The best laid plans still don’t stand a chance against a cranky toddler!
Cranky may not even be the right word … it’s just surprising how last fall when we took one year-old Christopher to see The Peanuts Movie, he absolutely loved every minute of it and was pretty much glued to his seat from start to finish, and yet today when we tried to watch Finding Dory … well, not so much. 🙁
Maybe it was because this time we decided to try out the AMC Dine-In Theater at Disney Springs with him, which admittedly isn’t as well suited for a kid of his size. Or maybe it was simply because he had spent way too much time in his car seat and stroller today and needed a chance to run around that your traditional movie theater just doesn’t warrant. Or who knows – maybe it was just an off day and we should leave it at that…
Granted, the dinner and a movie element of Father’s Day didn’t exactly go off without a hitch, though partially to blame is AMC for apparently taking what used to be an absolutely awesome dining menu and chopping it in half with a chainsaw, thus leaving behind a frankly boring husk of a menu that makes me feel not nearly as bad for not seeing as many movies there now in fatherhood as we used to see pre-parenting.
I mean, seriously – no more Crab Rangoon dip … I’m not sure if I even want to watch movies at a theater chain that decides to remove THE BEST APPETIZER EVER from their menu!
Anywho, thankfully the day was much better prior to our theatrical showing – we spent a couple of hours at DisneyQuest introducing Christopher to arcade games and he loved the ones that he was actually able to play himself … both this speed test game in the photo and also one where pressing a button unleashed the tongue of a mechanical iguana to scoop up bugs for lunch – can’t go wrong there! They also had a couple of toy cars that he really liked just climbing in and out of, so it’s kind of too bad to see this attraction getting bulldozed eventually – I’ve always said that aside from a fresh coat of paint and some replacements for the VR games, Disney having it’s own proper arcade on site, a la Dave & Buster’s, is still a novel idea.
And of course, my Father’s Day started with a healthy bout of sleeping in followed by pancakes and bacon cooked by my wife, which we all enjoyed very much. Despite the kid’s little outbursts at the movie theater, all in all it was a pretty great day and a nice chance to spend some time with the family before the weekend was through. 