Kids' events: hit or miss

I'm always on the look out for fun things to do on the weekend. We always go to the library for a half hour at least. Penny loves it because the kids' area has a big space to crawl around and huge bins of baby books. She empties the bins one book at a time and then chooses a few for mommy to read. Her attention span is about 3 pages in each book so it is kind of like a choose your own adventure as we move through 5 different plots in 10 minutes. Here she is at the library while I'm checking out my books:

But besides our library visit, I like to go to other places besides Target and the grocery store. It used to be fine because it was a change of scenery, but now Penelope actually reaches out for things she wants and gets mad when I push the cart away.

A few weeks ago we went to Rock the Cradle, a free event at the Children's theater. I had heard all sorts of reviews about last year's event. We decided to go at the end since most parents I talked to complained about the crazy crush of humanity...and that would be a huge crowd with lots of boogers and high pitch voices. I printed out the map and schedule so we knew exactly what we wanted to do. We had a blast! There was a woman who put on a half hour show with puppets, songs, books, violin. She had 100 babies, included Penelope, totally mesmerized. Then there was a kid disco party, an instrument "petting zoo", yoga and gymnastics. Total hit! I didn't get good pics, mainly because we were having so much fun.

Well, today we decided to go to the Midwest Kidsfest in St. Paul. Now the website made it seem like an indoor kids heaven. Bouncy castles for all ages, ponies, magicians, characters, face painting, a train, kids' bands etc. The huge list of vendors and sponsors should have been a red flag. It was $5 per person to get in, which is totally fine if it was what they advertised. However, the majority of the room was set up with booths of all types of vendors, and then it seemed like the kids activities were an after thought on the side. Plus, the best activities cost extra money. We pretty much paid $15 for people to try to sell us stuff. I could have gone to Target for free! Most of the magicians and characters were just people sitting at a booth giving out brochures about performing at birthday parties. The Reptile Center and Underwater Adventures were doing the same thing, but at least they brought some snakes and sea urchins to pet. Then there were your usual suspects: Tupperware, Mary Kay, Pampered Chef. And why did 4 chiropractor offices feel this was the right venue? Are parents' backs really that messed up? There were also quite a few photographers there so I got some business cards since I'd like to get family photos in the spring. It became pretty clear that we had to rethink our idea to spend a good portion of the day at the Kidfest. We stayed about 45 mins. I'll be much better at reading the fine print of these types of things to see if it will be worthwhile.

Penny did get to experience a few fun things for the first time. Here she is with Spanky the pony:They also had a bouncy toddler area:It took a little bit of time for her to get used to it. I also have video, but halfway through I'm scolding the 5 year old who is jumping around way too much and almost landed on Penny.

In Minnesota if the word fair, fest, carnival etc are used in the description, you betcha they will be making piping hot mini donuts. We bought a bag and let Penny try one. Here she is taking a bite:Do you think she's a fan?Here's dad after he hid the bag. He's doing the "all done" sign. She was not happy about this.

When we got home she crawled over to the diaper bag and within 30 seconds was eating another mini-donut. Chris said, "we seem to have unlocked the donut monster gene" Thankfully after that one donut she was happy when I gave her an apple. They kind of cancel each other out, right?