Meeting Pooh (or Happiest Place on Earth, Part Dos)

Emerging from the nap…

The next part of the Disney trip begins with Selah waking up. I have 20 more pictures left, so I think I’ll do the most “memorable” part of the day for Selah in this post, and save the remainder for Part Tres. We knew that we wanted her to meet some more characters (after skimping on the Minnie Mouse wait), and it turns out that Winnie the Pooh & his posse reside in Frontier Land. Which was handy, because Selah happens to be a big Pooh, Tigger, and Piglet fan. While she was napping, we scoped out the scene, and it seemed that relatively easily, we could finagle a visit with Tigger, Eeyore, and Pooh himself.

Figuring that she’d be very excited about this, but probably not as agreeable immediately upon waking (smart parenting there, people, look closely! It might not happen that often, but when it does – it’s brilliant ;)). So, we got her “ready” by standing in line to ride the new Pooh ride in cute little honey pots. Seldom do our “plans” work out when it involves our toddler and predicting what will be a success around nap-time (this includes both before and after said nap), but in this case the Lord showed us favor and it worked! After the ride, we headed to stand in line for Pooh.

This particular line happened to have a constant view of the action, so we got to witness all the other kiddos meeting the famous bouncing Tigger. Which was very helpful for Selah. Daddy and I talked it up the entire time – prepping Selah to be ready to meet her idols. Tigger is by far her favorite via books, presumably because of the bouncing and of course our own little hopping bunny admires other great jumpers, I’m sure. So, we talked about the big hug that Tigger could receive from her, and how excited he would be to meet her, and how he was soft and cuddly and certainly not scary at all (following the previous day’s Mickey experience – and all other large character meetings with toddlers in history – we clearly knew this needed clarification prior).

Unfortunately for all parties involved, Tigger was first in the line of characters. My hunch is that she would have warmed up to him a little more had he been further down in the line-up. Nevertheless, it was certainly a highlight of Selah’s day, and she got much braver down the line as we went to meet-and-greet Tigger, Eeyore, then finally, Pooh.

Here’s the sequence of events unfolding:

So, it turns out that Tigger is, in fact, very scary, contrary to Mommy & Daddy’s descriptions:

This is as close as Tigger got to a hug. I’d call it hug-ish (OK, or attempting to bury my head in Mommy, but who’s getting all technical here):

Eeyore is much less scary than a bouncing Tigger, Mommy:

But blowing kisses to Eeyore still seems safer than a hug:

Tentatively approaching Pooh…but on her own – a real feat! Brave girl:

Lucky Pooh! He gets a real hug!:

Sprinting to safety in the arms of Mommy:

(Mommy sidenote: from body language alone on film, one would not know this was her favorite part of the day. However, in line she was SO EXCITED to meet them – chatting it up the whole time with Daddy & I. Then as we finally got our turn, I was holding her and got to firsthand experience that fluttering, racing little heartbeat of telltale excitement. And for days afterward – perhaps even weeks since every once in awhile she still recalls the events to us – she loved to chat about how she met Tigger and Eeyore and Pooh. I’d say, for a just barely two-year-old, that was a big highlight, despite the retreat to Mommy’s safe arms!)

Don’t worry, only one more post on this day. I’m not trying to milk it for all it’s worth – I’m just trying to avoid a four-page-long post (in which case, I should probably shorten my commentary!! ;))