"WHERE'S BOB-BOB?"

Thursday night the Shrine Circus was in town so R and I took the boys out to see it. We went to the 7:30 showing, and I was afraid we wouldn’t get in at first since the line was LONG. It snaked around from the entrance to the side of the building and all the way to the grass next to the parking lot. We still needed to buy our tickets, and I was thinking, “If this is the ticket line…”. But it turns out that the early showing was running late, and they were still waiting for people to leave the arena. Once the circus started letting people in, the line moved really fast and we had no problem getting in. Which was good, because what would you tell your kid when you’ve been getting them excited all day for the circus and you get there and it’s sold out?

I think the boys had a good time. Well I know IJ did; he was clapping and saying “Yay!” and was watching everything very intently (this is actually the second time he‘s been to this circus, but he slept through it last year). C was cranky at first because he wanted this and that; we were sitting where he could see all the toys, and I think he was afraid that if he didn’t get one right away they would all disappear or something. He kept one eye on the action and one eye on those toys the whole time. After a bit (and after some popcorn) he was happier and more excited.

There was one thing that got both the boys’ attention, though, and C said it was his favorite part. No, it wasn’t the elephants, the tight rope walkers, the fire jugglers, the performing dogs, or even the motorcyclists who drove around in the big metal sphere. It was Spongebob. The circus did an act where they picked four people from the audience to come down into the ring. They did “American Idol”, and had the audience members sing karaoke to some funny songs (they told one boy he was getting a rap song, but instead it was YMCA, stuff like that). They got down to the last little girl, and told her she was getting a song everyone would know. Then that familiar theme song started to play, and I saw both boys perk their heads up right away. Then none other than Spongebob himself comes walking out behind the little girl and starts to dance as she sings. C gets this huge grin on his face, and IJ starts pointing and jumping in my lap, “Bob-bob! Bob-bob!”, looking back at me every two seconds with a “holy crap I can’t believe this” look on his face. Both boys were so thrilled. R and I couldn’t help but smile, even though Spongebob is not really what you bring your kids to the circus for. ;) Finally Spongebob said goodbye but would be back during the intermission. There was a couple of more acts until the intermission, but IJ could’ve cared less about those. He kept turning to me with his hands in the air, questioning, “Where’s Bob-bob? Where’s Bob-bob?”

We went down to get a little closer to “Bob-bob” during intermission (we could’ve gotten a picture with him but circus stuff has to be so expensive…), and we visited that toy booth that C thought was going to disappear and got both boys a flashing light saber. Which IJ kept trying to hit people with. :) Oh, well, it was a good night even though we could’ve seen Spongebob at home… :)