The DragonCon Stair Marathon
DragonCon 2006
If you've never been to DragonCon, the amount of costumes, number of people and sheer awesomeness of it can be a little overwhelming. That would be tripled for a young child who might have no idea what to expect whatsoever. But with some well-time preparations it can be a wonderful experience for both parents and children!For DragonCon 2006 our daughter was almost 2 years old, walking and running very well but less experienced with climbing stairs. (I'll come back to that later...)
The Preparations
Familiarization with popular characters:
Knowing that we would see a large congregation of Storm Troopers and other legendary figures, we started watching the Star Wars movies a LOT in the two months before we went to DragonCon. We explained some of the major plot points but for the most part concentrated on recognition of the characters and the costumes from the movies. She knew all about Leia, Chewbacca, Darth Vader and Storm Troopers before we ever stepped foot in the hotel. And when we did enter our DC hotel for the first time and saw the fully kitted out Storm Trooper right there in the lobby, she was delighted. "Stom tooper!" she shouted and wasn't afraid at all. In fact she spent the entire con running after a Storm Trooper whenever she saw one. You could tell that she was proud of herself when she could name some of the characters and it made the experience from a potential shocker into a great thrill.
Understanding of Costumes:
Costumes are an important part of any convention. It was also important to us to have our little girl understand the the wierd alien in front of us on the escalator is actually just a guy dressed up in a costume. We wanted to make sure that she wasn't terrified the entire time we were at DragonCon! So we had costumes for her to wear around the con, giving her an invaluable understanding and a chance to actually participate and interact in the convention. Instead of being this boring thing that her parents had made her come to, it was something that she had fun doing and she was part of the crowd. She was so proud of her outfit and literally wouldn't leave our hotel room if she wasn't wearing her faerie wings. Her costumes weren't the most accurate or very fancy, other than the wings they were all things that I had made. One of the requirements for her costumes was the ability to quickly remove them when she got tired of wearing them (mainly the wings and crown, the actual clothes were designed to be comfortable). It all seemed to work fairly well, as plans go. The zombies didn't faze her. The Storm Troopers delighted her. The vampires and faeries, etc. fascinated her. The one and only costume that scared her the entire 5 days was the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Presents:
Parts of a convention can be just like going on an airplane with a toddler. Panels in particular required a lot of thought on our part for how to keep our toddler from driving us or anyone else crazy while we soaked up the wisdom and humor of the convention guests. So for the extremely-boring-to-kids-time-when-adults-are-talking-way-too-much-and-it's-way-too-quiet panels we stocked up on some silent toys. Our first day at the con we piled all of these toys up on our bed while she was napping and let her discover the treasure later. It was a fantastic surprise and she really like the ability to choose which toy would come with us to a panel. This provided a sense of excitement and anticipation about going to a panel to play with a new toy rather than the dread that might have happened otherwise. (not to say that we didn't still have problems with going to panels, more about that later...) Some of our toy choices were stellar and others backfired horribly.
Foodstuffs:
After learning the art of coffee-pot cooking on our trip to Thailand, we decided to try using this interesting method to feed ourselves at DragonCon. We thought this would be a good idea for two reasons: We are vegetarians and it's much easier just to take all our food with us than search for vegetarian options at a hotel. We also wanted to follow our normal daily schedule as much as possible, so that our daughter could have a nap right after eating lunch & not have to wait 30 minutes for an elevator after having lunch at a restaurant. That required some extra planning on our part like making sure sugary foods were reserved for dinner time and not given right before we wanted her to go to sleep. (She normally doesn't get any sugar at all at home so it's not something we think about on a daily basis. However conventions are sugarcrazy zones where sugar is in high abundance.) It worked really well and we managed to accomplish these goals!
Our main staples were the ever-popular Campbell's condensed soup, instant mashed potatoes, soy-turkey sandwiches, and snacks like cheese, crackers, chips, pickles, tomatoes & fruit.
Things not to forget:
- can opener
- salt & pepper
- measuring cup (because measuring boiling hot water into a small metal can before pouring into the soup container is not as fun as it sounds)
- large plastic containers for mixing really hot water and soup in
- plastic utensils
Equipment:
Me Too! Chair by Me Too Products
- Incredibly High Recommendation - This is such an awesome highchair I can't recommend it too highly. We hooked it onto the desk in our hotel room and she sat in it to eat all her meals. It is important to note that this chair might not be stable with all hotel furniture and you should make sure to test it thouroughly!
Dora the Explorer Table Toppers by Neat Solutions, Inc.
- Moderately High Recommendation - disposable plastic table covers that kept everything neat and tidy.
Jeep Wrangler All-Weather Umbrella Sport Stroller
- Extremely High Recommendation - Okay, we love this stroller. The way that it held up while we were in Thailand was incredible. There were some limitations to it's use at DragonCon, however. Mainly the fact that space is a limited commodity and if you're trying to board an elevator on Saturday with a stroller it's nigh impossible. It was useful for crossing from one hotel to another, particularly when we were running a little late and toddler legs would have taken a long time to get across. It worked okay in the dealer's room as well, but we did have trouble with running into people in the tight spaces. Unfortunately we loaned it out for a couple of hours and it was broken when it was returned to us. The problem was the rubber strap that runs between the front wheels for children's feet to rest upon. You'd never believe that part would be integral to the workings of the stroller but the stroller was useless for the rest of the con. We stopped on the way home and bought another one - we couldn't bear to do without it for longer than that.
Pack 'n Play Classic Playard by Graco
- Very High Recommendation - Worked great! We had enough space for it to be up against the wall so it didn't stick out into the room. Our little girl had slept in it many times and liked it a whole lot which really helped when it was time for sleeping.
A toddler-sized folding chair
- Low Recommendation - More of a comfort item than a practical one, it did get some use but not enough to really warrant lugging it with us. We had thought that it would be a nice thing if she had a small chair her size to sit in but she ended up spending most of her time in the hotel room sitting on the cooler which was at the foot of the bed. We're still not sure why sitting on the cooler was the best seat in the room, but she invariably chose it.