Easiest choice I've made all day

Big productions like Disney on Ice and large circuses are held in the Civic Center. I took Teen Queen to Disney every year from 6 to 14, she was just mesmerized and I was nauseous at the amount of money we spent. But she's never asked for much and there aren't a lot of things that she enjoys. Our main goal was for the Cute Chicks to have as much fun and as normal a childhood as possible.

Now, her 6th grade year, a large circus came to the CC and gave out student tickets at the local schools. Pretty smart, huh? Kids get in free, must be accompanied by a parent at $20 a pop. Then all the concessions you HAVE to have. So naturally, I had to suck it up and get over my deep set fear of clowns, and take her to the circus. Oh joy. One fun thing was the elephant rides in the parking lot, not that I could get her on one, but it was still cool; and they had a smaller elephant inside on the concourse that you could sit on for pictures. It was this that puzzled TQ. Up till now, every show she saw at the CC was something or other on ice, and here were elephants. She came to an abrupt halt, staring at the large beast, and I thought, "Oh crap, meltdown in 3...2...1..." But that wasn't the issue. You could see the wheels turning in her curly little head. Oh so quietly, I heard her question, "Elephants....on Ice?!" It was all I could do to keep it together.

We got in and found our seats, got a snow cone and a glow stick necklace in purple and settled in. Well, I settled, she sat on the edge of her seat for two and a half hours. Acrobats, motorcyclists, aerialists, the whole shebang. And.....clowns. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, her smile was ear to ear, and her squeals were happy and joyous when one of the clowns came up to us (did I mention we had really good seats?) and interacted with her. I kept a lid on my terror for her joy. Then there were beautiful Arabian horses, and lions and tigers and bears, OH MY! Well not bears, but there were lions and tigers.

When it was finally over and the lights came up, I looked over at her and she was glowing. She had seen and experienced something in person for the first time and I got to experience it with her. We saw a few more Disney on Ices after that, but we've been back to the circus every year since then, and every year it's the same. Joyful Cute Chick.