I had no desire to celebrate this embarrassment of a country, but we had a three day weekend and needed to do something with three littles. So we shut off the news, and had some quality family time in our little bubble. We went to a playground and had our first run in with an ice cream truck. It worked out since we were leaving to go get ice cream anyway, so we let the kids decide. Did they want to go get ice cream, or eat from the truck? The truck overwhelmingly won, and E picked out an orange creamsicle and G got a strawberry shortcake popsicle. They were incredibly happy, eating in the trunk of the minivan.
Our town’s local carnival was back for the weekend too, after a two year break. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I figured our kids were older, and maybe better equipped to handle it this year. Plus we decided to invite some friends, hoping maybe that they would spark some bravery in our children. We’ve gone twice in the past, but both times we just walked around the perimeter, ate some snacks, and ran around in the field across from the carnival. It never occurred to us to actually go into the carnival (ask our children if they want to, they’ll say no).
But having friends did work - we watched them march right in and buy tickets for rides and hop on one before my kids even realized what was happening. Not to be outdone, E&G declared they were going down the giant slide. By themselves.
Well I was absolutely not surprised when G melted down halfway up the stairs and had to be rescued, but E went down and smiled the whole time and high fived the worker at the bottom, so I was more surprised when he started crying and said he’d never go on another ride again.
In the end G managed to go on 3 rides and E did refuse every one we offered him, but mostly the day was just too warm to be outside. We were in direct sun and were all just dying from the heat. I tried to get the kids ice cream at one point, but E melted down that it was too cold and he needed warmer ice cream, so we pretty much knew it was time to go home at that point. Still - we experienced more than we ever have before. Baby steps to our someday trip to Disney?
(Now that we have watched a Disney movie or two, the kids have been asking about the castle at the beginning of them, and when can we go to the castle?? I’ve told them we need to work up to it, and being able to tolerate a carnival definitely needs to come first!)
Of course we also had matching PJs for the weekend. We spent an entire day at home, in our PJs, watching movies and eating donuts at the request of the kids. We told them they could pick any treat to have while we had a comfy day, and Boston Cremes were the winners. Overall it was a good weekend I think? We definitely had moments where we were panicking and no one was listening and someone was always crying, but we made it through. We’re completely exhausted, but we made it.
