Circus

Yesterday the kids and I joined a community group of toddlers and parents going to the circus in Sioux Falls, a town about two hours away. I was pretty apprehensive about the whole, day-long ordeal...would there be car-sick vomiting, bathroom emergencies, crankiness in very close quarters, or worse?

None of that happened, thankfully. But wow, 8.5 hours in tight seating with two very, very active (and then also overstimulated and tired) little ones was a bit much - even though they were extremely good-natured the entire time.  

Ramont sometimes says that taking in Jonathan's words and enthusiasm is like facing a fire waterhose full on. Even though it's all good stuff, one needs a break after awhile. Here I caught him in a tiny break.

So here we were, at the three-ring circus. They had heard about these things from a Curious George episode, but clearly didn't know quite what to expect.

I've experienced a few circuses in my day, mostly in Ukraine (where each large town has a circus like our towns have movie theaters). But oh my goodness, they are really, really horrible. The loud music. The strobing lights. The exaggeration of everything normal (e.g. Jonathan kept exclaiming that the women had forgotten their briefs). The misuse of animals. The JUNK toys bought in truckloads by the parents and kids. The copious amounts of sugar and salt snarfed down anxiously to the throbbing music. Ugh.

 Anyway, I tossed aside some of my scruples and plied the fire hose with cotton candy, his dream come true (again, something know about thanks to Curious George).

It didn't really help tone down the excitement.

 "Anna, we're going to save the rest of the cotton candy for later, because it's not very good for us."

[Truly.]

What I did enjoy about the day was being with other parents (here is our neighbor and friend Marta Junker) and seeing our kids play with friends that will be in their classes probably their entire school life.

And the bus ride was, actually, fun as well. The kids read, snacked, played with the kids in front and back of them, looked out the windows, etc.

This photo seems like a glimpse into the (rather near) future. Yikes.

And here is that which he saved for later, namely right before bed. We do love and look out for our teeth around here.

And goodnight from our two very, very, very tired circus-goers.