California Adventure

Disneyland is a magical place, but let's be real here: a 3-year-old and an 18-month-old are hard to handle. Even at Disneyland.

I made the mistake on our first day at Disneyland of rushing Esmé onto the Snow White ride first thing. It severely traumatized her (understandably). So much of that day was spent convincing, begging, and occasionally even forcing her onto the rides. It was surprisingly crowded and quite warm, too. And Penny had to wait out a lot of rides, so in the meantime she'd dart out into the crowd and blend in like Jason Bourne. It was exhausting, but I'm still glad we went. And I'm especially grateful we had my parents there to help out, and that Roo sat out the fun water rides with the girls so the parents and I could enjoy those. Overall, it was a good trip. But I think taking my children to Disneyland was the most exhausting thing I've ever done, second only to giving birth to them!