Disney On Ice

Last Friday morning, we had the amazing opportunity to go see "Disney On Ice" (thanks to Chrissy -- you ROCK!). It was all very spontaneous (which you know makes things that much more exciting of course), but none of us knew we were getting to go until Friday morning, and then I didn't check my voicemail from Chrissy until way after she called... so needless to say, we were late. 30 minutes late. And we felt horrible when we found out that Chrissy and her whole group had waited for us to get there before they went in and sat down (truly a good friend).

We arrived right at the end of 'The Little Mermaid'. I was a little bummed that we missed that, because of course it would've been beautiful. Next on was the 'The Lion King', followed by appearances from Micky, Minnie, and the gang, then an Intermission. Even though my kids have never seen 'The Lion King', they were just enchanted by it. They all danced to the songs with huge open-mounthed grins on their faces, and pointed out the animals as they stampeded past. This 'Disney On Ice' was supposed to feature four main acts: the ones I mentioned above, 'Tinkerbell' and 'Cars'. Naturally, I assumed that since we saw two acts in the first half, that there would be two acts in the second half as well (good spacing right?). My concern was, of course, that we missed what would've been the highlight of my son's childhood -- 'Cars'. No one we were with knew if it was in the first half of the show, because they were waiting on our slow you-know-whats. After Intermission, came 'Tickerbell', which my kids recognized because they have the movie, and Ari was especially in awe with all the girly gorgeousness of the fairies in Pixie Hollow. Mickey, Minnie, Donald, and Goofy came out one last time, and that was the end of the show. We missed 'Cars'. All the kids had an awesome time, and they were none the wiser that 'Cars' had been there... but I was, and I couldn't shake my guilt over this for the last few days.
I don't know why it affected me this much. I have been trying to rationalize it and then just get over it, but I really couldn't shake it. I felt like crying every time I thought of Gabe having the opportunity to watch his heroes race around on the ice just feet in front of him... and then me blowing it by not having my phone right by me to answer it as soon as we got the call. That thought and how I forgot to charge my camera battery, so I have no pictures of my kids' happiness. I thought about taking him back to see Lightning McQueen all weekend long, just the two of us, so I could see his little face light up in astonishment. But the weekend got away from us, and the tour has moved on. Yesterday, I realized that I really needed to do something so I could stop letting this make me feel like a failure as a mom. And that's when I found it. Thank you YOUTUBE!

I plunked little Gabriel on my lap, and we watched this (series of 3 youtube segments) three times. Gabe's eyes lit up when he first saw Mater, and when Lightning McQueen came out, he started softly cheering and clapping. I could feel my mom-guilt dissolving, as he beamed at the computer screen. We showed Ari and Bella the videos too, but they didn't have quite the same reaction.

Yesterday, at breakfast he said, "Mommy, I wanna go see Disney on ice skates."

I replied, "What was your favorite part of the show?"

To which his response was, "Um, Lighting McQueen... and Mater... and Ramone... and Sally... and".

Redeption at last :).