Castle View

After checking into our hotel on Sunday morning we headed directly over to Disney's Hollywood Studies to catch the Block Party Bash. As we waited in line to have our diaper bag checked by security, I overheard a middle-aged dude in the next queue talking to his wife.

"Why would you take your baby to Disney World? I just don't get it. I mean, they-" then I caught his eye and he turned away; I couldn't hear the rest.

If only he could have followed us around for a while, he would have seen this:

and this:

and this:

not to mention, this:


At dinner on the way home tonight, at a Mexican restaurant in rural Illinois, we were talking about the highlights of our trip. Ada was pontificating (in her one-year-old way) about the Dumbo ride and its similar cousin, The Magic Carpets of Aladdin, a subject about which she is particularly emphatic.

"Dumbo was your favorite, wasn't it?" Paul asked her.

"No!" she replied, surprising both Paul and me. "The Castle!"

And it's true that she's talked a lot about Cinderella's Castle. Every morning, she'd run to our hotel room window and look outside, saying, "Castle! Castle!" She repeated the process every evening, making sure that we each appreciated the spectacular view.

"Ellie. Ellie. Ellie! ELLIE! Castle!"

Tonight, she looked out the darkening window of La Tequila in Marion, Illinois, across the tiny parking lot to the white-painted cinder block wall of a Sherwin Williams paint store, and said, a little morosely, "No see it."

It begs the question, given the means and inclination (two very big factors indeed) why wouldn't you take your baby to Walt Disney World?