To tell or not to tell; that is the question.

When it comes to vacation and small children, I’m generally in the don’t ask-don’t tell line of thinking.  Let’s say you have a trip planned to Disney in November.  Isn’t it torturous to tell your child that you’re going to see Cinderella’s castle only to realize that she’ll have to wait more than nine months to go?  When you’ve only lived 34 months, nine months is 28% of your entire life span!  That’d be like telling me that I had to wait 8 years to go on vacation!  Not cool.  So I didn’t mention the whole Mouse thing to the little folks in the house.

But then something happened.  We’d been having a particularly craptastic day when the kids and I went out to the mailbox and Lydia pulled out a golden letter (literally) telling us how excited Mickey was that we were coming to visit.  I could have played it off.  Neither of them can read, so I could have made something up. (I do that kinda often, by the way.)  But looking at those four intense little eyes, I just couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t lie to them.  So I told them that after my birthday and after Lydia’s birthday and after they start their new school…we’ll be going to Walt Disney World.  The Magic Kingdom. The Happiest Place on Earth.  And do you know what?  All the crap from the whole day was kinda flushed away and replaced by two of the Happiest Little Smiles on Earth.  And I was glad that I’d told them.

See, we used to go to Disney a lot when I was a child.  I’ve been a lot as an adult, too.  And although I always have fun when I’m there, I realized (while I was looking at my kids dancing around and singing “Cinna-wella,  Cinna-wella! We gon’ a see Cinna-wella!”) that one of the best parts of any trip is the anticipation leading up to it.

I remember laying in my bed as a child, the year that I just knew I’d be tall enough to ride Space Mountain.  I remembered the big tall, spiky building I’d seen many times before.  I got a little flutter in my tummy when I thought about how fabulous it would be.  And riding it was great.  (My first Space Mountain adventure ended in me having a bruised face…remind me to tell that story some day.)  But really, the anticipation of the ride was the best part.

And so I told them.  And (most days) I don’t regret it.  We talk about the big castle.  The Dumbo ride.  Mickey and Minnie’s houses. The “scary ghost ride that’s really not scary except at the beginning”(Carter’s name for The Haunted Mansion).  The elephants and giraffes on the safari.  Lydia doesn’t remember much from our last trip(she was only 1 and a half), but Carter does.  I love hearing him tell her about what he remembers.

And, as much as I hate to admit it, I love the question I get nearly every day:  “Are we goin’ to Cinna-wella’s today?”