Fast Pass to Winnie the Pooh before you use your Peter Pan Fast Pass.  Go on Peter Pan.  Go see Philharmagic with your Fast Pass.  Go on Snow White as you walk over to Winnie the Pooh.  Ride the Tea Cups if you still have a moment before Winnie the Pooh.  Bam — you’ve just done 7 rides in about an hour with minimal waiting.

After that, go to Tomorrowland.  Haunted Mansion gets less busy when everyone sits down for the parade.  Taking the non-graveyard right-side route will shave a lot of time off your wait.  When you’re in line for Pirates of the Caribbean and the line divides, take the right side.  It’s slightly shorter (and you’ll get to see the skeletons playing chess!).  If you have a Triple AAA card, you can get special seating for Wishes that is totally worth it (it’s right at the corner of Main Street and the circle, outside the ice cream shop and down a small ramp).

And we can do this for every park (though I’m best at Magic Kingdom and Epcot).  We have it mapped out — when and where to meet characters, the order of rides, where to buy food — so that we have minimal waits and can shove in as many rides as possible.  We’ve done on-property vs. off-property hotel comparisons.  Car vs. no-car comparisons.  I love talking about Disney, rubbing my cheek against other people’s travel itineraries, plotting out when our next return trip will be (poor Josh).

Maybe when I grow up, I will be a Disney vacation planner for other people.

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More fables from the land of Disney in an attempt to make my vacation stories more palatable…

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The ChickieNob didn’t want to see Turtle Talk at Epcot and insisted that it was “too scary” which sounded like bullshit to me since her favourite ride is the Haunted Mansion.  We dragged her in there anyway, and she refused to sit on the carpeted area with the other kids, choosing instead to sit in our laps while her brother took a spot in the front.  Crush came out and did his routine, and when it came time to call on kids with questions, the Wolvog was chosen.

The ChickieNob was considerate enough to begin wailing after I had finished filming her brother talking to Crush (you can hear the ramp up to her grief at the end of the video).  This wailing reached a climax accompanied by a mucousy nose and gaspy breathing once the lights came on.  The ride operator stopped by to see what the hell could upset a child this much considering her ride was a flat screen that showed a talking cartoon reptile.

We were finally able to drag the story out of the ChickieNob.  Apparently, she had been carrying around this deep well of regret since the last trip when we went to see Turtle Talk. Crush had called on her, and she choked up, too scared to ask her question.  He went on to the next child and the ChickieNob had never recovered from it, though she hadn’t shared that fact with us until now.

The ride operator told her that there was a simple solution.  She would go to his tank and talk to Crush and tell him to call on her during this next show.  The ChickieNob explained that she was too scared to sit on the carpet apart from us, so the ride operator told her that a special exception could be made and I could sit with the kids on the floor so that the ChickieNob could release this regret.

Seriously, where else do people give a shit like this about your child?

So we sat down on the floor and watched Turtle Talk again.  When it came time for questions, the ChickieNob meekly raised her hand and Crush called on her.  She asked him if a red-eared slider turtle would make a good pet.  Crush joked around with her for two minutes about turtles as pets and order was restored to the ChickieNob’s world.  She has decided that she does like Finding Nemo once again, and we have been blessed to hear the term “totally sweet” on average twenty times a day since Epcot.

People are often willing to give you what you need if you ask, and no one should live with regrets that are fixable.

*******

We were waiting in line to meet Snow White when a woman walked by with a blue dragon puppet on her shoulder.  It had a small tube leading off of it that allowed her to twist a button and make the dragon’s head move.  The ChickieNob gasped sharply and grabbed my arm: “that woman is holding a real dragon.”

The woman heard and bent down, encouraging the ChickieNob to stroke its blue fur.  She promised that it wasn’t from one of the fire-breathing species, and told her that her friend had found the dragon in the forest without any parents and now was taking care of him.  When the Wolvog returned from his Kimpossible mission (you know, just saving some stolen art work in Norway), he too stroked the dragon and asked the woman a million questions about dragoncare, all the while, the dragon’s head tilting and moving.  The woman explained that the tube was just a leash to keep the dragon from flying away.

And while meeting the real Snow White was exciting and warranted about five minutes of marveling, the ChickieNob and Wolvog couldn’t stop looking at each other at random moments throughout the day and one of them saying, “I can’t believe we met a real dragon.  We are so brave because we touched a real dragon.”

The ChickieNob has given up on wanting a clam or a red-eared slider turtle (Wait! What? We just went through that Crush trauma so she could ask that question!) and now wants to spend all of her time in the woods looking for orphaned dragons.

Let your imagination believe what it wants to believe, and you can discover amazing things.

 *******

The Wolvog’s favourite ride at Epcot has always been Spaceship Earth.  It is his fantasy ride — slow-moving, with relaxing Judy Dench’s voice telling you about the history of inventions.  Plus it has a touchscreen computer in every car.  Needless to say, we went on it probably 10 times while we were there.

He must have been there the first time we went to Disney (because I Googled it on BoingBoing that night), but this trip came right after Steve Jobs’ death, and the Wolvog’s entire seven-year-old body turned towards the animatronic Steve Jobs as we passed through his garage and he reached out his arms as if he was willing the robot to pick him up.

Each time we went on the ride, he released his goodbye a little more.  The first few times, he became silent and reverent as we passed through the garage.  By the final few Spaceship Earth runs, he was calling out his name and telling robot Steve how he too would have a computer company one day.  We couldn’t have created a better goodbye for him, and it came when we weren’t even looking for it.

There is no wrong way to mourn; grab whatever you need to get through a loss.

*******

The ChickieNob also had some fears about the characters not remembering her since her last visit.  I think it was partially a test of her imagination — were they just people in costumes or were they the real deal, since the real deal should remember someone as unforgettable as the ChickieNob — and it was partially a fear of being forgotten.

She wasn’t just nervous for the ones she had met before; she equally loved and feared the new people she met, such as Alice from Alice in Wonderland who tried to get her to speak by asking her how she was in fourteen different languages. (When I asked the ChickieNob why she didn’t say anything, she looked at me blankly and said, “she never said it in Hebrew.  If she had spoken to me in Hebrew, I would have answered her.”  Seriously, child, but she said it in ENGLISH.)

But it’s the ones who we had met before, let’s say, Pluto, were treated to a long line of questioning testing their memory in which they enthusiastically nodded through the whole thing and the ChickieNob looked at them suspiciously, as if their eager agreement of remembering meant they were guilty of forgetting.

She finally relaxed once Snow White informed her that she still remembered me from when I was two, but just hadn’t recognized me since now I was all grown-up.  We had a chat about magical aging — how magical beings don’t age in the same way as humans, therefore, they don’t always recognize us instantly since our faces look so different to them, whereas they look the same to us.

The ChickieNob then answered that she had noticed that many of the characters’ faces HAD changed since our last trip, especially the princesses who looked decidedly different from the photos at home.  Gulp.  Magical aging, dear.  It affects them too.

And that was enough to appease her.

Though it didn’t stop her from when I told Mickey Mouse that we loved him and he touched his chest, making his finger trace the shape of a heart in the air, and then pointed to us, to asking, “how do we know that Mickey really really loves us and that he doesn’t just say that to every child?”

No matter our age, we all have a need to be remembered, acknowledged, and cared about.

*******

It was a hard goodbye.  I did most of my crying in the hotel room the last few nights after the twins went to sleep and maybe lost a few tears at discreet times while waiting in line at the parks (though the crying that came at Dumbo was just because the ChickieNob went on a five minute lecture about how everyone else she knows has a younger sibling and why won’t I just have one more baby and she would help me take care of her sibling unless it cut into her doll time.  And all the while, those stork tags on the ride kept swinging back and forth in the breeze, reminding me of babies babies babies babies babies.)

But the twins did the hard cry as we walked through Cinderella’s castle on our way out of the park for the final time.  The ChickieNob kept pausing to turn around to peek at the castle as we walked towards Main Street, her grief so deep as she screamed out how much she hated school and leaving Disney and did she mention that never ever wanted to go on holiday anywhere else?

And I told her that it was time to let go of the little kid trips and start traveling around the world.  That it was time for her to be dipped into different cultures, sample the food, learn the language.  That we would be back at Disney again, but it was time to travel overseas and that was a sign of how grown-up she was.

Which made her wail, “I do not want to grow up!”

At that moment, she turned around, and lights were twinkling against Cinderella’s castle.  We had always told her those lights were fairies, so I whispered that the Princesses had heard her cry and sent out the fairies to tell her l’hitraot (see you again) one last time.  I personally have always felt much more settled with the Hebrew l’hitraot than the English goodbye.  And the ChickieNob stopped crying and agreed.  “L’hitraot,” she called out (insistent that all the Princesses know Hebrew even if Alice doesn’t).

At that moment, the twinkling lights stopped, and she was able to turn from the castle without crying and walk through the gates.

Sometimes, when you least expect it and without truly wanting things to be over, the end you need arrives.

 *******

Believe it or not, this isn’t the end of the Disney thoughts, videos, and pictures.  I promise I will stop torturing you soon, but I have a few more thoughts to unload.