My Year With The Mouse

Don’t forget the Mouse Ears GIVEAWAY!!!

Back on Main Street (where I’m still hoping to find a picture of Elijah Wood and Gandalf in the middle, perhaps near the fruit cart), one of my favorite stores is the Chester Drawer’s. The subtitle is “Togs for Toddlers,” which is the baby and children’s clothing store, if you hadn’t figured that out yet.

Chester Drawers always makes me think of that part in Beauty and the Beast where the wardrobe starts talking to Belle

I think it’s got one of the cutest window and wall decorations.

Don't you just love the word "togs"? I do! It's so 1908-ish.

And I just now noticed that there’s an apostrophe in Drawer’s. Therefore the actual title of the store is Chester Drawer’s Togs for Toddlers. Note the apostrophe indicating possession, NOT the plural. Man, there are few things I love more in this world than a properly used apostrophe.

Funny enough, when you walk into Chester Drawer’s Togs for Toddlers, the first thing you see are a bunch of baby clothes men’s shirts, tacky hats, and golf supplies.

WTF?

However, once you move past that section, there is indeed the togs for toddlers.

Awwwww...cute!

See those Pirate Mickey pajamas in the lower left-hand corner? Well, perhaps you don’t recognize them as Pirate Mickey pajamas, but take my word–that’s what they are.

I know this because we own a pair.

So it was back at the Mouse-in-Law, and we unexpectedly ended up staying for a whole day at Epcot instead of returning to our hotel for a nap. Now Theo cannot nap in his stroller, but when he’s reclined and has the shade down, he sort of rested in between taking off his shoes and socks. While he was resting, we walked around the World Showcase, which was seriously awesome. BUT, in all of that walking around, both Kevin and I completely forgot to change his diaper.

Seriously–talk about a stellar parenting moment. And by moment I mean a few hours. I mean, it was just a wet diaper, but still, you’d think between the two of us it would have occurred to us to do it.

But we did not. And when we went to ride the imagination ride or whatever it’s called with Figment the weird dragon, Kevin (who hated the ride, by the way) had Theo on his lap and felt a bit of dampness. It was hard to tell at first whether the dampness was just Theo sweating or due to complete and total negligence on our part. But by the time the ride was over, the utter inattentiveness became obvious.

Oh, and the worst part is that earlier in the day we’d even walked right by the Baby Care Center and I thought “Oh look! There’s the Baby Care Center!” But did I stop in? Nooooooo. Anyway, poor Theo’s pants were soaked and we had a dinner reservation in a few minutes, so we hit the shops desperately looking for any kind of toddler’s bottom-half clothing. There was nothing. Seriously–all these stores and not a single one had a lowly pair of pants, even sweat pants, for toddlers. The only thing that came close was that pair of Pirate Mickey pajamas you see in that picture.

As such, we went to the Biergarten restaurant in the Germany section of the World Showcase and had dinner with Theo wearing a regular shirt and Pirate Mickey pajama bottoms. I’m telling you, it was klassy with a capital K. And thank god we had a washing machine in our villa/room.

Anyway, back to Disneyland, Chester Drawer’s has some super-cool details. The whole store is set up to look like a nursery from the turn-of-the-century, minus the Mary Poppins-esque governess.

Look! Toys that don't require batteries!

Chester Drawer’s holds a special place in my heart because on our last trip to Disneyland before Theo was born, just a few weeks before he made his appearance, we bought him his first Disneyland outfit (a sweat shirt and pants with the Disneyland Railroad on them).

But my favorite detail of Chester Drawer’s is its wallpaper.

The alphabet, and animals

I know, I’m weird, right? I mean, wallpaper??? Well, not just any wallpaper. This is the Child’s Garden print in Dove Blue from Bradbury&Bradbury. And you’re still saying, “I don’t get it.”

Anaheim was the first city in Orange County and it has a wonderful collection of historic homes, one of which we own. Our house was built in 1922 and contains a great deal of its original features including a beautiful built-in hutch (which tragically someone painted white–WHITE!!!), original wood windowns, lovely outdoor features, and whatnot. We have been lovingly trying to preserve its historic aspects both inside and out.

This nursery wallpaper dates to the Arts and Crafts era, just like our house. Wouldn’t you love to decorate a nursery with this period-appropriate, gorgeous wallpaper? Me too! And it can be yours for a mere $77 a roll! Needless to say, we passed and decorated Theo’s room in Snoopy instead (because that’s totally close), but I still covet the wallpaper every time I go into Chester Drawer’s.

Also, in case you missed it at the top of this thread, I’m hosting a giveaway because I love you.