Maria and I traveled downtown on Sunday afternoon.  There were actually people and cars all over the place!  What a promising sight to behold!  The Columbus Commons is a new development in the heart of downtown.  It is a large grassy area with a carousel.  Yoga classes are held there, kickball games, music fests.  On Sunday, they had a holiday festival for kids.  I had wanted to take Maria and Mario to it on Saturday afternoon but it rained/snowed all afternoon (the kids were so excited to see tiny snowflakes!). 

We took Maria’s friend Anna since Mario spent the day with dad at “Big Mario’s” house in Dover, Ohio engaging in “manly” activities like wrestling, play fighting and hunting deer. They chatted the whole way downtown about games on their moms’ I phones and how they wanted their own for Christmas (keep dreamin’ sista!).  When we arrived, the place was booming with people.  It was an awesome sight compared to the emptiness the downtown usually contains.  The first stop was the petting zoo.  For a mere $5.00, the kids could feed baby bottles of milk to the goats, llamas and pot-bellied pigs!  Yes, pot-bellied pigs – my absolute favorite animal on Earth!  I could have sat in that pen all day holding those little munchball swine.  Maria was even more excited for me.  “Mom! Mom! They have your pigs!”  We must have spent 45 minutes in that giant pen, feeding the pigs and goats and petting the llamas and camel.  They loved watching the pigs guzzle the milk and hugging on the llama. 

Next, we moved onto s’mores.  They had a giant fire pit in the middle of the Commons for people to get warm and make s’mores.  They provided each kid with a stick, two graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows (what about the adults?!).  Maria likes her marshmallows barely melted (I think she actually simply has no patience to let them cook!). and Anna likes her marshmallows burnt to the crisp (the way I like them, too).  We warmed ourselves up (I even scored a tiny bite of a s’more from Ri) and hit the carousel.  Maria rode the elephant.  Two years ago she would have waved at me every time she passed me, but this year, she chatted with Anna nearly the entire time never even taking a glance at me!  However, towards the end, I did see her glance over at me to see if I was still around so I secretly know she still needs her mama! 

After the carousel, we hit the bouncey house.  This bouncey house was brutal – they allowed 7 kids in at one time.  Luckily, Maria and Anna were the oldest so they did not get trampled.  They even were sweet enough to watch out for the little tykes in the bouncey with them (let’s see 6  year old boys do that!).  After the bouncey house, we moved onto the train ride.  By this time, my hands felt like ice.  I had thin gloves on and any more my hands turn purple if out in the cold for longer than 15 minutes.  Fortunately, Maria lost her ride ticket after the train ride so I was able to convince the two of them to head to Target with me for icees (no, not hot cocoa because that makes too much sense!) and pretzels.  The girls read Teen magazine while I found cookbooks for my girlfriends.  That night I dreamt of m little pot-bellied friends with the hopes that Santa may bring me one for Christmas (hint, hint, Jon!).