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Family Outings

A County Fair & a Grand Illusion

June 2, 2010 by sue campbell

Multnomah County is the most urban county in the state of Oregon, home to the largest city, Portland.  Which translates to a pretty thin county fair.  Lots of vendor booths, not enough fried foods, no big animal barns, not a 4-H kid in sight.

On Sunday, with the end of vacation looming, I dragged Nora to this fair, conveniently located about two miles from our house.  It was great — I now like small county fairs better than large ones.  They are more kid-sized.  You don’t have to drag your toddler across acres and acres to see the attractions and the lines move quickly.

Our first stop was the generic version of Dock Dogs.  Nora watched various pooches launch themselves into a large pool, in pursuit of floaty toys.  Van Halen was blaring over a loudspeaker.

Next, we made our way to the main attractions.   We marched through the small petting zoo.  White rabbits, mini-cows, goats, a donkey and a few alpaca.  As we washed our hands, I heard someone ask for a pony ride ticket.  Hello.  Pony ride?  Make my little girl’s dream come true?  Here’s five dollars. 

We stood in line and Nora decided she wanted to ride the biggest pony.  I explained that we probably would not get to choose and reminded her of our mantra, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”  As luck would have it, she got her pick and the pony seemed grateful for my thirty pound daughter after the chubby 4th grader who had just dismounted. 

The ponies were tied to a merry-go-round like contraption.  Big kids rode by themselves, parents walked next to the smaller kids.  Halfway though the ride, Nora tried to shoo me off.  We compromised.  I could walk next to her, but was not to touch her.  She was fantastic and took it all very seriously.  The attendant even commented on what a great job she did (another advantage to having a child who’s small for her age — people are always impressed because they think she’s younger than she is). 

Next was the corn box.  Think sandbox, but filled with corn kernels.  Being the most tactile kid on earth, she swam in it — she luxuriated.   After twenty minutes I had to lure her away with promises of face painting. 

Can I just say I was having the time of my life fulfilling every desire a child could have at a fair?  I remember begging for face painting and pony rides as a kid, and I remember hearing “no” more often than “yes.”   

The face painting of today is to the face painting of my childhood what an iPhone is to a brick cell phone from the eighties.  There were little girls prancing around with crowns painted on their foreheads complete with fake jewels glued to their skin.   There were boys with their entire faces painted like tigers and goblins.  When I was a kid your choices were a big flower, a bundle of three balloons or a rainbow with a cloud at the end.  Period.  The booth had a large poster of choices and a pricing scheme.  If we were going to buy groceries this week, I needed to steer her toward the pictures framed in white ($3) or red ($5).  First she wanted this floral, mystical thingy that snaked from the forehead, to the temple and onto the cheek. Then she changed her mind and wanted Hello Kitty.  Then a heart.  Finally, she settled on a kitty cat muzzle.  She sat very still during the process and was clearly delighted with the result.  She looked in the mirror for ages.  It took a magic show to pull her away.

Have you ever been to a magic show where the magician had a meltdown?  It’s pretty extraordinary.  We sat on haystacks and watched a sweaty magician lose it.  Though he touted his show as being close to a Las Vegas-style Grand Illusion, I can’t remember seeing a magic show more transparent.  Seriously, I saw a ten-year-old with a card table set up outside his parent’s garage sale who was more impressive.  Still, the kids were enjoying it, and there was an eight-year-old girl named Kaitlyn who volunteered to float in space “light as a feather, stiff as a board” style — she was dynamite.  Shortly after Kaitlyn left the stage, the magician started sweating even more profusely.  He was changing the music at his boombox when he started rubbing his thighs, bouncing up and down, and wincing.  “Folks, we’re going to have to take a five minute break.  My legs are cramping up and I can’t really walk.” 

Of course, it’s a magic show.  My first thought was that this was part of a gag.  Not so.  This fool had an honest-to-goodness electrolyte deficiency.  Here’s the amazing part: instead of limping backstage to freak out in private, he sits down on stage and talks about how he should have known better than to take the winter off and then start his season with a county fair.  Apparently, being a local magician requires considerable conditioning.  The woman next to me asked if there was a doctor in the house.  The magician declined.

“I’m dehydrated,” he explained.  His assistant handed him a bottle of Gatorade.

With that, I took Nora’s hand and led her away.  She didn’t need to see the poor guy humiliate himself any further.  Of course, I felt badly for him, but I was also strangely giddy seeing the facade drop away during a Grand Illusion.  I guess Vegas can rest easy for the time being.

On the way out, I bought a big bag of kettle corn to cap things off.  Nora and I walked back to our great parking spot, hopped in the car and sped away.   She was anxious to show her daddy her kitty cat muzzle.

Filed Under: Family Outings Tagged With: face painting, magic show, petting zoo, pony rides

Best Laid Plans

May 27, 2010 by sue campbell

Ben and I took this week off to build a fence and put in the vegetable garden.  It has poured down rain every day.  The soil was perfect for tilling a week and a half ago; now it is a soggy mess.

Monday was the only day the forecast didn’t guarantee rain, so we took Nora to the zoo.  We saw:

  • a male black bear named “Tough” get the bejeezus scared out of him by an intimating, glossy black female (all she did was approach him quickly);
  • a really big frog;
  • a cougar who took a particular interest in Nora and kept looking from her to me, as if asking me for permission to let her in to play (or be eaten);
  • a baby elephant messing with a huge log in the swimming hole (I kept thinking of my mother-in-law who has a weakness for baby elephants —  she would have been a puddle);
  • two otters who thought very highly of themselves, displaying back-flip skills against the aquarium glass;
  • some primates, who make one question the whole concept of a zoo, so human and forlorn do they appear;
  • and a pride of lions casually lounging on some rocks.  They looked like they could jump the ravine and pick off a few middle schoolers any time they felt like it. 

Farmer wanna-be that I am, my favorite exhibit was the family farm, with miniature cows, goats, chickens and a raised bed garden.  I now want raised beds.  This would be advantage in a number of ways, the biggest one being there would be no annual argument about if we should till and when we should till.  You build the bed, put great soil in it and leave it the hell alone.  The soil doesn’t get trampled by dogs and toddlers and it warms faster in the spring, so early planting can begin without concern about the tiller wrecking early crops come May.  And they look cool.

It’s ten years since we moved to Portland, the webs between our toes have fully formed — so we forged ahead on constructing the fence around our garden, it is nearly complete.  Putting in the garden beds will have to wait for a few weeks of dry weather.  I’m trying to roll with it, but sometimes I get a bit uptight about gardening.  I strive for Martha Stewart like tidyness in the garden which is not realistic without a staff of dozens and oodles of cash.  And she doesn’t have a toddler to contend with.  Nora’s garden enthusiasm is strong, but she’s a soil tromper and will tear open a seed packet and fling seeds every which way.  My only hope of keeping her as my garden companion is to chill out. 

In the meantime, I can catch-up on laundry, because if Martha Stewart saw my basement right now, she’d be appalled.  Do I care what she thinks?  Not really.  But Nora’s almost out of clean underwear.

Filed Under: Family Outings Tagged With: bears, chickens, elephants, fence building, gardening, goats, lions, martha stewart, otters, primates, raised beds, vacation, zoo

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What kind of blog is this?

This is a blog for PARENTS. True, the writer, Sue Campbell, writes books for kids. But this blog is for grown-ups. It has some swearing and would be super boring for kids. Except for the swearing.

The PODCAST is for KIDS and PARENTS. In fact, my twelve-year-old daughter is my co-host.

If your kids like Sue's books, send them over to suecampbellbooks.com where there's some kid-friendly content. EVEN BETTER, join the mailing list. You get stuff for grown-ups and printable stuff for kids. And sometimes there will be super ill-advised giveaways or coloring contests for free books.

MORE ABOUT SUE: She makes an ACTUAL LIVING from writing words and marketing books and lives with her husband, two daughters, six chickens and one messy house rabbit in Portland, Oregon. And yes, Portland IS that weird. She really couldn't be any luckier.

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