Happenings

I have many random and varied things to say today, so I'm going to go with the tried and true bulleted list.

•Allergies have been kicking.our.butts. this season. I'm not sure why, but all 4 of us having been suffering over the past several weeks, it's ridiculous. I took both of the boys out of school early last Tuesday because they were both not feeling the greatest, we missed Wednesday Story Hour at the library and then missed Wednesday night activities at church, thanks to the loads of snot and lung hacking going on. Stayed home from work and school on Thursday due to the same. We also missed Sunday activities at church because of it. I think we are FINALLY turning the allergy corner the last couple of days. Cooper's nose is still snotty and Garrett still occasionally sounds like an emphysema patient (but what asthma child doesn't on occasion?). But I'm done keeping them at home. They're not contagious so I think they're just going to have to deal with their issues until whatever is bothering us, finally goes away.

•On Saturday, Garrett was feeling pretty decent, so we went to a friend's birthday party. Keith stayed home with the snot monster. I was glad we went to the party because the attendance was low due to it being a holiday weekend. Garrett had fun and was super hyper thanks to his asthma meds. Everyone got to see albuterol-Garrett, who is apparently lots of fun at a party, but not as fun at home.

•I'm feeling a touch of the Mommy guilt because, even though the boys missed school last Thursday thanks to allergies, I let them miss again yesterday. Keith took the day off and we went to the great State Fair of Texas. I had to keep telling myself they're just missing preschool, but I still felt bad for doing it. However, we had lots of fun at the fair. Keith and I haven't been in 6 years, so obviously the boys have never been. We got there right when things were getting started for the day. We looked at the new vehicles that they always have on display at the fair. I took pictures of Garrett in all the sports cars (I'll post them later.) And Keith insisted it was time we buy a new vehicle. It won't happen, but he loves to talk about it. After the car show, we caught a dog show. The cool part about the dog show was that all of the dogs were dogs that had been rescued from shelters across the country. They did some really cool things. Then we got stuck in Stroller Traffic Jam '10. The overwhelming majority of the people in attendance at the fair on Tuesday were mostly families with small, stroller-riding children, like us. So when you attend something like a dog show where you have to park your stroller in a designated Stroller parking zone and then sit in the stands, you know it's going to be crazy when it's a free-for-all in the parking zone after the show. Thankfully I didn't have to throw too many elbows to make it out of there alive. Garrett and I did "Little Hands on the Farm" after that. Which is a joke unless you were born and raised in the city and have never seen a live farm animal up close and personal. We got to feed "chickens" (read, plastic birds that didn't move), gather their "eggs", milk a "cow", sheer a "sheep", etc. It was a crazy maze of fake animals which I couldn't have found my way out of if I wanted to, so we had to complete all the tasks so we could leave. Thankfully at the end, the kids got to "sell" their goods (the "eggs", "milk", "wool", etc) and get money that they could use to buy a snack. So we got a free bag of Cheetos for our trouble. I know I shouldn't make fun because I'm sure Garrett enjoyed himself, but I don't think it would have been that hard for them to get some real animals for some of those barns. This is Texas after all.

•I figured I should split by fair talk into 2 bullets, lest I look ridiculous. (Who am I kidding..) After feeding plastic animals, it was finally time for the entire reason for Garrett wanting to come to the fair. Rides. He has never ridden any amusement park type rides before (with the exception of a carousel). So he was super psyched for this part. The fair has a "kiddie" ride section next to the bigger rides, but we couldn't find it at first, so I decided to ride the "Tilt a Whirl" with him. I figured that would be a pretty tame ride to introduce him to rides, plus I've always loved those. It has been years since I've ridden any type of ride like this and it was so fun. Though I will say my stomach isn't quite what it used to be. Garrett loved it and we both laughed and screamed the entire time. After the ride, we finally stumbled upon the Kidsway. Garrett rode an airplane ride and then the bumper cars. At which point we had to tell him no more rides. (The cost of things at the fair is simply absurd.) Plus it was lunchtime. If you know anything about the Texas fair, then you know about the variety of fried foods they have. I wouldn't have minded trying some of those, but we ended up getting some chicken tenders and rolls for our dinner. At the chicken place, the girl gave us a free cookie for Cooper. He had fallen asleep on Keith's shoulder, so she found him extremely cute and wanted to reward that with a cookie. It wasn't the first free thing we were give while there, when we first got to the fair and were about to buy our tickets, a woman walked up to us and handed us a free child's ticket and said they didn't need it. Awesome! She saved us $11. Yes, $11. I'll get into the cost aspect of this in a minute. After eating, we had a grand total of 2 tickets left. (You have to buy tickets to pay for everything at the fair, including food. We had guessed how many tickets we would probably need for the food and rides and came pretty close.) Unfortunately, 2 tickets doesn't buy you much of anything, but thankfully on our way out, I saw a vender selling popsicles for 2 tickets. Killed 2 birds with one stone. Used the remaining tickets and consoled my child who was crying over not getting to ride any more rides.

•I just have to add that Garrett has been excited about the fair for months. He happened to spot the enormous Ferris wheel that sits at the fairgrounds year round one day and has talked about going to the fair and riding that ride ever since. We told him a few days ago that we would be going to the fair and every morning he would wake up with an updated tally of how many days were left until fair day. When we finally got to the fairgrounds and approached the ferris wheel, Garrett got to see exactly how big this ride actually is. (It's huge! I was having some anxiety issues just thinking about riding the stupid thing because I knew Garrett wanted to ride it. I have huge fears of height.) He decided that was a ride for a 6 year old, not a 5 year old and he would wait and ride it next year. Good call.

•The cost of the fair. How so many families can go to the fair and seemingly do it up way more than we did, is far beyond me. It cost us: $15 to park, $30 for Keith's ticket and mine (as I mentioned above, Garrett's was free, otherwise that would have been an additional $11), $30 in tickets for food and rides. Obviously Garrett rode 3 rides, I rode 1, and our lunch was 8 chicken tenders, 2 rolls, and 2 bottles of water split 4 ways. It's crazy how much everything costs and yet people still go! I'm glad it's there because it's a fun time, but it's certainly not an inexpensive time. I can't imagine how it would have been if we had let Garrett ride more rides or if we were all super hungry at lunch. Of course our remaining 2 tickets, I spent on a popsicle, otherwise we would have been out $1 because you can't trade your tickets back in for money.

•OK. No more fair. The other night we kept our friends' kids for them for a few hours. It's so funny listening to two 5 year olds talking. Here's one of their conversations:

G-"Drew, you want to play with Playdoh with us?"

A-"Drew hates Playdoh."

G-"What? Who could hate Playdoh?"

A is Garrett's best friend. She told me many times throughout the evening that Garrett is her boyfriend and they are going to get married some day. She also tried to kiss him several times. I am very interested to see where their friendship is at in 10 years.

•Someone in my area drives a Tony Micelli van from "Who's The Boss." Every time I see it, I always start singing the theme song "There's a time for love and a time for livin'..." It's made me really miss that show. I think I'm going to have to see if I can buy the seasons and rewatch them. That was good TV. Though I know back then it was a bit scandalous to some that he would live in her house, but boy is that tame compared to what we see now. The next time I see this van, I will try to take a picture.