On

So yeah, I left work a wee bit early yesterday and took Penny to the CHKD Back-to-School carnival. We got stuck in some traffic, so the drive down to the "local" CHKD complex took us a full hour, but Penny was still excited when we got there.

We checked in, and I collected the paperwork that was the whole reason for us being there in the first place. They gave us some freebie glucotabs, and some tickets for a drawing, and a ticket for a snack. And then we continued on to the carnival. They had a wide variety of "throw the X at/into/around the Y" carnie games (only not carnie-rigged, so they actually were winnable) and Penny tried her hand at four or five of them, winning a wide assortment of cheap plastic toys. Her absolute favorite was a squishy/sticky ball in the shape of... well, I called it a beaver because of its prominent front teeth, but the tail was shaped like a worm, so maybe it was meant to be a 'possum. At any rate, she carried it around with her for the rest of the evening like it was the cutest, fuzziest little kitten in the world. It was quite disgusting, in a funny sort of way.

Then we went back inside to the craft tables, where Penny made herself a crown and a door hanger. (While inside, she was excited to spot someone else with a diabetes bag that exactly matched hers. When I explained about the carnival being just for diabetic kids and their families, she was first bemused, and then thrilled.)



And then they called us back outside for the Cheeto Throw. All the kids got paper cups full of cheapy cheese puffs, and then two nurses (covered in rain capes and shower caps and goggles) were liberally coated with shaving cream, and on the count of three, all the kids threw the cheese puffs at the nurses so the little orange balls stuck to the shaving foam.



And when all the cheese balls were used up, the other nurses and doctors (who had been creeping around behind the bulk of the throwers) suddenly unleashed about eight cans of silly string at us all. Penny was a little startled and frightened, but she calmed down quickly and had fun helping me pick all the silly string out of my hair.

We stuck around for a prize drawing after that -- they were giving away some very impressive kid-oriented gift baskets (though one high school girl got called, and since she was too old for most of the gift baskets, they offered her a $50 gift card to Best Buy instead). We did not win, but we had fun cheering the winners.

We stopped at the snack table on our way out. We'd seen it on our way in, but they were all packages of chips or crackers in the 15g of carbs range, which meant they were shot snacks, and Penny had been unable to decide anyway, so I'd suggested we pick something on our way out and she could eat it with her dinner.

Then I took Penny to dinner. It went like this: "Penny, where do you want to go for dinner?"

"Why don't you pick, Mommy. Whatever you want!"

"That's very sweet of you. How about Chik-fil-A?"

"No, Mom, whatever you want!"

"You don't want Chik-fil-A?"

"No!"

"Hm. What about... hamburgers?"

"No, I don't like hamburgers. How about you pick what you want?"

"But I want hamburgers. What do you want?"

"I like fruit."

"You want to go to Chik-fil-A and get a fruit cup?"

"I like fruit from home."

"You want to go home for dinner?"

"No!"

"Penny..."

"Mom?"

"What, hon?"

"I was just kidding about the hamburgers."

"So you want a hamburger?"

"Yeah. And fruit."

"Okay." I headed for the Wendy's.

As I was pulling into the left turn lane to enter the Wendy's parking lot, Penny said, "Mom?"

"What, sweetie?"

"I was just kidding about Chik-fil-A." She pointed out the window at the Chik-fil-A on the other side of the street.

"..."

"Can we go to Chik-fil-A? Please?"

"...Fine." So I turned the car around and we went to Chik-fil-A.

So we ate dinner, and I did her shot, and we got in the car to head home.

Halfway home, Penny was suddenly struck with the possibility that maybe Matt had forgotten to pick Alex up from school. I reassured her that Daddy most certainly would not have forgotten about her brother.

We pulled up to the stoplight where we'd usually turn to go home, and Penny said, "Oh, Mom! We forgot the cupcakes!"

"Good memory, Penny! But I didn't forget. We're going to the grocery store to get them now."

It had occurred to me that fourteen five-year-olds would probably not care about whether the cake and icing actually tasted good, as long as there was an abundance of sugar to consume, and so I didn't need to drive the extra ten or fifteen minutes around town to get to the Ukrop's for actual good-tasting cupcakes. So I went to the Food Lion by our house and let Penny pick out the cupcakes.

As a side note, through the entire evening, from the carnival to dinner to the grocery store, Penny's social mode was stuck in the "ON" position. It was actually almost frustrating -- every single person she saw, she had to tell them that her birthday was tomorrow and she was four but tomorrow she was going to be five and she's diabetic because she needs shots and she got a SQUISHY STICKY BEAVER and she was at the carnival and the crown was because she was a princess and watch what kind of jump she can do! Like that. The other kids at the carnival. The adults working the carnie booths. The people in line at the Chik-fil-A. The old guy who wandered the Chik-fil-A giving people mints and wipes and placemats. The two guys outside the Food Lion who were talking smack to each other while they waited for their ride. The lady at the bakery counter. The guy in line in front of us. The cashier. Everyone. I've been hoping she would get a little more gregarious as she got older, but this might have been just a little too much...

And then we went home, and gently chivvied her into bed, and I took a shower, and then Matt and I spent an hour struggling to put her bike together. The box promised, "Five easy steps!" The instructions inside were broken down into six sections -- and all but one of the sections had five or six steps. Though I have to admit, my favorite was the last step, where either the instruction-writers had gotten tired, or perhaps realized they were running out of space, because the full text of the instruction for attaching the training wheels was as follows: "Refer to the illustration above to attach training wheels." We were further frustrated by the fact that we were missing a piece needed to keep the front wheel attached to the frame. Yes, rather important.

We assembled the rest of the bike anyway, to make sure that was the only missing piece. And discovered that we didn't have a way to inflate the tires. Oops.

Oh, well, we got it put together, at least (at last), and Penny was quite thrilled with it this morning.



(Matt is going to call for the missing piece today, and sometime in the next day or so, one of us will dash over to Target or Bike Beat for a pump, and hopefully she'll be able to give her bike a try this weekend.)

Let the festivities, er, continue!