Rule 146: Never never never never EVER discuss what you are going to take your children to do before the event actually arrives. (Parenting Handbook, Revised version 4,987)
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I admit it…I break this rule. Sometimes it’s because our girls are sick, sometimes because others are sick, and sometimes life, errands, or something else comes up. In every situation, however, the result is the same: sad, sad children with large saucer eyes and big question marks over their heads.
Cut to two days ago, when I broke The Rule and started talking up a Wizard of Oz puppet show at Bookmarks at NorthPark (which I had seen advertised in Dallas Child). I don’t know about your children, but my kids LOVE the Wizard of Oz and they LOVE puppet shows. Adding the two of them together at a free event seemed like a wedded miracle to me! And my girls were excited too…they’ve been to puppet shows at Slappy’s, have rewatched the puppet show from The Sound of Music a zillion times, and put on their own puppet shows – with nothing more than a few dolls – all the time.
We got to NorthPark right on time, entered the mall on our way to Bookmarks and found…I’m not sure what exactly. The “puppet show” was actually a one-woman extreme child entertainment show with a theme of “finding the clue”. There was no make-shift puppet theater, nor any actual puppets. The show itself took place in the main concourse of the mall and the acoustics were so poor that even with her two speakers neither the girls nor I could understand a single word she was saying as we sat in the back of the crowd. Now, I’m not complaining about the woman OR her show, but I am saying that what we were led to believe we were attending was not at ALL what was in front of us. After five brief minutes I could see confusion written all over the faces of my littles, and sure enough they had no idea what was going on (neither did I really, for that matter).
Now came the parenting problem of what to do: I had promised them a Wizard of Oz puppet show at the mall, and as my almost 4 year old finally looked at me and asked “When are we going to go to the puppet show?” I had to decide what to do quickly.
My mother is famous for saying that children are psychic sponges – when you’re upset, they get upset; when you’re tense, they get tense. So I did the only thing I could think of and the main thing I did not want to do: I told them we could walk all around the mall and have fun with just each other. [All I could imagine was fits about wanting to buy things and how tired I was.] Paying attention to my mother’s advice, however, I gave myself a quick but severe talk: There would be no impulse buying and I would only go into the shops the kids were interested in [*and I was not allowed to look for anything for myself…that seemed a guaranteed way to make the excursion go south very quickly.]
It worked. Like a charm. We spent two hours walking around NorthPark, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I had so much fun with my children just by roaming around a mall. At the Disney Store I let them each try on several outfits with crowns and dance in front of the mirror. At the Lego Store I let them peer into each of the scenes and take their time before shepherding them onto the Build-a-Bear Workshop. At this point I thought I was in danger…evidently they have sparkly Skechers shoes for the bears [red alert!] By telling them that we could put everything they wanted on their birthday and/or Christmas lists, however, I managed to avoid both meltdowns and a buying frenzy.
We finished up at Chick-fil-A, where I let them pick the table [of course they picked the ones outside] and a kid sized gelato at Paciugo [with my eldest’s egg allergy I love their sorbets!]
As a mother of littles, I love days where I can sit and enjoy them
