If Bluey is a recent thing, they may need just a couple of more years to appreciate them, but Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, and Hilda are all really good. A year or two beyond that (or not… they’re your kids, LOL), slightly more “realistic” animation like Avatar/Korra and the She-Ra reboot are excellent.

Bluey really is one of the best shows in that specific age range though. Many PBS Kids (maybe distributed by other providers outside the US) shows from the North America are really cute, and even if they don’t quite land for you, there’s usually actual didactic value, but I recall enjoying Odd Squad, Let’s Go Luna, Sesame Street, and Peg+Cat. Then, the whole brony thing happened in large part because My Little Pony Friendship is Magic was so much better than it had any right to be, and its surface level works fine for kids at or just above the Bluey age. The really stylized DC Super Hero Girls series that Lauren Faust show-ran was also good, and better than the (very) slightly more realistic version from a couple of years earlier. Some of the Disney Junior stuff (Rocketeer and Vampirina stick out in my memory) is pretty watchable, but apart from some one-liners and easter eggs, they’re not trying to do too much for parents. Paw Patrol can actually be amusing to deconstruct, but that’s necessary because at face value it’s really bad, LOL. Peppa Pig benefits from some of that same freelance deconstruction, but it is more self-aware and occasionally will drop the mic, like when snotty-ass peppa hangs up on her friend, or Mr. Wolf and Daddy Pig have a very darkly-tinged conversation that references fairy tails.

Things to avoid like the plague: Blippi, Caillou (it’s a bit of a meme by this point, but it really is bad), anything from the “Ryan” franchise.

Easier, yes. That’s honestly not a great age to have taken a kid on that kind of trip. Beginning to test boundaries, yet still too young to really have perspective on why the trip is special or even to really remember it. We made that mistake with my daughter’s first trip to Disney. She had a ton of fun, but does she remember a bit of it? Nope, and there are fuzzy but incredibly positive memories of other days that cost 1/10th the time and cost. 🤣

Even when they’re older, kids will always have a different take, which isn’t always going to be controlling and which shouldn’t dissuade you from taking them on things that will be meaningful (or even just things where it’s more for you but they might still enjoy), but you do have to account for it. One of my fondest memories as a kid a good bit older than yours was going on a business trip with my dad to a Holiday Inn in Little Rock Arkansas, because it had an indoor mini-golf course and some arcade games. Meanwhile, I mostly recall camping trips as a buggy beat-down.

You’re not wrong at all, but people interested in fostering older and/or special needs kids generally come into the process more clear-eyed, or if not then they get there before long.

I have nothing but respect for the big hearted people who take that on, and adoption when the bio-family constellation is irretrievably broken is perfectly sensible and loving.

The “market” for healthy infants just puts a lot of perverse incentives into the US system, from “pay to play,” to pressuring and deceiving birth mothers, to pushing it all onto foreign countries with even fewer guardrails. Not that this reflects ill intent on the part of adoptive parents, but that part of the system has definitely got a dark side.

I was adopted as an infant via a closed process (Mormon) in the late 70s, as was my adoptive sister (technically she was a fully private adoption, but it was all very Mormony too), have several other adopted friends and acquaintances, and I have been active in seeking out adoption communities to process things.

First things first, in the US there’s something like ten nominally qualified adoptive couples in the system for each healthy infant not in foster care. If nothing else, that should put you off of any notions that you have some calling or obligation to adopt. Frankly, I like your stated reasons better than the ill-informed people with savior complexes. The demand also feeds some unsavory practices that indirectly apply market forces to a process that should not be within a hundred miles of them. Basically, when it comes to American infants, get in line, pressure no one, and painful as it might be, find the silver lining to a birth mother changing her mind.

Second, something that was ignored in my day, and is still a struggle today even with things being much better, is recognition of the fact that adopting is creating a non-traditional family. There is a larger constellation of stakeholders and a different set of challenges at every phase of life. While it can be oversimplified to ignore that it may still be the best choice, the fact remains that adoption necessarily means that a trauma has occurred and a natural bond has been broken, and you will also be raising a child who doesn’t share your genes, which is a double edged sword.

If you’re up for the challenge, and there’s no shame if you’re not, fostering with an openness to adopt is the most socially healthy way to proceed, but going in with an open mind and an open heart can make “regular” adoption perfectly viable. You just have to accept that you would be raising a child who has a story, however brief, that involves people who aren’t you, and that your child owes you no more than any natural born child would.