Indulging

Fucking puppets. Some, I can handle. Sesame Street is pretty good. The Muppets are iffy. But marionettes in dingy clothes and dangly arms, eyes protruding for effect, is not good for me at all. My teeth grit, my jaw hurts, I am an incapable coping machine.

But, I love my children. Even on summer holiday I still love my children. And my husband loves free, zero down, family entertainment. 

So, we take the kids to the puppet show. 30 other parents bring their respective 2 and a half kids to the puppet show. The Story of Captain Red Bill was supposed to be outside, where I could safely divert my eyes elsewhere. But oh, of course, it's supposed to rain and the play has been moved inside. So 100 people jam into a tiny attic, where the seating is gym mats thrown on the floor or the wall to lean against. I'm in the apex of it all. 

The play starts. It's in German. (I get it, we're in Germany.) The actor walks out and starts doing some slapstick. The girls are laughing like I've never heard before. And then the puppets. Suddenly the temperature has reached 100 degrees and my legs lose circulation from being in buddha pose for too long. I want to escape but I physically cannot. Just as the blood starts flowing back to my legs, Eloise has had ENOUGH. She stands up, lets out a whine and we book it for the door.

The looks on their faces are further proof that puppets are not good for the soul.

If I could have given her a hundred euros to spend on gummy bears, I would have. Instead, we played at the park. The SUNNY park, I might add, as it never did rain. The play was all said and done about five minutes after we left, so we asked Claudia if she would also like to go to the park. And she did want to, so we did. And the day was good after all.

Fishing for pond weeds.

Sweet Serenity.

Moral of the story is, the next time Aaron is searching for some free entertainment for the kids we're going to stream some Three Stooges and let the kids have a laugh. They can even share some of our popcorn.