DocAndersen
After three days on the cruise ship, we were back on land. We had decided to spend one more day in the Orlando area, going to the Universal theme park, also in Orlando Florida. Funny, there are two US Disney parks (Anaheim and Orlando), and there are two Universal parks (Hollywood and Orlando). I have had the fortune to go to both locations for both parks. But this time, I was a little nervous. Frankly, I was concerned because one of the boys was still nervous about the characters.
We were heading back to the land of characters walking around. Yes, the boy had responded well to Captain Hook on Castaway Cay, but later that day we ran into Mickey Mouse, and he recoiled. I was a little nervous. The other boy (twins are always in our house the boy and the other boy) and my daughter wanted to see the Barney show. All of the kids loved Barney at that point. My daughter had introduced to boys to her love of the show, and they loved it as much as she did,
We found seats that I could, if the screaming started, quickly get the boy out of the arena where they were hosting the Barney show. I knew the minute the stage was filled, the screaming would start, or I would see the terror in his eyes. I suspect I could deal with the screaming the terror made me feel like a horrible person. We were ready for the worst case. That, by the way, wasn’t what happened. The characters, Barney, BJ and the others came on stage, and the boy screamed. Not in terror he screamed Barney and jumped up and down like it was a rock concert and it was Neil Young on stage (ok, the Neil Young comment is the concert I jumped up and down for, he is my all-time favorite singer-songwriter). He was so happy to see Barney. That was the last time I ever had to worry about him and characters. He doesn’t love them, but I can always remind him that he can handle it.
