When you think you're going to hate going with your kid to her theater thingy and you end up loving it almost more than she did.

So I flew with 27 children to Atlanta, Georgia to meet up with 5,000 other kids for a theater festival.

 You're thinking nightmare, right? Me too. I kept reminding myself that I created this theater loving little human and I'm also the one that insisted she make a goal for herself and getting selected for JTF is what she chose, so this was at least partly my fault.

I had to draw deep on my caffeine and courage. I'm not a person who likes crowds. Or staying up past 9 PM. Or children. 

 But lo and behold, I was blown away by the whole experience. It was way out of my comfort zone (there wasn't a Starbucks or one single minute of down time) but I learned that I can be a crazy, extroverted, kid person exactly one time per year.

 It didn't hurt that my kid was so happy. Like, dancing in the aisles (literally) happy the entire time.

 These are her people. They get her.

 And their moms get me. Which was such a sweet relief.

 If I never hear another Seussical song for the rest of my life it will be too soon, but still, so much fun.

 These Mommas turned out to be my soul sisters. I was so glad to meet theater moms that were as exhausted as I was.

 Finally a place where the theater geek rules!

 Now, one can imagine how many man-buns are represented with 2,500 theater dudes, but this guy's hair was unreal. 

 He actually meant to do this.

 Eventually, even the kids lost steam.

 All the different theaters bring arm bands and you exchange them all weekend. As you can tell, Mia made a lot of new friends.

 And the sweetest moment of the trip for me was meeting up with the rest of the fam in the Orlando airport. Mia is running towards her Daddy and Bode is running towards me.

It's fun having kids, for the most part.