Land o' Legos

We're back from an exhausting two days at Legoland and that's about as much time as I ever want to spend on canned family entertainment. But you know, the kids each had fun in their own way and Zach and I survived our first night apart, so it's all good.

The first day was just me and Luke. Now Luke and Legoland sounds like it would be a good mix, but here's the thing about Luke: He doesn't like rides, and he really only wants to buy Lego sets. So most of the first morning was spent wandering around the park with him complaining that he just wanted to go back to the main store, and me pushing him to keep checking out the park. I'm sad to say that I was starting to sound like a broken record with repeated threats to take him home if he didn't stop talking about buying a Lego set. Eventually we found a few things he liked (factory tour, building a Lego race car, looking at Miniland). I convinced him to go on about three rides total, and he didn't like any of them - and in fact he was terrified by the gentle boat ride through a fairy tale woods (because he didn't like the "Fee Fi Fo Fum" giant and the wolf popping up out of the water).

But we worked it out by the end of the day and went back to our hotel, where we settled in happily: me chilling out in the soft white sheets, and Luke at the coffee table building his new Lego set. Back when Luke and Zach were infants waking up in the middle of the night I would have this recurring fantasy about staying in a hotel room, soft white sheets and all, and blissfully drifting off to sleep without the chance of anyone waking me up. So I finally got a chance to live out my white-sheet hotel-room fantasy (five and a half years after the fact, but still...). True, Luke was asleep in the next room of the suite, but we were both so tired there was little chance of either of us waking up that night.


The next morning after pigging out on the hotel breakfast, Luke and I picked Dave and Zach up from the train station and we all headed back to Legoland. The second day was actually better because we convinced Luke to go on a few rides, Luke got to show Dave what he liked the most, and Zach had an absolute blast. Zach measured just a hair over the 36-inch minimum for most rides, so he was able to do roller coasters, etc.

At the very end, Luke fell in love with a ball attraction where you shoot soft balls at other kids with cannons... and right across the way there was an airplane ride that made Zach giddy with excitement. So we spent the last hour or so letting them indulge themselves shooting and flying, and all of those things that you generally get in trouble for if you do inside the house.

Side note: On our trip back East, we actually forgot to bring a stroller with us, so we never had one the whole time, and we didn't bother bringing it to Legoland either. Zach is mostly happy to hoof it on his own and the only time he really needs to be carried is when he has to be dragged away from something. Which happens. I mean, really. He's two.

Side note to the side note: The other morning I took a shower, and Zach got all geared up looking at running water and decided to take a bath. My exact words were something like, "I'm packing, sweetie, I can't give you a bath right now." So Zach, being the literalist that he is, nonchalantly took off his diaper, climbed into the tub, turned on the water and adjusted the temperature, put the stopper in the drain, and proceeded to take his own bath. I think he's trying to tell me something, but I'm not sure exactly what it means.