Clowning Around

A nearby shopping center hosts an event for children every Monday -- with a clown. It's an outdoor shopping center, and there's a pavillion in the middle, where the clown entertains children for about an hour. And this isn't just a clown with some balloons. This is a clown with a program! Each week the clown treats the children to a story, lets them sing and dance and play with musical instruments (triangles, tambourines, etc.), and does a craft with them. Sometimes the children play with a parachute; sometimes the clown makes them balloon animals. This clown has a seemingly endless bag of tricks!

In the past, Kathleen hasn't been too interested in the clown. (In fact, she's been rather scared of her.) Kathleen has liked to go see the clown, but only because her little friends would be there. She never seemed to care much about the clown or the activities. This week, though, that seemed to change. Suddenly (after months of encouragement) Kathleen was dancing and playing right alongside the other children...

She really liked her bell shaker for music time. She generously let Mama and baby Madeline try it out.

She ran like a cheetah, swam like fish, climbed like a monkey, and jumped like a kangaroo. And then, of course, she just danced.

Instead of the usual craft, this week the children played cheerio bingo. The clown would call out pictures, and the children would lay a cheerio on that picture, if they had it on their square. That was a little too advanced for Kathleen. She'd lay a cheerio down on one of the blocks, but then she'd look around and pop the cheerio into her mouth! Eventually, she stopped laying them down and simply munched away while the other children finished playing bingo.

After they were all done, Kathleen and her little friends posed with the clown for a photo. Kathleen wasn't too sure about being that close to the clown, but she obliged.

I have a feeling we'll be back next week!