Finding the Force at Disneyland: Episode II.

So if you got a kick from my first post about visiting Disneyland’s brand new Star Wars Launch Bay and finding my own Force (while also getting a bit freaked out by meeting Darth Vader himself) you now know that this blogpost – Episode II, if you will (see what I did there, young Jedis) – is all about how I decided to take my kids.

My two young daughters, both under the age of 5, are royally obsessed with princesses. If you look closely at the pics below, you’ll notice they’re still sporting Frozen t-shirts like the movie debuted yesterday. Uh huh. That’s us.

Nevermind how I was swept away by Tomorrowland’s galaxy far, far away (as you saw in my previous post)… Legends of light sabers, Ewoks and Death Stars were honestly of no interest to these little ladies. Good thing there’s a Princess Leia in this tale to latch onto for the sake of getting them in the door. My 3 year old even tried to channel her with ‘circle piggy tails.’

So, in search of Leia herself, my girls popped right in and shopped it up…

There was more Star Wars signed memorabilia, high-end replicas and treasures to get your hands on than I’ve ever seen in one place!

Don’t touch honey! Mommy will have to pay for that!

Let’s just say the personalized D-Tech on Demand mobile device cases were out of this world. No honey, you’re too young for a cell phone. Not gonna happen.

My ladies also had no issues gaming it up with the latest and greatest Disney Infinity 3.0 with park-exclusive Toy Box levels… although I don’t think they got that far into the game. (Good job, girls!)

Miraculously, they started getting into the lore of it all. (Pretty impressive… considering they’ve never even seen any of the movies. Maybe it was the ‘circle piggy tails’…) But it was my final surprise for them that had me really pumped: Meeting Chewbacca. (You remember how I showed you my meeting with Darth Vader? Well… Chewy’s available for fan meetings over on the ‘light side’ of the Bay. It’s true. And it’s fabulous. Except…

It’s NOT fabulous when your 5 year old unexpectedly starts spontaneous-combusting crying about meeting the big furry Wookie about three seconds before you’re supposed to walk through the threshold to meet him! (Are you kidding me?!?! My 3 year old just stood there staring at her.)

“I don’t want to meet him! I don’t want to meet Cha… Chooo… Cheee… wait Mommy what’s his name?” [through her sobs]. “Chewbacca,” I said calmly with a smile. I initiated damage control: “He’s soooooo nice! He can’t wait to meet you! He was my favorite when I was a little girl!” [More sobbing and unintelligible crying with insta-tears from her…] “I don’t wanna!” [semi-screaming now] Great.

The mom-side of me felt sad and almost turned us all around to run to Fanstasyland. But then the girl-power side of me was not going to abort this mission and swiftly decided to turn up the Force. I scooped my girl up [crying] and busted into Chewy’s chamber with a “Chewbacca! We are so excited to meet you!” With my my 5 year old in my arms and my 3 year old walking fearlessly at my feet, I walked right up to him — a living, breathing character that stood what looked like a thousand feet tall and more furry than I remember — and exclaimed with more gusto than necessary: “Can we give you a hug?!?” And we all gave him a hug.

Because that was the only way I knew how to stop my 5 year old from crying.

Bust right in. Kill the fear. Use The Force. Because this was too cool to be scared of.

It’s my job to teach my kids to fight through the fear so they can get to the beauty on the other side (although I think that might be a quote from Disney’s The Good Dinosaur movie… but you get my point). Game on. And boy did it work.

Guess who our new obsession is. (Elsa who? Yes, I had to buy a Chewbacca doll that day.) May the Force be with us, moms. May the Force be with us.

DISCLOSURE: The Fab Mom was generously provided complimentary passes to Disneyland to experience Tomorrowland’s Star Wars Launch Bay for purposes of this post. All experiences and opinions are mine. Join the convo this season on Twitter with #SeasonoftheForce!