Greatest Show on Earth

Today Emma watched the Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey
circus for the first time.
As mentioned in my earlier blog, this was part
of her "fours old" birthday extravaganza.
In true Emma form, as soon as Jay told her that she was
getting a surprise, she won't stop asking us what it was.

We finally arrived at Rupp Arena and even with the big
RB&B trailers out in the open, she had no clue what was
in store for her. Seriously, clueless!
We got inside, found our seats, passed by gazillion souvenir booths...and nothing.
Okay, granted that she can't read yet and really has not seen
advertisement for the circus...but it was just funny how everything
kind of just went over her little head.

The show started and she just sat there quietly.
I hooted and hollered.
Clapped, laughed, and yelled "marshmallow."
Emma? She just stared.
As we Filipinos like to say..."deadma!"
No reaction.
Nada.

Jay leaned over to her and said, "it's the circus Emma."
We were taking turns pointing out stuff to her.
Twenty minutes in the show, she started clapping along.
Finally, we had a pulse!!!

Then the tigers were brought in.
You can see in her big brown eyes that she's
a little bit scared of the whole act.
She reacted well with the clowns and some of the acrobats,
but there were some that scared her a bit too.
During intermission, she complained that she was hungry.
The second part of the show, more complaining.
"I'm hungry."
"Is it over yet?"
"When is it going to be over?"
"Can we go to Mcdonalds?"
"It's hurting my ears."
Finally it was over.

On our way to the car we were asking her if she liked the circus.
She said, "no."
She said that the animals scared her because they were acting "funny."
She did like the clowns and the zebras.
She was scared for someone coz she fell (she actually jumped).
Of course later on she said she liked everything.

Then while I was putting her to bed she asked,
"why do they have animals at the circus?"
I was taken aback by her question.
I don't really know the answer, so I just sort of skirted around it.
Hmmmmm....
So why do they put animals in the show?

By the way, the tickets were pretty inexpensive.
We were in the $24 seats and it hada great view of the whole thing.
Someone gave me a 50% coupon, so we only paid $12 for ours.
Where they'll kill you is in the merchandising!

Souvenir programs = $20
Cotton Candy with RBB&B "Dr. Seuss" looking hat = $12
Twirling light thingies = $22
Snow Cones in souvenir cups = $15
Lemonade in souvenir cups = $9
Calming down a high in sugar toddler = Priceless!

Luckily, Emma did not ask for any of them.
She was actually quite content to eat the $3 (yeah still $$$) pretzel and the $3 bottled water we got from the arena vendor.

Will post pictures later.
With the digicam dead, I have to go low-tech in the photography section.

If you have forgotten how that goes, it's like this -
step 1: take the pictures
step 2: wait for the film to rewind
step 3: remove film from camera
step 4: take the used film to a developing center
step 5: pick-up photos after an hour
(if you asked for a picture CD do step 6; if not, do step 7)
step 6: upload digital version of the photos
step 7: scan photos and then do step 6.