Last Thursday, we made Liam’s morning when we told him that he wasn’t going to school (he’s not exactly excited about going to this new school) but to the botanic gardens for our annual family photoshoot.
Excited at being able to spend the day with us, he broke into laughter, silly smiles, song & dance throughout most of the morning. Until we got lunch at the cafe. The Bo had to send a few urgent emails so I was left to manage Liam and Ollie on my own. And because I had to attend Ollie and his hunger cries, Liam got bored and started to fiddle with any and everything within his reach. Like shaking the salt and pepper despite my repetitive “put it down”. And taking quick little sips of water from the cup that he ended up spilling some on the table and on himself. He couldn’t resist not licking ketchup off the disposable sauce container too.
It got quite crazy at one point that I might have threatened to send him to school on the spot a few times. It worked…for only 5 minutes before those little hands found their way to anything that was lying on the table again.
I needed a carrot. A distraction. And that’s when I remembered reading on my Facebook news feed about a Chuggington Live Show happening. Ah hah! Trains. Chuggington. Liam had caught 2 or 3 episodes of it on Disney Junior and loved the catchy theme song. A quick google on Live Show timings (it was 1.30pm and the next show was starting at 2pm on a weekday) later, we were on our way!
None of us in the family have ever been to a live show before, although Liam has been enjoying the youtube versions of them hence I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t want to psych Liam (who seems to remember every promise I make too vividly for my liking) too much and so I told him we were going to see Chuggington and that it was going to be exciting.
We got there at 5 minutes to showtime and it was packed! Managed to get a decent standing space, and what happened next left Liam and myself in awe. “Senior Mechanic”, Morgan, came out to greet the audience and got us all riled up with a simple and fun game for the kids. Then, he started to ask the audience the name of the train that would come out of each coloured shed.
I honestly thought the name of the red train was “Chuggington”. And so did Liam (because that’s how I’ve been referring to the red train that he has). Oops. So imagine my folly when we were told that the 3 main trainees (not trains) were “Koko”, “Wilson” and “Brewster” through the fun introduction, and what sort of locomotives they were through the very entertaining live show! Soon I was tapping my feet to the beat of the theme song and Liam was bobbing about in my arms. As I saw Liam watched on with some excitement when the trainees started to make their appearance, I couldn’t help but tear! It made me really happy to see him that happy!
There was a meet & greet session, which I had no idea about. And Liam got crossed with me that he couldn’t get up close & personal with his favourite trainees. That didn’t deter him from watching all the meet & greet action taking place from below the stage. In fact, he refused to leave even after everything had ended until a very nice member of the crew helped me out by telling him that the trainees went for a break and if he wanted to watch them again he had to listen to his mummy!
With the huge incentive of being able to watch the Chuggington Winter Snow Party Live show ONLY if he’s on good behaviour, we had a pretty good rest of the day. We also discovered there was a ‘Choo-Choo City Express” which got Liam really excited to hop on (another huge carrot for us to get him to finish his meal including his veggies) as well as Kiddy Carnival Rides and a Christmas Light Show & Snow Playtime. There was lots to do that we ended up staying at City Square Mall for a good 6 hours before we had to go back because Ollie was getting overtired from being all mesmerised by the sights and sounds.
When weekend came (which was 1 day later really), with our little guy was on his best behaviour, cooperating at swim class, eating and napping when told, we decided to reward him with another Chuggington Live Show. 3 live shows later, we finally got that meet & greet (hooray!), and Liam got to sit on his first kiddy carnival ride as well! Needless to say, we were chug-ed out with contentment.
If your kids are into trains, carnival fun (jumpy castle, riding the choo-choo, carnival rides) and especially Chuggington, I highly recommend checking out the live shows, chugging to the catchy tunes and ending the evening with the Christmas Light show and snow playtime (starts at 8pm) at City Square Mall.
Do hurry, cause the Live Show ends this weekend (21 Dec) while the rest of the activities will end 28 Dec. Don’t be surprise if you see us there again!
{Disclaimer: No monetary compensation was received for this post although we did get that meet & greet pass which made Liam’s day. All opinions and content are my own.}
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