Magic

It's true what they say, Walt Disney World is magical.

I can (sort of) remember the first time I went to Disney World when I was four and can really remember all the subsequent trips, so I was very excited to take Cian for the first time. We went on my birthday and it definitely started off the last year of my 20's with a bang! We were only in Orlando for a few days so we decided just to go to the Magic Kingdom. (The other days reserved for Harry Potter and visiting friends).
For anyone who is planning a trip to WDW, I would highly recommend going the week after Labor Day. Our longest wait was about 30 minutes--which was awesome. We didn't even have to fast pass anything. When you get to the Magic Kingdom you have to park a mile away from the park and ride the monorail or the ferry. We were able to get on the front of the ferry so Cian could see as we approached Cinderella's castle!
It seems the natural progression to start with Tomorrowland and work your way back around to Main Street for the light parade and fireworks. (I think this is how I have done it every time and we had a mere ten hours to do this). It goes like this; Tomorrowland, Toontown, Fantasyland, Liberty Squqare, Frontierland, and Adventureland. The park is great because there are so many rides that Cian can actually ride on. The only ones he really can't ride are the "Mountains": Space, Splash and Thunder. They have kid swap for those rides where you can wait in line together and then take turns holding the little one while one parent rides. Then you get to go right onto the ride without waiting in line! This worked out especially well for Ryan (Steve's cousin) and Rob (Steve's brother) because they were able to ride multiple times on the rides. It was cool having them there as well because Steve and I could ride together sometimes. Cian really liked all the rides and when we rode Dumbo I took him all the way up and asked him if he wanted to stay up or go down and he said up! I think now our family is two against one, two WDW lovers and one bah humbug.

Maybe in this case a picture is worth a thousand words so without further adieu...

At the hotel before leaving for the parkRiding on the speedway. I think I can actually run faster than this ride goes...
Teacups!!
Too bad Ryan and Robs teacup couldn't spin like ours..
Dumbo. I think I look more excited than Cian does
Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me
Arrghhh
Steve and Cian on the Alladin ride

As it started to get dark we headed back to Main Street for Wishes, the fireworks display. On the way we stopped to get candy and a birthday fudge covered Oreo. Because we were late the street was really crowded so we had to head back to almost the end of the street where we stopped to watch the show. Well, apparently we stood in front of the wrong lady. I should start by saying that there was definitely something slightly off about this woman. Unbeknownst to me she had asked the boys to move because we were standing right in front of her. This would seem a logical thing to ask if there were not a thousand people standing between us and the castle. 999 of these people were in front of us. Since nobody moved she came and stood directly in front of me. I mean inside my territorial bubble, mere inches from my face. Well unlike normal Becca fashion I didn't say anything smart to her, I just said, "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you ask us to move." She turned around and told me she has been standing in the spot for three hours. THREE HOURS. This spot was not the creme de la creme, it was at the end of the street--far away from the castle and with a tree obstructing our view of the fireworks! This poor lady proceeded to walk around and complain to everyone around her, who were all trying to watch the show, about how we came and stood in front of her. There was one man videotaping the fireworks and unfortunately his video will have her complaints overpowering When you Wish Upon a Star. When the show was over we hightailed it out of there in case she called the mouse police on us.

We walked from there back to Frontierland to watch the light parade.

I always said I would never buy one of those leashed that keeps your child connected to you. Never, those were horrible. Well that was before I had a 22 month old and we decided to bring him to an amusement park. We went to three different places to find one that wasn't a backpack. It turns out he hated it and tried to take it off the entire time he was wearing it. I think the backpack would have been better. For the record, I did get looks like I used to give that said "that poor child is on a leash." Too bad they don't know that this child would be off and running screaming see ya suckers" at the first chance he had. This is what we used to keep Cian with us...

When we found a spot to watch the parade Cian and I went to stand right next to the street while the boys sat back on a bench. We sat next to a family with a boy around 8 and a girl around 11. Cian immediately wanted to hang out with them. He was running around them and giving them five. He liked the brother more than the sister, I think he suspected she had cooties. He was eventually running around and giving the brother hugs and then wanted to sit in his lap. The poor kid didn't want to tell him no but learned that he was glad he didn't have a little brother.

Once the parade started Cian was all oohs and whoas. He kept yelling, "Whoa, who dat?" and Whoa, wha dat?" as the new floats would come. He sat in my lap almost the entire time and just watched as the floats and characters rode by.

It was so awesome to see Cian so excited and it really brought back the magic of Disney to see him experience it for the first time. I can't wait to take him back and take our next kid for the first time!