Fall is pretty much non-existent down here in America's Wang. Hell, sometimes we don't get ourselves a winter, and get to relish in a slightly-less unbearable mugginess for the cooler months of the year.
Granted, Polar Vortexes only require we put on socks and shoes instead of flip-flops on the coldest of days, so there is an upside, I guess.
Anyway, Kris and I have always been big fall people, and missing out on the transitional season bums us out each year. Changing colors in foliage, the crispness in the air - we miss out on all of it. And our kids have never really experienced it, either. This year, we decided to change all that.
Every year Celebration, FL. holds a 'festival' that features 'falling leaves.' If you'll be so good to remember, we went there back in December for their 'falling snow'. . . which - though mildly retarded - was entertaining for the kids. Surely leaves would be just as entertaining.
Right?
Well, check it out. . .
Loading up the kids in the Tactical Family Transport Vehicle
Celebration is a fabricated 'town' designed and occupied by Disney executives, and every time we go there it creeps me out. It all feels fake - no garbage, no traffic, no minorities, no chain restaurants, no gas stations. The whole town looks like a set piece.
It's annual festivals attract plebeians from miles around. It must take hours and hours of hired cleaning to wash away all the poor people stink from their precious streets.
See that stage in the background? Usually you can expect to see some random has-been - like one of the top 24 finalists from an old season of American Idol. You feel bad for the performers, being reduced to playing at this level of venue - it's honestly one step below playing county fairs. Then, I remember how terrible American Idol is (as well as everything it represents about American culture), and I feel better.
You can see here that it was so cold out that we had to put a blue jean jacket on one of our kids.
Waiting around for the 'falling leaves' to begin. . .
Seriously. They blew out pieces of thin, colored tissue paper. For about ten seconds. I barely had time to capture it on video. It was so bad it was comical.
We ran into the Tayler Family while we were there - dressed up in costume, as usual.
Needless to say, everyone was pretty let down by the 'falling leaves' - at least the snow falling lasted for a decent chunk of time. In the end, we can only blame ourselves for buying into such a poorly-conceived notion.
The kids like it, though. I'd say 'that's all that matters' here, but I'd be lying to you - after driving a half hour out to Celebration, fighting through stop-and-go, bumper-to-bumper traffic for a parking space (which was roughly as difficult as tracking down the Holy Grail), ten seconds of tissue-paper being shot out of blower was kinda, well, shitty.
Kids collecting colored tissue paper off the street. 'Cause God knows, kids love tissue paper.
Bustin' a move.
Fighting with kids on the way back to the car. . .
Here's the Celebration pumpkin patch we used to frequent - they were actually charging people $5 admission to get in, though. Most folks were doing it for picture opportunities, which made little since seeing how the pictures (being at night and all) were going to turn out like complete shit. Of course, this $5 was supposed to be a donation, but when you set up a cash register at the entrance and make people pay before they can enter, that doesn't seem so much like a donation as it does a charge.
Abby strikes a pose outside of the pumpkin patch. Screw you, Celebration - you're not getting $20 from us for shitty pictures. The Houghs take their shitty pictures for free.
I like to credit myself with having impeccable taste when it comes to most things. I also like to assume that if the world thought the same way about most things as I do, it'd be an overall better place to live.
Perhaps you scoff.
Regardless, my taste in 'what's watchable' is generally accepted by others as 'legit,' or 'right on the money.' Hence, you readers out there in cyberspace should lend an ear (preferably two) to what I'm about to tell you:
Potty Power is a soul-crushing, twenty minutes of pure hell.
Like I said before, it just may be the worst twenty two minutes you could spend in front of a television. Then again, I could never bring myself to watch more than three minutes of Glee without wanting to gash my own wrists apart, so I could be wrong there.
The production value of this children's instructional DVD is somewhere around the local, community college audio/video department's daily operating budget. In fact, I'm pretty sure Potty Power was produced by some sophomore for his midterm film assignment.
If so, he probably got a 'C,' with 'Do you have a soul?!' slathered across the top of his attached paper in bright, red Sharpie.
But let's get back to why I'm talking about this horrible, horrible program in the first place. There's a reason why I've been watching this DVD every day for the last few weeks: Alayna has been on the verge of using a toilet (instead of her pants) for the last few months, and we've driven ourselves mad trying various strategies to help drive the concept of 'its better to pee in a sanitary receptacle instead of in your drawers' home.
Potty Power, as it turns out, is the Holy Grail of potty training:
As much as I hate to admit it, the shit works. And it works really, really good. The Cannonball voluntarily uses the bathroom whenever she has to go, without asking or announcing (unless she's outside of the home), and only wears a diaper now if she's going to bed at night. That's it. After months and months of random techniques, tricks, bribes, rewards, peer pressure, and perhaps even a little degree of condescension (I get annoyed with kids crapping their pants, what can I say), Potty Power ends up being the end-all, be-all in potty training.
I hate to endorse something so horrifying, but, if you're a parent and you're willing to subject yourself to twenty two minutes of pure hell on a daily basis for a couple weeks, you'll have a potty-trained toddler. You can purchase it via Amazon here.
