Marmot Marchers

Part of the Blooms Day weekend in Spokane is the Marmot March. Its a 1.2 mile "run" around the park for kids 2nd grade and under. Imagine 400 little children, their parents, and all their strollers & wagons trying to walk through the park = fun, RIGHT?! Ugh! Aidan wanted to get out of her stroller at the beginning of the race, then decided right as we started to move that she wanted back in...I was trying to get her to walk for a second until we could have some space to get back in. She threw a tantrum and went limp (which is so not like her) and I ended up getting hit with a hundred strollers from behind as we tried pulling off the course. She was crying, I was PO'd and we lost our friends. Oh fun! So we walked the course alone. Finally we both calmed down, so I stopped about 2/3 through and asked her to get out to walk. She started arguing about it! I had to pull out my Love & Logic and told her that she could ride, but that she would have to tell her friends that she couldn't have lunch with them OR she could walk the rest of the way and we could have lunch with them. She walked about 10 feet to the port a potty, used it, then (as if I wouldn't remember) tried to get back in... Oh no ya' didn't! She pouted for another 10 minutes until one of the race volunteers cheered her on and could see she wasn't happy and gave her a pep talk. It was so sweet! Aidan was all excited then to give the volunteers high fives as she walked along, she even ran for a few feet! At the end she was excited to see all the mascots who came out to cheer the kids on. She was slapping hands and hugging at the end. We ended on a good note and then we had a great rest of the day. She was so proud that she finished and got her ribbon.