Today I was off of school for Winter Break Day. I figured I better take advantage of it and plan something fun for Em and I to do. A friend at work told me that the circus was going to be in Milwaukee so I decided to look into it. It just so happened that the early show was discounted with all seats being $9. What a steal! Em's best buddy Aiden came with. I wasn't sure how that was going to go seeing as I've never brought 2 preschoolers by myself anywhere but it went fine. No problems.
I haven't been to a circus since I was probably 8 years old. I was a bit disappointed. At times I was even bored. I'm guessing it's because it's a traveling circus so it's acts are more limited. But the kids seemed to enjoy it so that's what really counts. The real kicker was the intermission they had. I took the kids to the restroom right before intermission began. When we got back to our seats the 3 ring circus had turned into a money pit. Seriously it would be every parents worse nightmare! There were pony rides, elephant rides, face painting, 4 bounce houses, snake pictures, large balloons, etc. Em asked if we could go down there and I was very blunt and honest with her. I told her that there was no way mommy could watch both her and Aiden down there or help them ride the ponies. To my amazement she was perfectly fine with that. We just sat at our seats watching while we ate our snacks and finished our snow cones. I thought about leaving during intermission but decided to stay which I'm glad we did. After the intermission was done there were what I would consider the best acts of the whole show; some awesome acrobats, the elephants, and the motorcycles on the tight ropes.
Another thing that she acted like such a big girl about was not begging for any of the crap toys they were trying to sell. I told her on the way there that we weren't going to beg for things. We'd see what they had but that didn't mean we were going to get anything. Now don't get me wrong. I actually had every intention on getting them each a souvenier but for some reason that I'm not sure of, they didn't actually have anything that was souvenier oriented that had anything to do with the circus! Just a bunch of those blow up characters and light up swords and plain spinners. Really?!
After the show I asked them what their favorite parts were. All Em could talk about were the acrobats. She just kept saying how great they were on the trapeze bar and swings. Aiden really liked the sheep dogs, the bmx bike tricks and the motorcycles on the tight rope. All in all it was a great day! I love being able to take the two of them together places and now I feel confident enough to do it on my own!
So today we celebrated both Valentine's Day and the Chinese New Year. John had to work so Em and I went to her daycare's carnival. It was small but Em had a great time. Her preschool teachers had a small open house and Em showed me around the room a bit. When we were done we went to Main Moon to celebrate the New Year. It was funny because when we walked in the owner said, "Happy Valentine's Day" to Em and she said, "Well Happy Chinese New Year to you!"
Em and I baked heart shaped cookies in the morning for John. I hate cut outs. They are such a pain but Em had fun helping and John always likes them so I'm sure we'll make it a yearly thing.
For dinner John and I stayed home and celebrated with Em. I ordered a heart shaped pizza from Rocky's and we exchanged our cards. Em loved the new book we got her, Goldalicious. To my surprise John had gotten me an awesome and beautiful gift. We haven't really exchanged Valentine gifts in years so this was so unexpected. He wanted to get a mom's necklace but really didn't like what he saw anywhere so he had gotten a beautiful heart pendant that was all diamonds and had the kids birthstones sodered into the middle. I absolutely love it! It meant so much that he took the time to come up with it and to hear he had gotten it over a month ago. Thanks hun :) Love you!
