Serenity?  In The Great Outdoors?

written by:  Sherry Hayden, Editor for Home at Work... Online!

I apologize in advance for getting a little long winded, bear with me, I'm new at this writing stuff!  Thanks!

Ok, so every year we have our local county fair.  It's a bomb these days.  I've heard stories of it's glorious past, you know, all the kids participating in Big Wheel & potato sack races, real down home good stuff, not anymore.  What we have is a carnival company that comes in to provide the rides, the local exhibitors stuff, cows and horses, and, of course, the food stands in great abundance.  (Great place for a diet - NOT!)  So, here we are, my husband, our two boys ages 2-1/2 and 1-1/2, and me - "the mom."  We went down to the fair last year for my oldest son just to see how he'd react to the rides.  He seemed to have a good time so we went again this year to see how our youngest son would react - he's the daredevil (like his father!) in the family.  Well, as I sort-of explained before, there's really nothing there for mom and dad - so we're basically going just so the boys can have a good time.

So, off we go to the fair!  The first thing we did was to go in and watch the tractor pull because Zach (the oldest) loves tractors.  That was a thrill (haha) so off to the rides.  The first ride was the merry-go-round.  Wyatt (the youngest) was fine with dad.  Sat right up on the horse not really sure of what we were doing exactly but giving it the old college try.  Zach?  No way.  He wanted to go inside the center of the merry-go-round because that's where he thought the fun was.  He started with that "I don't want to be on this stupid horse..." whine until the ride got going.  The next ride Zach decided (yup, after the merry-go-round, my husband and I weren't in charge of making the decisions of what ride to go on anymore!)  So Zach chose the sparkle painted jeeps that go around in a circle really slow.  (Well, they are little kids' rides after all...)  That was it.  The fair had about 6 other kiddie rides, and maybe 2 or 3 other adult rides that Zach could've gone on with dad but the jeeps were IT!  Zach started screaming when we took him off the jeeps (the guys running those things make the kids get off even if there's only 3 kids on the damn thing to begin with!)  So, here's Zach screaming his lungs out while dad and I are trying to get Wyatt on some of these other rides hoping to get Zach interested in something else so he can have a good time.  No go.  Zach was on that jeeps ride for good and not getting off.  Every time it stopped he just climbed into a different colored jeep and away he went!

That was until... they actually had a bunch of kids wanting to ride the jeeps now and Zach had to get off and give someone else a turn.  (The guy running the ride was actually starting to get attached to Zach - kind of scary!)  Anyway, Wyatt was riding the same ride as the jeeps but with boats and a couple of lumps on the circle to make like waves.  We did it!  Zach was finally ready to go on something other than the jeeps!  The screaming had stopped!  And then, new problem...  they don't stop the ride just so Zach can get on because first, his brother's already on the ride, and, second, he finally figured out there's more than the jeeps ride in this world!

After that we also got Zach and Wyatt (together) on the dragons that go up and around at the same time but mom got yelled at and almost got "clonked" in the head trying to get to Wyatt as the ride was slowing down because Wyatt was taking the big lightbulbs off the big arm of the ride.  Of course, after the rides, we just sort of walked around and got mom to "cool down" her stress level as screaming children in public always make you look soooo great as a parent.  (I'm thankful that my boys are usually well behaved - not that day!)  And, as we walked, we got some great stuff to eat - which of course the boys fought over. And, finally, we paid our money so that they could go in to see the little deer - Wyatt wanted to squeeze them too much - so he was asked to leave, Zach just kind of stood there letting me know - "deer mom, look, deer mom" - that was money well spent, too.

I was thankful when Wyatt finally fell asleep in the stroller and don't you know that everyone we ran into (not literally!) said - "oh how cute, but aren't you glad when they fall asleep at these damn things?!"  Yes, you betcha!  So there it is, my story about the great outdoors and how you achieve serenity when you do those family outtings.