Tragic Sandwich

Category: Family and Friends

  • Will Disneyland Be the Happiest Place on Earth for Baguette?

    A through E

    A lot of Baguette’s peers have been to Disneyland–many of them, more than once. My parents first took me when I was four, and we had annual trips until we left California a couple of years later. I’ve been a handful of times since, as a teen and as an adult (most recently with Mr. Sandwich and one of my college friends, about seven years ago), and it continues to be an amazing experience.

    Baguette is four, and we have no plans to take her to Disneyland. It’s not that we have any objection to Disneyland. It’s more that we’re not even remotely sure that she’ll like it.

    She’s just started to discover Disney movies, and she’s really only interested in Frozen. While she does know Mickey and Minnie, I’m not sure she sees them as anything more than two of her (many) plushes.

    Disneyland is crowded. It has innumerable lines. While there is a program to accommodate people with physical disabilities and special needs, I haven’t yet figured out how it works, and it still sounds as if there is a lot of line-standing and coordination required to navigate the program and the park.

    Will Baguette like any of the rides? Will she be okay with having a lap bar that holds her in place? Will flying on the Dumbo ride completely terrify her? Will Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride be a little too wild? Will Snow White’s Scary Adventure give her nightmares that she can’t tell us about? After all, this is a kid who won’t even ride one of the moving animals on a carousel.

    Also? Disneyland is freaking expensive. $96 each for Mr. Sandwich and me, and $90 for Baguette. That’s $282, and we haven’t parked. Or eaten. Or bought a single souvenir. $282 and a drive that isn’t short, for a day she may find frustrating and frightening.

    We’ll wait. Disneyland isn’t going anywhere. Plus, that gives us time to save up for it. Because entry will probably be $500 for the three of us by the time we’re confident about her readiness.

    Photo by Andy Castro, via Flickr. Creative Commons.

  • Friday Five: September 5, 2014

    Things that come to mind:

    1) We took a trip to visit cousins over Labor Day weekend, and had a wonderful time. I grew up across the country from much of my family, and didn’t know what I was missing. Fortunately–and thanks in large part to Facebook–I’ve gotten to know quite a few of my cousins now that we’re adults. But I want Baguette to just not miss it to begin with.

    2) Someday all too soon, Baguette is going to stop singing “Wet It Go,” and I’m going to miss it So Much. Just as I will miss it when she no longer says, “Want get wemon” at the grocery store.

    3) I wonder how many times I can re-read Cryptonomicon. So far, the answer is “a great many times.”

    4) It is becoming clear that we are about to enter a Winnie the Pooh phase. And because it’s the question everyone asks next, I mean Disney Pooh, not Classic Pooh.

    5) Mr. Sandwich’s hugs are like being wrapped in a hug. That sounds like it is circular and self-evident, but in fact it is just the best.

    5

  • Rediscovering Disney

    We’ve started showing Baguette some other Disney movies, both to broaden her exposure and to save our sanity. Last night’s movie was “Cinderella.” I’d forgotten how sidekick-heavy that movie is.

    Tonight’s movie? “Sleeping Beauty.”

    Here’s what I noticed (beside the fact that Briar Rose looks really alarmed in that thumbnail):

    • This movie is not so sidekick-heavy, but there sure is a lot of narration.
    • Maleficent’s horns are much shorter in this movie.
    • I wish more forests looked like this. I’d be much more enthusiastic about forests if they did.
    • Samson is clearly the prototype for the horses from Tangled and Frozen. Samson is the Ur-Horse.
    • Even with magic, that cake still isn’t baked.
    • Briar Rose has a really nice bed for a peasant girl.
    • “Now, now, Father, you’re living in the past. This is the fourteenth century.” is still my favorite line from a Disney movie. But you know what that means:
    • Plague’s coming!
    • There really aren’t that many songs in this movie, are there?
    • Maleficent shows Prince Philip the vision of Aurora and refers to her as the “peasant girl who won the heart of our prince just yesterday.” But I’m pretty sure it was this morning. Maleficent has no sense of time.
    • Also, if Maleficent is so powerful, why isn’t her castle in better shape?
    • “O Sword of Truth, fly swift and sure, that evil die and good endure” is the incantation I’m going to use if I ever have to combat evil. Combat it with a sword, I mean.
    • I am absolutely sure that Aurora’s dress originally was blue when the movie ended, and that the final change to pink is a result of Disney Princess-ification, because Cinderella’s dress is blue. I don’t like that.

  • On Gifts

    birthday presents

    Baguette loves gifts, and she gets a lot of them. Mr. Sandwich and I are constantly buying her books, and she had grandparents on both sides who are always on the lookout for toys and games that will capture her interest.

    What we’ve learned, though, is that giving Baguette something, and having her get it–well, those are two different things, and they happen in very different time frames.

    For her birthday, in April, one pair of grandparents gave her a Monsters University Scare Factory and a Rescue City Center set. She started playing with it last week. This is August.

    This week, four new Wibbly Pig books arrived in the mail. I suspect it will take us several weeks to get all of them into rotation, and Baguette loves Wibbly Pig.

    We’ve seen this before, and we expect it. Baguette needs time to warm up to toys and books. She needs to decide how she wants to play with them. We’ve tried showing her, and it just doesn’t seem to work–but eventually she’ll figure it out and incorporate it into her play.

    And while she’ll lose interest in a particular toy, the odds are pretty good that she’ll come back to it, months or a year later. You never know when that set of stacking rings is going to re-emerge.

    I also understand, though, that as a gift-giver, people want a reaction. They want to see that they did actually pick the right gift, that they’ve brought happiness to the recipient. It’s hard to give something and feel like it didn’t even register. (We do have her say “Thank you,” but some enthusiasm is usually nice.)

    Every once in a while, though, that magic moment happens. When Baguette was two and a half, we had a playdate. The other little girl had a Rockin’ Elmo that Baguette just loved. So I told my dad about it, and he bought it for her as a Christmas gift. And when she unwrapped it, and it started to sing and move, she was in raptures–delighted shrieks, beaming smiles, the works.

    We got to see it again last weekend, at Mr. Sandwich’s 25-year high school reunion. It was at a restaurant, so we got a table and ate dinner there. That gave Baguette time to settle into the space and enjoy herself. Then we went out on the patio and mingled with the rest of the alumni.

    One of his classmates, having heard about Baguette’s love of “Frozen,” brought her a set of character finger puppets. Baguette lit up and gave dazzling smiles. She even stopped eating her Pirates’ Booty for a moment (and let me tell you, it is hard to get her to respond to anything when she is eating).

    And those finger puppets? On a nightly basis, in tiny, high-pitched voices, they act out this exchange from “In Summer”:

    Kristoff: I’m gonna tell him.
    Anna: Don’t you dare!

  • Friday Five: August 15, 2014

    Five things from the past week:

    1) I am so relieved that someone came up with a better method of handling the situation in Ferguson. Who would have imagined that treating people like people could work? But is there still a no-fly zone over the region?

    2) We went to Mr. Sandwich’s class reunion this weekend, and one of his friends brought Baguette a set of Frozen finger puppets. She loved them immediately, and showed it, and now I need to write a post about Baguette and gifts.

    3) Last night Baguette had a night terror. Or a nightmare. Or she instantaneously developed a fear of the dark. We’re not really sure what happened, but all of a sudden she started crying and would not calm down unless the light was on.

    4) I am so tired.

    5) I have a lot of trouble figuring out what to eat. I do not know what’s going on there.

    five

  • SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM

    I’ve gotten nearly 200 spam comments in two days. I get them from time to time, but this flood is new.

    I’ve closed comments on older posts, but they’ve moved to pages. And I’ve long since arranged my settings so that new commenters have to have their remarks approved–but sorting through the spam for actual comments to approve is a nuisance, and takes time I don’t really have.

    So while I don’t particularly want to add captcha to my site, I’m wondering if that might not be the way to go.

    What say you, actual commenters? Would that keep you from commenting? Because I want you to. I just don’t want to have to find your comments among the onslaught of nonsense.


    And in the meantime, here’s a more . . . er . . . loving look at SPAM.

  • Music to My Ears

    Baguette has a phenomenal memory, and she remembers songs and TV episodes and books with no trouble at all. One day she’ll suddenly recite part of a Sesame Street episode that she hasn’t seen in months, and act it out with character dolls.

    Just recently–and I mean just in the last two weeks, she’s gone beyond reciting, and has started singing. For the most part, she’s been singing the songs from one of her apps. But last night, as we were playing in the front yard, I heard her sing “Let it go, let it go.”

    We’re late to the Frozen party. All of her classmates were completely immersed in it for months, and she showed no interest. We bought the DVD, and she paid not the slightest attention (Mr. Sandwich and I both enjoyed it, although we’d rate Tangled higher in a number of ways).

    But last night, she started singing. And when I joined in, she snapped her head around with a smile. So after her bath, I pulled up the video on my laptop, and she stopped asking for her iPad and sprinted across the room to watch it with me. Twice.

    I know the rest of the world either still loves this song, or is sick to death of it. And I get that. But you know how your kid does really irritating things, like ask “Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?” Ours doesn’t.

    She can sing, though. And I don’t want her to stop.

  • Summer in Santa Barbara

    I wish we could spend the whole summer in Santa Barbara, but I really can’t complain about having a week there. While Kauai is our top vacation spot, it’s a little out of our reach right now. Three plane tickets are expensive, and Mr. Sandwich and I agree that Baguette is not yet ready for the flight experience.

    Fortunately, Santa Barbara is only about an hour and 15 minutes away by car (if traffic isn’t bad, which it often is). So for the last four summers, we’ve gone to Santa Barbara for our vacation. We prefer to rent a condo or other place to stay, and have had mixed success with that based on budget and timing (year 1–Motel 6; year 2–studio which I mistakenly thought had a kitchen; year 3–Homewood Suites in Oxnard, which was further away but a terrific place to stay; year 4–cottage behind the owner’s house, and dingdingding I think we have a winner).

    As on prior visits, we went to the Santa Barbara Zoo (three times), destroyed sandcastles and splashed at Leadbetter Beach (twice), visited the ducks and the elaborate playscape at Alice Keck Park and the adjacent Alameda Plaza, and drove out to Ballard to see Sicilian donkeys at Seein’ Spots Farm.

    Elephants

    DCIM113SPORT

    Ducks

    Playground1

    Playground2

    Donkey

    Because we had a kitchen, we ate breakfast in the cottage most days. While I like to go out to breakfast, I don’t like to have to go out to breakfast. We did get pancakes once at Garret’s Old Fashion, which is becoming a must-do on our Santa Barbara trips, but most mornings I was really happy with my toast and sunflower seed butter accompanied by yogurt and berries.

    We did tend to eat lunch and dinner out, although even then we brought home leftovers that covered a few more meals. The standout new-to-us place was Eureka! In addition to excellent burgers, they had an array of beers and whiskeys.

    By the way, in the past we’ve looked for bookstores in Santa Barbara. Apparently my previous Google searches failed miserably, because it turns out that there’s been an amazing one in our go-to neighborhood the whole time. It’s an independent store, and it’s got a children’s section that is large enough to be a separate children’s bookstore. So if you’re ever in Santa Barbara, stop by Chaucer’s Bookstore. You won’t be sorry.

    Chaucer's Bookstore in Santa Barbara

    And of course, we also paid a visit to McConnell’s.

    McConnels

    In the end, Baguette didn’t want to leave Santa Barbara–and, truth be told, neither did we.

  • Quite the Treat for Father’s Day

    Disclosure: I received free credits from Treat.com in exchange for writing about my experience.
    All views expressed are my own.

    If you’re like me, you always remember to buy greeting cards for special occasions–just as you’re driving away from the store. Fortunately, there’s an alternative that you can count on no matter where you are.

    Treat.com is an online greeting card company that allows you to create customized cards for any occasion, either on their website or through their app. Father’s Day? Check. Graduation? Check. Get well? Check. Blank cards? Again with the check.

    Additionally, Treat is a subsidiary of photo storage and sharing site Shutterfly.com. That means that if (like me) you already use Shutterfly, you can use photos from that account in your Treat cards–but you can also use photos from social sites like Facebook and Picasa, as well as uploading them from your computer, tablet, or phone.

    As it turns out, I used Treat’s website to order Mr. Sandwich’s 2011 Father’s Day card–although I’d forgotten where I’d created it, I still remember and love that card. So this year, I decided to use the app on my iPad.

    My experience? Very good. It was easy to add the photo I wanted, and much of the suggested text on the interior was also customizable–which meant that I could include the message of my choice. It was harder to choose a design, because there really are a lot of options. The Treat app has a features wheel that actually makes it fun to sort by different parameters, so you can choose to look only at, say, birthday cards that have a photo on the front and include a heartfelt message.

    I decided to go with another Father’s Day card, importing a photo and selecting a design. Here’s what I came up with:

    Treat.com greeting card for Father's Day

    And on the inside?

    Treat.com greeting card for Father's Day - interior

    You can also include a gift card, if you’re so inclined. And to save you from forgetting to go to the post office, Treat.com will also mail your card directly to the recipient!

    I realized that, true to form, I had forgotten to buy a card for the snarkiest of my many younger cousins graduating this spring. Treat.com solved that problem, too:

    Treat.com greeting card for graduation

    (There’s a photo in the interior of that one, but I don’t have permission to share it. So you’ll have to make do with the outside.)

    Treat also offers a pre-order bulk discount and same-day digital cards, as well as photo gift options such as smartphone cases, mugs, and canvas prints.

    My only caveat is that the app is technically an iPhone app, so I needed to hold my iPad in portrait orientation–which was awkward, because it’s in a keyboard case that doesn’t allow for that. This meant that I had to keep turning the iPad to make sure that what I was typing showed up the way I meant it to. But the app was easy to use overall, so I’ll be relying on Treat.com in the future.

    I was not compensated for this post, however I did receive a sample for my review. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

  • Things I’ve Noticed

    • It’s not a doll baby party until all the doll babies are naked.
    • Baguette’s giggle is the most beautiful sound in the world.
    • When we went to our first appointment with the developmental pediatrician, I realized where they keep all the fancy restaurants.
    • A four-year-old of average height looks really tall to me.