Standing in lines with a toddler

…or how I learned to forget the past and live in the present.

Recently I visited Busch Gardens Williamsburg's Christmas Town. It's one of my mother's favorite holiday activities, and we were in town for a long weekend, so let's do it!

Overall, it was a great experience. Busch has great stroller support. You can load them right on the parking lot trams (with kids still in them). The train has a place to store them for the ride. And all the paths work well with strollers. This was working really well for our toddler at first.

But the lines…oh, the lines. How do you explain lines to a toddler? They see the thing they want, and they want it immediately. In their life experience, this seems reasonable. Normally they point and someone gives it to them. Maybe they have to cry a bit to get it, no big deal. And the worst case scenario is someone says "No" and they cry some more and move on. But lines are different. They point to the thing, the adult says "Yes", but then they don't get that thing. So they move to crying. The adult continues to say "Yes" to the thing, but they still don't get that thing. And even more confusing, they don't even get to move on to the next thing! No wonder a toddler will go into full freak-out mode in a line situation. It just doesn't make sense to them.

However, I did get some useful perspective. When my toddler finally got on the ride, it was as if the line never existed. The ride was the entirety of the universe and it was AMAZING!! Seeing that moment reminded me that I, too, could make the effort to forget the line and focus on the joy of the moment.