We marked on the calendar, this year, to attend the Puyallup Fair with my friend Jen and her little girl Mia, and intended on really making the day of it with lots of fair food, plenty of time allocated to see the animals, and money enough to ride a bunch of rides.
Funny enough the weather report said it was going to rain the day we planned to go and so we bundled up with rain coats, layers of t-shirts, umbrellas, and for Padon rain boots. What was funny was the moment we arrived in Puyallup the clouds parted, the sun came out, the day warmed up to a lovely 80 something (felt like it anyway) and we found ourselves surprisingly overdressed and wishing we had brought the stroller that we thought would be too encumbersome in the fair going crowds.
In either case we relished the opportunity to attend this giant fair in the lovely sun and we had a great day! Padon was shockingly enthusiastic about the rides. He had been so cautious at the Stanwood -Camano Is. Fair that we were sure we would hear the statement "No, all done with the rides" but instead Padon was shriekingly excited to climb aboard the pink glittered "motorcycle" and to wave frantically and proudly at Walter and I as he circled by again and again.
This was Mia's first fair and so she was as apprehensive as Padon had been with the Stanwood-Camano Is. Fair, but with Padon's excitement came out of her shell a little.
They both dug the canoe ride; a simple serpentine water ride that just floated their boat on a current around once and then let them off. This ride was a must do twice.
In the middle of the fair was this great sculpture of metal pieces including the outer casing of an old PC and around it were metal paint buckets with chopsticks, duck taped on one end forming a drum stick. You would not believe how popular this was with the toddler and younger grade school group and all the shapes and colors made me wish we had something like it in our back yard. I made this statement out loud to a guy standing next to me and he having no idea how large our backyard is, and not knowing me, gave me a look like, "are you crazy?!!!" To which I thought, he has no taste! Ha!
After six rides or so, a corn dog/ corn on the cob/ BBQ lunch, the kids definitely started to wind down. The rides were still fun but loosing their pizazz.
And the round and round of the Carousel had Sophia lulled to sleep; something that really bothered the other fair goers that were positive that she must be completely uncomfortable. The absolute rock star quality of the Kelty child carrier/ backpack has one let down and that is there is no upper body support past the arm pits and when the carried child falls asleep it is more natural for them (at least for Sophia who likes to lean to the left to see around you) to dangle to the side instead of onto your back and shoulders. One gal stopped me to HAVE to tuck Sophia's elbows next to her sides so that her arms created the upper body support she needed. That lasted all of 3 minutes and Sophia was again dangling. I refused to feel like a bad mother. Would you keep sleeping if you were really uncomfortable?
By the end of the day Mia was done with the rides, we had spent what we had budgeted on the fair, and we had just enough for one more ride or game. We opted for a game because Padon had been asking the whole day for a inflatable Spiderman, that as a parent and a 3 year veteran of Padon ,I know would be popped in 15 minutes. If he was going to get something that was going to be thrown away before we left the fair ground gates I wanted it to have more fun then Padon dancing next to me as I handed over $3. Walter chose the game where you shoot water into the clown's mouth to see who can fill up their balloon the fastest. After the fact Walter said he thought they had cheated a little because he thought maybe he wasn't supposed to be squeezing Padon's finger on the trigger before the vendor said go, but he won! The trauma of the loud balloon popping had Padon so interested in getting away that he missed that he had won until Walter chose a medium sized stuffed tiger prize for him. Padon LOVED it having wanted to hug unto the giant sized Tigers displayed around the gaming area. That had me so tickled and proud of Walter for totally making this county fair experience extra special.
We wandered back to the car, got ourselves all buckled in, and as we pulled out of the parking lot the clouds came in, the wind picked up, and it started to rain. What a perfectly timed and great day at the fair.
No comments:
Post a Comment