What would you do for a tootsie roll?

We spent Halloween with a friend of the boys and his mom at the local amusement part: Great America.  The boys opted to skip the costumes for the day, and just enjoy the rides.

The challenge at this age, is the varying levels of thrill that they can tolerate.  Our group ranged from zero (me, the chicken heart), to Mild (Barley), Medium (friend) and Anything Goes (Teddy and friend's mom).  DH is between Medium and Anything Goes.  Of course, the split in thrill seeking meant I spent much of the day with Barley after the 2 rides that all 3 of the boys could agree on.

I still remember my "little" brother taking me on one of my first coasters when I was a tween, and hanging on to his neck while we went straight up and screaming in his ear the whole way own.  I wonder if he remembers this too?   He can probably trace hearing loss back to that event.

Even riding one of the "baby" coasters at Great America these days has me questioning my sanity--and I don't mean Psycho Mouse, which has pretty intense death-fantasy fulfillment in it.  I mean the Reptar coaster in the Nickelodeon area.  Just barely more thrills than the Taxi Jam ride in Kidzville, for which the only requirement is that you be older than 2, and be able to hold your neck up straight.

I made a big deal about how scared I was on the Reptar coaster, which helped Barley enjoy the ride more when he went on it by himself twice more without me.  I was very protective of his ego, after their friend scoffed at Psycho-Mouse (the one I thought I was going to DIE on), calling it a "baby ride".  I totally get that there are more exciting rides out there, but I knew Barley was not going to go for those.  He had spent weeks looking forward to seeing this particular friend, and now would not actually spend much time with him, since the ride tolerance was so different.

So what would I do with Barley all day, while we avoided the scary rides?  We ate popcorn, frozen lemonade, played some games, and headed over to Nickelodeon where they were doing "Nick or Treat." 

 

Frankly, Barley is getting a bit old for the character bit.  He was the tallest kid in line, and when it was his turn to hug Angelica, he tried to move past her straight to the staffer holding the candy bags.  Both the staffer and I told him he had to either hug or pose with the character--in this case it was Angelica from Rugrats.  He hates Rugrats.  He almost gave up on the venture entirely, then decided he could tolerate it for the sake of the candy.  Surprisingly, he actually gave me a nice smile even.

There were 5 stations total, and the characters, were changed out every 20 minutes.  The candy at each station was the same, but with each new character Barley figured he could stand in line again for more candy.  We got 9 characters, and 9 grabs of candy before he finally got tired of it.

It was amusing to watch him put up with the lines and the posing to get the candy.  It wasn't primo stuff--mostly nerds, jawbreakers, gum, and tootsie rolls.  He knew he would have to share with his brother and friend, so he wanted to be sure to get plenty.  It kept him happy and gave us something to do while the others rode roller coasters.  What would YOU do for candy?