Mickey Mouth

This post is sponsored by Disney’s Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two the video game. Thanks, Mickey!

A few months ago we took Annie to Disneyland and it pretty much blew her mind. She met princesses, sang “It’s A Small World,” and rode the carousel, but what really made an impression on her was seeing Mickey Mouse live and in person. Annie has been all about Mickey ever since, and that’s okay with me (because I love Mickey too), but Mike isn’t quite as enamored. This has to do entirely with a couple things that happened after we returned from Disneyland.

The first came after I set our DVR to record episodes of Annie’s new favorite show, “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.” What I didn’t realize is that “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” airs at least a hundred and eighty-seven times a day. That lead to Mike and I having the following exchange a couple days later:

Mike: “WHAT THE HECK ON EARTH?”

Me : “What’s wrong?”

Mike: “Do you not see that?”

I followed Mike’s gaze to the TV:

Mike: “All I want to do is watch one TV show made for adults. Is that too much to ask? Just one.”

Me: “Scroll down. You’ll find one… eventually.”

Annie loves to make me wear her Mickey Mouse ears.

Mickey may have slightly inconvenienced Mike when he tried to watch his beloved “Dateline,” but that had nothing on what happened later when we were getting Annie ready for bed. Part of our nighttime routine includes Annie’s brushing her teeth, but on this particular night she was melting down and NOT cooperating. It was pretty impressive, actually, as she pulled out all of the toddler classics: screaming “NOOOOOOO!!!!!” making her body go limp like a rag doll, and pressing her lips together as hard as possible whenever we put the toothbrush near her mouth. Eventually, all three of us were on the floor of the bathroom, fed up and annoyed.

“What do we do now?” Mike asked, exasperated. “Just put her to bed?”

“Not without brushing her teeth,” I said. “Come on, Annie. Brush your teeth and I’ll read you a story, okay?”

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

It was all pretty awesome. (Not.) I honestly wasn’t sure what to try next when suddenly Mike started to talk in wheezy falsetto.

“Hey, Annie,” he said. “It’s Mickey Mouse!”

“That is the worst Mickey I have ever heard,” I whispered, but Annie was digging it.

“Hi Mickey!” she said, wide-eyed and smiling.

Mike looked to me. I gestured for him to keep talking.

“I, uh, just came from Disneyland to say you have to brush your teeth. Will you do that for ol’ Mickey?”

“Okay, Mickey!”

Annie grabbed her toothbrush and brushed away.

Mike was pretty proud of himself over this, but he was in for a surprise the next night when it came time to brush Annie’s teeth again.

“Okay, Annie,” Mike said. “Brush away.”

“Where’s Mickey?” she asked.

“Mickey?”

I cracked up. “Hey, you started this.”

Ever since then Mike’s had to play “Mickey” each night, and Annie has made sure their conversations have gotten a lot more in-depth than their first.

“Mickey? Where do you live at Disneyland?”

“Uh…. in the… uh… my clubhouse! Yeah! Ha ha!”

“Do you know the Princesses?”

“Sure, sure! Great girls. One and all!”

“Do you see Goofy there?”

“All the time! Goofy’s the man! Er, dog!”

Annie loves it, but Mike’s genuinely afraid he’s going to lose his voice. Poor guy. Maybe one of these days I’ll give him a break and play Minnie Mouse. Maybe.