My family are big Disney fans. My parents live in Las Vegas and
have season passes to Disneyland, and none of their grandchildren live in
California. I went through a Minnie Mouse stage, there was (and still is) an
entire room filled with Disney lithographs at my parent’s house and trips to
Disneyland were more frequent than not growing up.
Disney isn’t as close to my heart as it is for others in my family
and because of this Gywneth really has had no clue about this Mickey guy. With
Netflix nowadays we ultimately make the decision of what she gets to see, so
there really aren’t many opportunities to discover new characters. That and come to find out, there is only one cartoon with Mickey on
Netflix.
For Gwen’s birthday she got a little Minnie doll that you can
dress up with different dresses, shoes and bows. This was Gwyneth’s favorite
toy that she would play with from the minute she got home to the minute she
went to bed. This resulted in one hairy evening when we couldn’t find her
stashed in a little bag that a little girl, who was hysterically breaking down for
Minnie, had placed her in the night before. The next thing we know she’s
interacting with the Disney characters on the side of a box, cracking up at
Mickey and having her Minnie doll talk to him.
Then my mom came up for a visit and introduced her proper to all
things Mickey. Don’t ask me how she did it, word is it had to do with a little
pamphlet found in the only Disney movie we had in our house, Beauty and
the Beast. Bottom line is that we went out on a date and when we came back she was HOOKED.
Since then we’ve had a Mickey obsessed little girl on our hands
who we have had to watch Mickey’s Clubhouse Road Rally 5,000 times over after
hearing the incessant “Mickey?” request as she turns on the TV 25 times a
night.
The real kicker was when she got a post card in the mail with
Mickey on it. It wasn’t just a postcard to Gwen, it was Mickey and she treated it as such. For days she treated her postcard
as if it were her baby, buckling it into her booster seat, putting it down for
naps, walking it in her stroller. She’d
go to sleep with it in her arms and upon waking up in the morning her first
question would be, “Mickey?” until she could locate that precious postcard.
It was time for her parents to step up to bat and buy her a Mickey
stuffed animal, we knew that much. As I walked through the aisles of Target in
search of a Mickey stuffed animal I quickly became aware of just how much
Mickey stuff there is. I had to control myself from not buying every single item
of clothing or toy that related to Mickey, because as a parent it’s really
exciting when your kid likes something and there’s so much stuff you can get
them that you know they will love.
For now, we’ve started with a stuffed animal. And man does that
kid love him. Next up, perhaps a bedroom?