Life as we now know it...

Captain's log 8/1/06

As the great parents we stride to be, we like to expose Caitlyn to her environment to allow her to see everything that exist before her eyes. By doing so we allow her to grow and define herself as who she is and what she likes. Whether it is going to the mall, a trip to the zoo or going to a bar with mom and dad, we let her see life for all it is worth.

We were blessed and fortunate to receive front row seats to Cirque du Soleil from a great friend of ours in New York. We could have easily gotten Caitlyn a babysitter and could have gone to the show without her, which would probably have been a little bit easier for us. However, what kind of parents would we have been to enjoy front row seats 3 feet from the stage and not let Caitlyn experience the joy of crazy foreigners doing crazy stuff...OK I lied...children under 2 get in free and I didn't have to pay for her, which meant daddy saved $$$ until moomy spent $$$ buying over priced gifts. Well what an experience it was to bring her to Circus du Soleil.

After we were seated inside the tent at 4:30 PM, we were waiting for the show to start at 5:00 PM. Caitlyn at first was curious and excited about what was going on inside the tent as well as how much cooler it was inside the air conditioned tent. However, that lasted for 5 minutes. 15 minutes before the start of the show we were trying to keep her calm and not so fussy...of course we tried soothing her, letting her suck on a pacifier and even bribing her with puffs. This lasted for 5 minutes and that was enough for her. Caitlyn started to whine and was fussy and didn't feel like sitting in her mom's lap. She wanted to get down and crawl and just play. Right now, you might be asking WHY!!!! Why would we take a 7 month old baby to an event where she may be too fussy and not fully appreciate...well I will tell you why.

At exactly 5:00 PM...while Cailtyn was still fussing and I was paranoid constantly telling Val we can't stay and we had to leave, the lights suddenly dimmed and something happened. What took place was the funniest thing I have ever seen and to this very day it was the highlight of our trip downtown to see Cirque du Soleil. Just seeing that made the trip worth it and made us realize that things like that don't happen very often and they will never happen if we had never taken her with us. Had she been home with her grandparents, we would have missed this memory and we would have probably said "I wish we could have taken Caitlyn with us". Looking back and everything in hindsight of course, I am happy she came and it made having to deal with her being fussy at times when some of the acts were slow and didn't peek her interest tolerable. We had a great system going of puffs, water and a pacifier to keep her calm through out the show. Caitlyn was dancing, smiling, laughing and even started to clap her hands together after she watched the audience applaued. We were only able to see 1 hour of the show but that was more then we could have asked her to sit through for us. The smile on her face was enough and we didn't even miss the fact that we missed the second half of the show.

I am just greatful that Caitlyn was having fun, that Val did a great job at keeping Caitlyn on her lap and eventually I was able to sit back and enjopy the show after the first 30 minutes of paranoia and wanting to leave. Val was strong enough and just did what a great mom had to do so that we all could enjoy the show. So the point here is do we as parents make life easier on ourselves and not take our kids with us to an event where they are too young to appreciate or become too fussy at or perhaps do we deal with the fussiness so that our kids even at 7 month can experince life and their surroundings because life is unepxetced and we have to capture every moment we can with our kids. I am sure everyone has their own opinion but I think Val and I are willing to deal with the bad with the hope that something memorable will happen.

By now you are probably thinking to yourself..."he never told us what that funniest thing that happen was" well I didn't forget. I wanted to tell you that event at the end so that you are forced to read my whole blog. At 5:00 PM Caitlyn was fussy and crying and I was paranoid and saying to Val "lets leave before she gets worst" taht was when the light dims into darkness and only a single light was shining at the front of the stage. Out comes the headless man walking to the front of the stage carrying an umbrella. When this happened I looked over at Caitlyn and she went from a crying, fussy baby to sitting straight up with her shoulders perched up, her eyes wide open, her lips puckered up and here ears pointing straight up in the air. Her bottom mouth droped wide open and it probably would have hit the floor had it reached that far. The look on her face for the next 10 minutes was priceless, she looked like a curious puppy whos ears are perked up when they are excited. Everytime I looked over at Caitlyn, she had a pricless expression on her face, her eyes were still popping out of her head, mouth still wide open, head cocked to one side, and she was hypnotized to the point that she didn't even make one movement. In words she was saying to herself "WHAT THE F IS GOING ON!!!"