Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust

I try to teach my kids. I think every parent does. Teach them to face their fears and be ready for what the world has in store for them. Usually the best teaching is by example.

Drama Girl has never liked roller coasters. She can tell by looking at them that they will be too scary for her. She particularly doesn't like any ride that has big drops or can get her wet. There are a few coasters at Disneyland, but the only one she has ever consented to go on was the little one in Toontown.

Enter the cool aunt and the new uncle who joined us for a day at Disneyland. Somehow between us we talked Drama Girl into going on Splash Mountain, 50 foot drop and all. Only a huge amount of love and trust would have worked in a case like this.

For the record, Drama Girl is turning 12 next week, and most of the time I am her embarrassingly uncool mom. It's hard to be that age and have a crazy mom like me. It's hard to do things with the family when you'd rather be reading your tween magazines or shopping. Sometimes just even being with your parents is just unbearably dreadful.

So as the logs were being loaded for the ride, I stood forward and offered to sit in the front. I knew I would get wet. I knew I had one chance to make a point. So as the log reached the top of the ramp just before the plunge, I did it.

I put my hands up high in the air.

I got soaked when we hit the bottom of the flume.

I laughed. Because it was fun. And it was funny that I got so wet. We're talking all that hair that I had blow-dried to perfection in the morning, my shorts, shirt, new leather purse. Everything.

We got off the ride laughing at ourselves. Everyone turned to Drama Girl. "How did you like it?"

She looked at me and grinned. "That was great! Let's do the Matterhorn!"

From that moment forward, I started calling her coaster girl.

She lost a tooth at dinner that night. The next morning she woke up to find that Tinker Bell had left her not only a Disney dollar for her lost tooth, but an autographed picture from Ariel. She looked at it for a bit and then asked why the tooth fairy would have left it.

"Because it's Disneyland and she wanted to give you something special." [And when you slip out of the Storyteller's cafe to get a Disney dollar at the front desk of the Grand Californian hotel they go overboard and give you an autographed picture to go with it.]

She pondered this a moment and then said "I don't really need this, I'm going to give it to the first little girl I see at Disneyland who's dressed like a princess."

And she did, much to that little girl's delight.

And as we walked towards the Matterhorn (her new favorite ride) she did something I can't remember her doing for a long time -- she slipped her hand into mine. I was in heaven.

Thank you Disneyland. That's some powerful magic you've got there.