An American Girl Event

Today Grandma and I took my girl to Suffolk, Virginia for an American Girl event at an historical home there. I'm reading the Kit girl books to her and we plan to see the movie. That coupled with this event were all planned to find out if she *really* wants the dolls or just wants them because they are popular.

This event was my main reason for setting up the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house when I did. Once there, Grandma, the girl and I all drove about 45 minutes to Suffolk to attend the event.

It was less than worthy of all the effort.

The girl who was leading it was clearly not up-to-speed on the story and had very little awareness of how to encourage interaction with a group of 6-11 year olds. Eventually, another mother and I stepped in and started asking questions of the group in an effort to liven up the room. The girls became more animated as they discussed aspects of the book for a bit but I didn't know enough about the series to continue for long. Eventually, she let the girls draw on fabric squares with fabric markers and these were to be sewn together to become a quilt to be displayed in the house. And that was the end of the event.

L.A.M.E.

Fortunately, I hadn't pumped it up for my daughter and this was her first experience at such a thing so she wasn't disappointed. She said she had fun which is what it was all about. But boy was I dissappointed to have gone to all the effort involved just for this lousy showing.

I think I'll contact the company to see if I can put on my own American Girl event in my hometown as an outreach for our girl scout troop.