What a day

I had a super long day on Wednesday - I left my apartment for work before 8am and got back a little after 9pm.  The end of the day wasn't that interesting but the beginning was kind of a disaster.

I was supposed to take the two oldest children and 3 year old M to Disneyland, which is just outside Paris.  When I got to their house it turned out I would only take the oldest, 14 year old D, and M.  That was okay, as I knew D would be more helpful in looking after M if her brothers weren't there.  We planned what rides to go on and where to stop, and M was super excited as she doesn't go very often.

They have special passes for the older kids that makes it cheaper for them to go several times a year but M and I would have to get tickets of our own at the normal price...or so I thought.  The mother gave me 100 euros for the tickets and lunch; I thought that was strangely little for the two tickets and food but I figured the tickets for little kids must be very cheap.  Upon arriving D told me that children two and under actually get in for free, so we were supposed to pretend M was two.

She doesn't look two.  She's three and a half, and decently tall for her age; she just does not look like she could be two.  But it ended up that my ticket was 51 euros and if we were to get one for M it would be 48 or 49 (D's pass gave us a discount of some percentage, I forget).  Meaning if we did that all the money the mother gave me would be gone and we'd have to use my 10 or so euros for lunch for all of us - not possible at Disneyland.

So I went along with it, not getting a ticket for M, but inevitably they stopped us going in, wanting to see an ID card for M.  When they asked her how old she was she held up two fingers but then said three, so we were pretty much screwed then.  We had a dilemma at that point: buy M a ticket and see what we could find to eat or leave before lunch?  Get a refund for my ticket and go home?  We'd traveled about 45 minutes to get to Disney and we'd been gone over an hour at that point and M was getting impatient.  Not to mention since we were there she was even more excited, seeing we were just about to get in.

After some fretting and discussion with the mother we decided we wouldn't be able to go into the park.  M was absolutely inconsolable and cried hysterically for almost a half hour while we tried to calm her.  Eventually D remembered that there is a movie theater attached to the Disney complex and we decided to take her there instead, and buy her some souvenirs.

That was actually a pretty good turning point, and she was really happy to see the movie.  I ended up liking it a lot too: it was a French animated kids' movie, Un Monstre a Paris.  Here is the trailer in French: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et1T4c-BNUk and English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfMcbsE-kf8.  Vanessa Paradis, a very famous French singer and actress, voiced the lead role and the music was so good!  I'm actually sad I can't find it to download anywhere.  I would definitely recommend it if you want a good kids' movie.

We got her some lunch, bought her a stuffed animal, and left.  They're going to go back in a couple of weeks I think but I'm not sure if I'm going.

This week has been really long in general but I am much happier now that the kids are back in school.  Thank you to everyone who sent me messages while I was upset earlier in the week!  I really like hearing from people and you brightened up my day!