Part II

So, Monday. We went back to EuroDisney, since we needed to bring our passports to get our annual passes finalized, and we had a free day, and it's fun. The trip out went fine, and since the park is pretty empty on Mondays we got to do lots--Jonathan got to go on his Indiana Jones roller coaster, we took Tris on most of the Fantasyland rides, we walked through the Nautilus replica, whose giant squid attack is Jonathan's new favorite feature...Tristram's favorite ride is the circus train. It goes a lot faster than the Anaheim one, so he looked at me to see if it was okay or if he should be worried, and since I was happy he broke into a huge grin that didn't leave his face till the end. I guess it was a roller coaster by baby standards. And the Snow White ride here has a conclusion, instead of just ending with the Queen struck by lightning and Snow White still poisoned and no prince in sight. Nice touch.

We discovered, though, that learning to walk seems to have been the turning point marking the end of his cheerful willingness to just go along with whatever we're doing. Our one lingering concern about the stroller is that it makes him too passive--he just sits there looking instead of really interacting--and apparently he agrees. He flat-out refused to sit in it at a couple of points, and was furious that we wouldn't let him walk and crawl all over the ground. Next time I think he will need to wear his real shoes. And we'll need to schedule walking time about once an hour to keep him content. Overall, though, he was still pretty amazingly good, especially considering that by Monday morning he had a tooth so close to coming through that you can actually see the white through the last covering layers of gum.

His new refusal to just be packed/rolled along makes me wonder--what is the official definition of a toddler? Is it whenever they start to toddle, or is there a specific age? Tristram now acts more like a toddler, and I think we have hit the toddler stage of difficulty taking him places. He's able to do just enough to keep him from being content.

Perhaps we should have been forewarned about the ordeal to come by our lunchtime adventure. I got in a line with 5 people ahead of me, and it took 45 minutes to get my food. Five different employees had to come to figure out how to use some coupon someone ahead of me had--apparently Monday is trainee day. I, and the other English speakers in line, were getting more and more infuriated by the minutes, but the French customers didn't seem to mind. I think they are used to lower standards of customer service. It was one of those times when you're caught between rage at the incompetence of the guy working the register and pity for him, because he can see the line backing up farther and farther with angrier and angrier people, but there's not a thing he can do to make himself any more competent to handle the problem.

Other than the world's slowest lunch line, the only black spot on the day was the mother who pointed to Tristram to tell her son (probably about 4 years old), "Look, he's just a little baby and HE's not crying! Why are YOU crying? Are you weaker than a little baby?" Publicly shaming your small child, especially for crying when he falls down and gets hurt (I think that's what happened), is not what I would call good parenting. Neither is refusing him the right to his emotions, and neither is being a sexist pig and teaching your son to be one too. Now, I must admit that she at least wasn't doing her child physical harm like the pregnant smoker we saw last time. But it upset me even more, and I think it's because she appropriated MY child to use in mistreating her own and furthering her nefarious goal of promoting sexism. Is that really any different from pointing out my child as an example to use in telling her kid to be racist, or anti-semitic, or any other evil position of prejudice? If you're a bigot, then fine, you're a bigot; if you're an unfit parent, then fine, you're an unfit parent, but leave my kid out of it!

So overall, a very fun day, though the next trip will require more careful planning to manage the baby/toddler/whatever you're supposed to call him at this stage. We have found the best day to go, we will provision ourselves with shoes and more food, and we will take him on the train ride to happy him up if walking around some doesn't keep him content.