We joined our preschool friends at the Montgomery County 4-H fair on Friday. The weather was beautiful and the animals were as friendly as could be. Peter, Lucy and Thomas really enjoyed being able to get up close with the sheep, cows, bulls, goats, chickens, rabbits, and other farm-friendly creatures.
Unlike their pesky petting zoo cousins, these animals have been raised without the expectation of small hands holding tasty treats, so they didn't bulldoze their way through children in search of food. That's always a plus, especially considering that your average preschooler is about sheep-sized, and those ornery goats have horns.
If anything, the children liked the animals too much. At least, little Thomas did. The poor babe wanted down, he wanted to touch the animals, and, if I'd let him have his way, he probably would have curled up next to the piglets or grabbed a handful of rabbit. Alas, the farm isn't the best place for a baby who still crawls and still shoves his fingers in his mouth every three seconds. I'm a pretty relaxed parent, but even I draw the line at letting the baby play in poo, which is exactly what he wanted to do. (He also very much wanted to play with the chickens, but I have hopes of him making it to adulthood with all ten fingers intact, and his baby fingers must look like tasty grubs to the hens who tried to peck at them.)
Other highlights: Lucy found all manner of pink, including a pink chair and pink pigs.
Peter finally got to ride the pedal train, after waiting a year for the Swarthmore Fun Fair and then finding out the trains weren't running then. It was the best $2 I've spent in a while.
The best $1 I've spent lately goes to the big bag o'fabric scraps from which the children have commissioned all manner of projects, including capes. Lucy's? Pink stripes. Peter's? Flowers and sharks. I love their fashion sense, and how they surprise me by not surprising me at all, every day.
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