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That is actually what brings two of our grandchildren up for a visit every summer. Its the chance to go to the Shriner's Circus which is held every summer in a neighboring town. And its got kind of a little twist to it. The reason its called the Shriner's Circus is because the local Shriners take it upon themselves to get hundreds of local businesses to buy tickets for all the kids and its free for them. Although as you can imagine they sure get us parents and grandparents for part of the cost. But it is also the prefect excuse.
The perfect excuse for grandma to start a family tradition of having the grandchildren who live in the southern part of the state come up and stay with us for a week when the circus is going to be in town. Because actually it is a pretty rare thing to see a little old rinky-dink independent circus that admittedly has probably seen its better days And since there is more than a 500 mile round trip involved there's no sense in just driving back and forth. Just let the grandchildren come up for a week and stay with us and of course go to the circus.
And if you're beginning to sense that there's a lot more going on here than just a circus ... well of course you are right. Its something bigger than that. Its "family" as defined by my wife's side of the family. Where grandparents have their own special relationship with each individual grandchild. And maybe more importantly were everyone knows and loves their cousins. Its a bonded, and fully functional extended family that actually knows and loves each other. Which is something that is actually pretty hard to build and maintain in this day and age and something I surely have to give grandma credit for even trying let alone doing.
But man, what a circus. And I don't mean the actual circus either. I mean suddenly having a six year-old and a three year-old with you for 24 hours a day. I mean ... sure its like riding a bike. Even if you haven't had to ride one for decades you still can. But I swear at my age its like trying to go from 0 to 60 on a bike. Its all we can do to keep up with them and to be honest stay up with them. Especially since its not like grandpa and grandma are suddenly going to become the strong disciplinarians once you're in our house.
Hell no. If you're away from home and camping in the living room watching endless reruns of Sponge Bob makes you feel better and keeps you from crying until you go to sleep that's fine with us. Grandma and I can trade off on things like that. I can stay up with them past midnight. And then when I hear the pitter-patter of little feet the next morning at 06:00 grandma can take over. But still how do they do that? Especially this little Cocobear? Hang in there until midnight. Jump up at 6 the next morning and just be thrilled that's there is this brand new day. And he's going to be running through almost every minute of it.
So yeah we (me included) went to the circus. We (grandma, grandpa, Skybot, and CocoBear) got to know and love each other a little better. We camped, we went boating, we fished, and we jumped on the trampoline, we played chase, and we hugged, and hugged and hugged some more.
And then it was over and just like trying to quit smoking, I didn't think I could survive it but I sure did and had whole bunch of new different days to show for it.
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