County Fair

From 2010 August

We took a trip to a nearby county fair on Saturday morning and had a wonderful time! Nicholas couldn't get enough of the animals and we learned that he knows the sounds lots of animals make. Who knew? They must be doing that at school. He seems to think those are the animals' names, but one step at a time.

Nicholas was obsessed with "moos." Seriously, he didn't want to let us leave the cows and kept reaching out to them with a face full of excitement and shouting "moo!" He was also really interested in the horses, especially when they ran near the edge of the fence we were standing at, and intrigued by the goats, sheep, and bunnies.

His favorite part, however, was the little petting zoo. He is really starting to get the hang of the whole petting thing. He reached right out to pet the animals and would then turn to me with a huge "Mommy, look what I'm doing. Can you believe it?" grin. The excitement and pride in his eyes melted my heart. He isn't great at being gentle, however, and sometimes was scratching as much as petting. This was fine with animals like the sheep, but with the baby rabbits and the chick I was afraid he might hurt them and pulled him back.

A volunteer offered to let us feed the goats and much to my surprise Nicholas was very excited about this. The only problem was that he kept trying to actually feed the goat--trying to put the piece of food in the goat's mouth rather than holding it in his palm for the goat to lick up. It was almost as though he understood the idea of "feeding" too well. I kept trying to turn his arm over to put his palm up, but he just kept going back to trying to put his fingers in the goat's mouth.

From 2010 August

But he kept working at it for a long time and would have been content to stay much longer if another group of kids hadn't come over and gotten the goat's attention with more food. And luckily the goat did not actually bite the fingers Nicholas had wrapped around the food.

Then when we got home Nicholas showed me a skill he had learned while I was gone--he now knows how to ride his own horsey:

From 2010 August

He loves making the horsey rock by himself. He can get off by himself about 50% of the time (in a feat that requires as much concentration and effort as rock climbing did for me), but can't get on by himself yet. But I have to admit, I love his pathetic pleas for "uppy."