The Horse Fanatic and The Juice Box Hero

Saturday we went to a holiday celebration at a local shopping center which isn't really much of a shopping center: one florist, a large spa/salon/health club (overpriced), a small food court, a dance/theater school, an expensive home furnishings store, a garish black and pink costmetics store, and one or two specialty clothing stores, one restaurant and a Westin hotel, not exactly shoppers' paradise, especially in these economic times.

The bait for us was that the event was free and there was horse-drawn wagon rides, instant bliss for Micah. We caught a bit of the dance school's performance and then went to find the wagon ride, and then waited almost an hour for a turn. The wagon was pulled by two Percherons, Mike and Ike, who if they possessed opposable thumbs would have probably beaten the snot out of whoever wove artificial red roses into their manes. Amazingly, both Thea and Micah were patient little people for the wait. Micah would basically walk through fire wearing a gasoline-soaked diaper if any sort of horse-ride is on the other side.

We then went back to the food court to see the balloon-wrangling clown, another long line. And this guy was into his art, he didn't bang out a simple puppy dog, he used at least five or six of those long balloons for his creations. My daughter, the next Sylvia Plath in shining armor, went up to him and said, "I want a BLACK helmet and a BLACK sword, please." I was hoping that he couldn't tell his dark blues from his blacks when reaching down into the depths of his clown pockets, but he nailed it and Thea got her black balloon accessories.

Fortunately Micah seems to not care about colors so we got him a 'fishing pole' hat. It had a long balloon extension coming off the helmet which was tied to an uninflated balloon with a heart tied to that. He spent the next fifteen minutes chasing the heart balloon but never quite catching it, and never quite realizing that it was stuck on his own head.

While we were waiting for our turn with the balloon guy, we met lady in a mouse costume carrying a box wrapped up like a present, and in the box was another mouse, a hand puppet. Thea spent quite a while trying to decipher the one hand that was attached to her left arm, the right hand operating the puppet and the 'arm' supporting the box. Micah also found her fascinating and it was the one character at the event he didn't shy away from.

We skipped Santa, another long line. Micah had already had minor scares with Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer so I figured getting plunked on the lap of the fat dude in the fuzzy red suit would be yet another opportunity to add to the years of therapy he'll probably need to get over his childhood.

Later that evening, after the wagon ride, etc. and after dinner back at home, Thea drank an apple juice from a juice box that her aunt sent home with us from Thanksgiving. This time when she was finished we wanted to get her moving towards getting ready for bed, but she was not going to be parted from that damn juice box. Tears, snot, recriminations, she left nothing in her guilt-the-parents armamentarium. Even the threat of bad smells and bugs moved her toward that trash can so bent on the salvation of this particular box was she, claiming to want to make a craft project (though didn't know what exactly this project would be.) Compromise was arrived at by promising not to toss the box after she went to bed and leaving it in the kitchen to be discussed the next day. By which time I had found another cardboard box of the same size that she was willing to substitute.

And has she actually used it in one of her tape, construction paper and marker masterpieces, that would be a big fat NO. Time is short and her mother hates clutter, so its days are numbered because the recycling is picked up this Friday so it'll be Buh-Bye box. And she can take that up with her therapist at some point in the future.