Every Thursday Metro Mama writes about issues facing parents in our crazy slice of heaven.

On Thursday of last week I took my daughter to see Disney on Ice: 100 Years of Magic. It was her Valentine’s present from me. I think she is now at an age to start enjoying live shows. We took her to see The Wiggles back in August, but I’m sure she doesn’t remember much. The show was excellent especially since I haven’t been to an ice show since Smurfs on Ice sometime in the 80’s. They basically had little mini shows of many of their movies including Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Pinocchio and Mulan, but my favorite part was the “It’s a small world” themed skit before the intermission.

Tickets ranged from $75-15 so I picked the mid range ones, and our seats did end up being pretty good and close to the front. Since it was a morning show at 10:30 am, it was no where near sold out, so some people from the nosebleed section were allowed to come down to our area.

The only thing I didn’t like was all the merchandising and sales that were involved with the Disney on Ice show. From the moment we walked into the Verizon center, there were all different kinds of booths selling everything Disney related imaginable.

Now I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m pretty cheap. My husband hates it when I use that word, but I’m a spend thrift and bargain shopper. We had already paid over $50 for our two tickets, and now they were hitting us up for more. Not one single item was priced under $10. All kinds of junk…cups with Nemo and Buzz Lightyear were $12 and huge. You could also get your picture taken with a plastic Woody and Buzz from Toy Story for $12.

As my daughter E is asking for everything, I persuade her first, for us to go find our seats. Then all the salesmen come by with more junk! Popcorn, cotton candy, and those electric light gadgets that spin in circles. How’s a 2 year old is supposed to resist? Every few minutes it was “Mom I want that!” Luckily for me, I only had $2 on me so didn’t have to purchase anything, but it’s hard to explain the concept of cash to children. I told her if she was a good girl, I would buy her something afterwards.

The nagging stopped during the show, but it resumed with the intermission. After the show E said, “I want to do that again!” I did end up buying her a pink princess crown that had the Disney on Ice logo on it with some blinking lights. I told my husband it was over $10 but under $20 (since he’s cheap too).

Now if I can only get all those Disney songs out of my head….”A whole new world…A dazzling place I never knew…”