The Cat in the Hat

If you are a homeschooling mom, it is SO important that you try to find a local homeschool group in your area. Many will have a very inexpensive membership cost, but they help get you group discounts at activities. Our local homeschool group recently got a group rate for The Nashville Children's Theater's The Cat in the Hat. Our homeschool group represented 85 people in the audience! Really reminds you, when you are home during the day, that you aren't the only family doing this homeschool thing. 

Before the play began, the kiddos wanted to take some pictures in the lobby. They were so excited to see this play!

Firstly may I say that the play was FANTASTIC. They stayed completely true to the book. It was done simply but very well and had the entire audience of children laughing throughout. If you have a chance to take your kiddos to this at any point, do it! Of course, we are huge Dr. Seuss fans in our house. (JB especially LOVES to read his books to the kids and I'm sure we've read The Cat in the Hat no less than hundreds of times since Isaac came into our lives.)

But now to a bit of a side note. As a mom of multiple children, I am constantly made aware of how one little "glitch" can put a hiccup in your outing. I still remember when I flew my kiddos home from Turkey to America by myself and they put my stroller with baggage instead of making it available to me at the gate. This may seem like a small thing, but when you have planned for how to walk from gate to baggage with all your kids and the stroller isn't there, you are thrown a major curve ball.

The particular hiccup this morning came when they informed me that I could not park a stroller in the aisle next to my olderkids. It's a fire hazard. Sigh ...

When I bought these tickets months ago, I bought 5, confident that either Mom K. or JB would be able to join me so one of us could be assigned to Hannah. But neither of them were available. With us getting ready to move, I don't have another babysitter, so my only choice is to take all the kids or not go.

I opted to take them all.

So my "plan" for how we can watch the show was to sit on the aisle with Hannah strapped into the stroller and a bag of M&M's (which she had not really ever eaten before) and a lollipop on hand to help get us through the hour. Hannah has absolutely NO interest in TV or movies or sitting and watching anything. She has just started to sit and read books with us (a little) and she will also sit and watch a few youtube videos of her big brothers and sisters as babies. But otherwise, she wants to GO.

(My other kids were easy to take at this point. Sidge would watch a full-length movie by 18 months old even though it is against the recommendation of every doctor I know. Isaac sat and read books for hours on end. And Abigail, while not entertained by anything, was velcroed to my lap for the first 3 years of her life so easy peezy as well.)

Anyways, I get into the auditorium and set up and am then told that the stroller is a NO GO. Now what?

They have a cry room in the back of the theatre. But, while very nice, my older three kids are not going to enjoy or experience the play the same way from a glassed room. So I find our neighbor -- a young girl that has dog sat for Scrubs on a few occasions. The kids LOVE her. I ask each of my kiddos if they'd rather sit in the back with me or with Nissi in front and they all pick Nissi!

I attempted to sit in the back row, but Hannah, even with M&M's, lasted about 7 minutes before she was saying "DOWN PLEASE!" "HELP ME!" "ALL DONE!" So into the cry room we went where she could walk around to her heart's content. I watched my three olders through the glass and was so impressed that they sat through the whole play without me. Of course, I was sad I couldn't sit next to them and experience their giggles with them, but I was really blessed we pulled it off 1 on 4!

I love getting to attend things like this with them and while I don't want Hannah to grow up, am looking forward to the day that she is a wee bit easier.