Was it a waste of money?

We took Anna to see the Tanglewood Festival of Lights tonight. Will and I were so excited because we just knew this was the year that Anna would appreciate the lights. For those of you who don't know (and were too lazy to click on the link for more info), the FOL is about 1/2 mile from our neighborhood and is pretty impressive. It claims to be the biggest in the southeast, for whatever that's worth. Anyway, we took her last year, but a one-year-old can only be amused for so long.

So, we pull into the park and I turn around to get Anna out of her car seat. You go approximately 5 mph through the lights, so children sitting in the front seat is quite common. Anna was shocked that the car was moving and she was not in her seat. She was loving life! She was really excited about the first couple of scenes we came to. I would point to, say, the teddy bear waving next to a wrapped present, and then she would say, "Look, Datty, you see the teddy bear?" as if he was not in the car when I said it the first time. Or, "Look at the horses, Datty! I love horses." It was pretty cute.

Then she decided that she wanted the window down so she could "see better". I rolled the window down with this miraculous thing called the automatic window control. Well, that was the end of it. For the entire rest of the trip, we were having to distract her from the window control to make her look at the lights. I cannot tell you how many times that window went up and down! When we finally reached the end, we pulled over and I got out to put her back in her car seat. A meltdown ensued. Go figure.

So, lesson learned. We payed $10 for Anna to sit in my lap in the front seat and play with the window control while we drove through the lights. We probably could have sat in the driveway at home for free and she would have been equally as entertained. Oh, well. At least Will and I can say we've seen the lights this year!