Philip meets Shrek!

Matthew read in the paper that Shrek would be appearing at a local Chick-Fil-A so I had it on the calendar and awaited the day to come. I hadn't told Philip about it in case it didn't work out, but the day finally came this past Tuesday, July 17. Matthew had a Deacon's meeting that night so I would be taking Philip and Braewyn myself. Jo Ellen had taken Emma to see Dora there and advised to wait until the end to avoid the big crowd. Well, I prepared dinner for us at home so Matthew wouldn't go to his meeting hunger, then got us ready and headed out the door for Chick-Fil-A. We left the house at 7:11pm and Shrek would be there only until 7:30pm. It was a feeling I'm going to try my hardest not to have again: will I let my child down knowing he wants to see/do whatever and he might miss it due to my tardiness? Needless to say, I was glad not to pass any cops on the way. To add to the excitement, just as we're turning onto the road where the restaurant is located, Philip says, "Mommy, I have to go potty." Oh and I forgot to mention that it was raining pretty hard too.

We got to Chick-Fil-A at 7:22pm and found no crowd at all. I actually even told the woman walking around with Shrek (Matthew said she's called a handler!), "Please wait for us. We need to go potty." Philip being the potty-champ he is recently, made it easily to the bathroom, went potty, washed his hands and then was ready to meet Shrek. I really didn't know what to expect from Philip but he acted like he and Shrek were old friends: gave him a hug, gave him high-five and said bye. The "handler" told all the kids (Philip and one other little girl!) to say bye to Shrek because he had to go back to his village. Doesn't she know he lives in a swamp? Either way, you get to it via behind the Chick-Fil-A counter! I was really excited for Philip to meet his "hero". Don't know if Philip really bought into the idea that it really was Shrek or not. Like Jo Ellen, I was a little disturbed by the experience. Not the fact that he really didn't look like Shrek at all (kind of a mentally challenged toddler version of Shrek! Please don't take offense.), but it was the muteness (is that a word?). I can't stand silence when it seems so unnatural. I wanted to scream at Shrek, "Say something!" Maybe because it was so quiet in Chick-Fil-A. I've never thought about it with the characters at theme parks.