Roger Collier

T he bubbles rise in the cloudless sky, shiny in the Florida sunlight, then make their descent, down, down, down, close to the cobblestones, where they die between two child-sized hands. These hands belong to my son, the mighty bubble destroyer, a.k.a. TB5 (The Boy, age 5). He is happy. I am not.

We are in Disney World's Magic Kingdom, outside It's a Small World, the decades-old boat ride that drifts by hundreds of animatronic dolls. Inside the attraction are the other members of my family: TG7 (The Girl, age 7) and TW? (The Wife, age unknown). We should be in there, too.

Instead, I am sitting on the ground, near a college kid manning the entrance to the ride, who is blowing bubbles for the children passing by. I watch TB5 as he seeks and destroys the bubbles. He is an open-mouthed, tongue-lolling whirling dervish. He is also the reason our not-so-cheap entrance tickets are currently going to waste.

By the time we approached It's a Small World, several minutes ago, TB5 had already refused several rides. Why? Don't know. He'd just say "no," and that was that. I was getting frustrated. This time, I vowed, he was getting on the ride.

"Come on," I had said. "Let's all go together."

"No," he had replied. "I'm not going!"

"No, I'm ... hey, bubbles!"

And he was off, hunting bubbles.

"You guys go ahead. We'll wait here," I said to my wife and daughter, for what seemed like the hundredth time. My son had once again decided to sit this one out.

I am often baffled at the decisions children make. Well, not so much the decisions themselves, but the process children go through in making them. Or, more accurately, the lack of a process. I don't know if all children are like this, but my kids make decisions instantaneously and with complete confidence. They do not weigh pros and cons. They do not think things through, not even for a second. They just make a decision, offer no explanation, and stick to it.

Of course, adults aren't so great at making decisions, either. We often make poor ones about our finances, our diet and our relationships, among other things. But at least we can explain how we came to those decisions. The reasoning may be suspect, if not ludicrous, but it exists.

On occasion, I can deduce the reasoning behind one of my children's decisions. If we take TB5 shopping for clothing, for example, I know the factor that drives his choices: Does it have a superhero on it? That's an easy one. A look through the shirts in his closet reveals an obvious pattern: superhero, superhero, Transformer, superhero. That's not to say he ignores the basic tenets of fashion. He never, for instance, wears Green Lantern after Labour Day.

But this decision to boycott rides at Disney World makes no sense. We are only taking him to rides we know he will enjoy. My daughter tells him how much fun they are. Doesn't matter. He is adamant. No rides.

My wife and daughter exit It's a Small World and we walk to another section of the park. Then, for no apparent reason, TB5 has a change of heart. He decides it is time to try some rides. We soar high above Tomorrowland on the Astro Orbiter. We spin until we're dizzy in giant tea cups. We battle Evil Emperor Zurg and his minions in Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin. We have fun, all of us.

A child's mind is a curious thing. Who knows what goes on in there? One day TG7 decides that she likes green peppers on her pizza; the next day she decides that she hates green peppers on her pizza. One week TB5 decides that so-and-so is his best friend; the next week he decides that so-and-so isn't so great after all. It seems to me that children often choose to like or dislike something based not on actual preference, but rather on other factors, things that would never even occur to their parents.

Our day at the Magic Kingdom comes to an end, and we head back to our rental home. Once there, I look at the pictures I took, and I'm disappointed that, in one shot, TB5 has red eyes. But he loves the picture. "Awesome," he says. "It looks like I'm shooting lasers from my eyes."