August 31, 2012 ~ A Day at the Fair

Billy got to go to the fair today. We started with the petting zoo. They had a variety of farm animals. He was excited and terrified to see them. They're much bigger in person. He said "moo!" to the cow and "neigh!" to the ponies and "baa!" to the sheep. But he wouldn't touch any of them. "Scary, Mommy."

The animals he liked best were the alpacas. Although, he told me several times, "No, Mama. Llama." Yes, yes. We'll just go with llama for now. I know the difference, but to a one-year-old that's splitting hairs. (Llamas have long necks with shorter hair. Alpacas have shorter necks with longer hair. And their wild cousin, the vicuna (v-eye-coon-ya) is smaller and looks more like an elk than a llama.- from my trip to Peru.)

One alpaca really liked Billy. It made a chirping noise to him. With all of the llama/alpaca/vicunas I met in Peru, I never once heard any of them make noise. But, apparently, at least this one chirped.

Then we headed over to look at the cows being judged and to go over to the birthing center. We saw baby chicks, newborn calves, and Billy got to watch three little pigs be born. He could have cared less. The bleachers were more interesting than the pigs. Well, Mommy liked the pigs.

Then we headed back to the petting zoo to meet up with a friend with two little boys, one about Billy's age. They walked around and looked at all of the animals together. After Billy saw the other little boy, T, run up to touch a baby duck, Billy decided that the little duckling wasn't so scary after all.

From the animals it was off for some tractor rides! Okay, they weren't real tractors. Just little pedals cars, but the boys had a great time playing on them. Unfortunately, Billy's feet didn't reach the pedals, so I pushed him around instead. He loved the tractors. I think he wants one. Daddy said he might get one for him soon. You know, there's an awfully big day coming up this month in Billy's life...

After the tractors and a quick bite to eat of fair food, we headed off for the rides. What's a fair without rides? First up was the merry-go-round. Billy sat on his horse expectantly, not knowing what would happen. When the ride started to move, his face lit up. But when that horse started to go up and down as the ride went round and round, his smile went from ear to ear. I don't think I've ever seen him happier. Boy was that fun!

And, of course, he refused to smile for the picture.

After the merry-g-round we did some of the other kiddie rides- flying elephants, flying bananas (what?), and the wiggle worm. Billy was too small for most of the rides. One more inch and he can ride by himself. One inch, folks.

 

We walked around the indoor exhibits (in the air conditioning) for awhile and then, to round out our fair experience, we took the boys to get ice cream. Freshly made ice cream over at the cow palace. They had baby cones, so that's what I got Billy. I opted for vanilla this time, since I still haven't gotten the chocolate out of his shirt from the beach. He ate the whole thing, cone and all.

The ice cream sent Billy into a sugar rush. He was up, down, running all around. Over, under the ropes for the ice cream line, hoping to score another cone.

But, it was time to go. So we went home and Billy said to me, "Mommy, I sleepy." Then he pretended to snore on my shoulder. I tried to feed him dinner. But he said, "Mommy, I sleepy. Bed?" And he went into his room and put himself to bed.