mouse ears

i don't know the exact number of times i've been to disneyland in my life (too many to count with fingers and possibly even toes), but i'll write about the last four.

on the fourth to last time, i went with almovi and his wife, muntsa, who was pregnant with their first child. we each got a mouseketeer hat: almovi's said mies (as in mies van der rohe, german master of modern architecture), muntsa's said zyanya (their baby's name), and mine said panzón (my boyfriend at the time, my childhood friend/crush, my future husband). we got our picture taken with mickey mouse: eight mouse ears and one big belly. this memorable photograph would later haunt me, as a friend of almovi's commented, with childlike cruelty, that i didn't need a mouseketeer hat because i could have just painted my own ears, that stick out a little, black. grrrrrr.

anyway, on my third to last visit to disneyland, panzón and i got engaged. i'll leave this story for later, but i'll just say that it happened in the darkest moment of pirates of the carribbean, right before the first drop.

the second to last time i went to the happiest place on earth was last year. it was coco's first time, two months away from her first birthday, and it was not very happy at all. panzón, coco and i met with almovi and mutsa (pregnant with their third child) and their two beautiful daughters. coincidentally, the first ride we went on was pirates of the carribbean. i guess i had forgotten about the darkness, the drops, the bony pirates and the loud BOOM!s, but as soon as we got on the boat, i knew it was a mistake. coco cried during the entire ride. and on every ride after that. i feared a lifelong disneyland-trauma.

my last visit to disneyland was on tuesday. this time, panzón, coco and i went with loquillo. for coco's second time, two months away from her second birthday, we decided to avoid pirates all together and went directly to it's small world. to my relief, she absolutely loved it! she kept saying todos, referring to all of the children of the world singing together. we got her her own mickey ears, which she wore happily during the parade. the photos we took would later remind my mother of my own toddlerhood, when i would wear my mouseketeer hat as an everyday accessory in guadalajara, and panzón's mother and grandmother would call me ratoncita, meaning "little mouse".