Denver Stock Show 2009

Can I just say that Anthony and I are pretty darn brave. We went with the kids to the Stock Show yesterday. We found out how stressful and difficult that is when one child is almost three and accident prone and the other is almost 5 weeks. We were exhausted by the time we got home!!!

We got to the place at about 9:30 AM. We parked in the family lot because it's cheaper. I nursed Jack in the front seat of our tiny car to "top him off" before we made our long trek to the shuttle bus.

When we got to the bus stop, we had to lift and carry the stroller holding Jack in his car seat onto the bus. Tessa was running around our feet picking up rocks and sticks to play with on our bus ride to the Hall of Education (the building where the exhibits and animals and kid area are set up). The bus ride excited Tessa to no end. She thought it was very fun and squealed over every bump exclaiming in a hi-pitched voice that I think only dogs could hear "Bus goes FAST!!".

When we pulled up to the curb we had to carefully get the stroller off. Enter Tessa's first accident. She totally missed the curb on the last step and slammed face-first onto the sidewalk. But there were too many people around for her to feel comfortable acting hurt. So she walked quickly over to Anthony and stood very still for a few moments--collecting herself.

The next several minutes went by smoothly. There were diaper changes, potty breaks, and lots forced hand holding. I'm talking about with Tessa (haha). There were so many people!! I didn't trust Anthony to keep a "mother's" eye on Tessa, so I did it myself.

We stopped at an indoor play area that was fenced off to let Tessa blow off some built up steam. If you didn't know, seeing exciting things like ponies and cows and ducks and chickens adds steam to an otherwise bursting child. Anyway, enter accident #2. Someone pushed Tessa down a rather steep slide which sent her careening on her hand and knees across the fake turf. She really let it go then.

We ate lunch at a nearby pit stop and then started the long wait in line for the pony ride. I was pretty excited about this because Tessa has never really ridden a pony. I mean, there was that one time me and Grandma held her on the back of an unsaddled miniature horse, but she was terrified and we had to stop.

The long wait ended finally, and Tessa could not have been more excited. She was grinning bigger than I have ever seen! Except for the moment her picture was taken. She is like those little girls from the 1800's whose faces always look angry or sullen in those black and white photos. Well, not quite that bad.

Yes, these are pictures of a picture. I had to get the photos from the pony ride people because I forgot my camera.

After the pony ride came accident number three! Tessa tried to push the stroller (I was in line getting the photo). She did something and ended up making the whole stroller dump over backwards onto her. Yes, Jack was in the car seat. Here's the kicker--he wasn't buckled in!!!! He was dumped into the back of the stroller (it was a soft landing and he never even woke up, thank God). Tess, however, screamed as though her arm had been cut off or something. She was perfectly fine, just scared. People all around Anthony gasped and stared. I, of course, rushed to the scene of the accident and made sure all was OK. Scared me to death for the second time! The first time happened a few days ago and is a story I promised not to tell. Sorry!

At this point, we just wanted to go home, but we had tickets to the Super Dogs show. What a bust!! Tessa had more fun trying to cheer at all the right places than actually watching the dogs. She was exhausted after 20 minutes and tried to go to sleep in her chair. We left before it was over and made the migration back to our car where we all sat silent the whole trip home. I must be getting old--that was almost too much! And I won't even go into the supposedly private "nursing area" set up at that place. Fun, fun!