Circus Comes to Town

I finally got my wish. A telemarketer called on Thursday night and Makenna grabbed the phone and said, “I’ll get it.” I looked at the incoming number and saw that it was a telemarketer number and said, “okay.” The conversation went as follows:

“Hello?”
“Oh hi!” (said with enthusiasm as if she is talking to a long lost friend)
“No he’s at work”
“No she has a headache” (which I did)
“We’re watching Yo Gabba Gabba” (or whatever show it was at the time)
“Hello?” (Looking at the phone with a confused look)
“Hello?”

I asked her to give it to me and found a busy signal on the other end. I felt bad that they hung up on her but at the same time found myself elated that they had to talk to someone who really wanted to talk to them even if they didn’t want to talk to them…as if the tables were turned~

Yes, we attended our first circus with Makenna. It was a Barnum & Bailey circus but it was only one ring and it was more about magic tricks then the circus I remember. Although they did have elephants, lions, birds, dogs, and even cats doing tricks. I was surprised that they could get cats to do tricks but I guess a starving cat will do anything for a treat. I’m conjecturing that the cats were starving, I really have no idea.

We went an hour before the actual show as they allowed people to come and meet some of the performers and “have fun” doing different activities. Makenna wasn’t in to “having fun.” They were trying to get kids to come into the ring and dance and do a hula-hoop and jump rope. She sat clinging to us shaking her head “no.” We told her that was fine, she didn’t have to.

Then we got to our seats and bought a $9 box of popcorn and later a $7 lemonade – yes – they rip you off for every penny you’re worth! The show started and very shortly into it, a cannon noise went off and a firework of sorts went off and that was it – Makenna was ready to leave. She kept asking every few minutes, “Is it time to go?” Chris talked to her and found that she was afraid that the noise and fireworks would go off again without warning. He covered her ears for a while to help ease her fears.

Once we got over that hump, then it was the constant asking for the lions. I was unsure whether there would be any but thank goodness there was. There was still an occasional asking of if it was time to go but she seemed to enjoy it overall and was able to con daddy out of $20 for a souvenir while I was taking a bathroom break. Lesson learned here – don’t go expect to go to the circus and get anything cheap! At least she asked the next day if she could go to the circus again.

I’ve written in the past how she seems to like fast rides at fairs and she confirmed that to me this past Friday when I was taking her to pre-school. She saw a car ahead of me and said, “Mom, pass the car.” I told her I was planning on it and was in the process of doing it. She then told me, “good job mom! I like going fast! Now pass that car.” I told her I couldn’t as I had to merge into traffic to get off the exit. She said, “Oh, okay.” I told her dad this story later and he’s just “thrilled” (sarcastically said obviously).

She has also been in the habit lately of trying to get out to the car early so that she can “drive.” She’s sure to assure me that it’s only pretend driving. This pretend driving leads me to sit in the driver’s seat once I coax her out of it, to find my lights disrupted, my windshield wipers on and all the automatic doors open. But it also reminds me of how she used to do this all the time in England when she was younger.

She also wants to make sure that I let her close the automatic doors. She has a handle near her car seat that she can push and it will close. I warned her a week ago not to put her hands near the back end of the door so that when it closes she doesn’t get her hand caught in the door. I told her it would hurt really bad and crush her fingers. Yesterday, she got to experience what I told her about.

She had closed the door and unbeknownst to me until I heard the screams she had put her hand back there. I quickly fumbled to press the button to open the door and was scared and angry all at the same time. I got out of my seat and went over to her and looked at her hand which was red and a little purple in some spots. I felt it to see if I could feel any bones out of place and then asked her to make a fist.

As she was doing it, she was saying, “I can’t!” I was debated whether to take her over to her doctor’s or not but felt that if she could make a fist without any louder screams then was already coming out, then she was okay. I kept checking on her hand for the rest of the night and she was okay. She even said it was all better and this morning she tried to do a handstand so I figure all is okay.

I asked her last night, “What did we learn from this?” She agreed that putting her hand back there was not ever going to happen again. I also tried to reinforce that listening to mommy and all her silly warnings may also be a good thing.

She also started her new Pre-school class in the afternoons yesterday and the teachers said it went fine and she seemed to really like it too. I could tell she was pretty tired though. She was upset and confused as to why she couldn’t go back there again this morning. I had to explain she would go back, just after lunch but that she’d still go to her other class that she had been going to in the mornings and then her new class.

One good thing I saw already was that she drew an “M” on one of her papers. This is an accomplishment as I’ve been trying to get her to draw an “m” for Makenna instead of all the “H’s” she seems to be drawing like mad. I’m trying to convince myself that she was supposed to be called Makenna and not something with an “H” contrary to all her scribbling of them everywhere.