Down on the farm

Yesterday I had the great joy of being able to take the day off just have a day to do something completely fun with Miss A. D and I trade off on who stays home on days when our daycare provider takes time off and this time around it was my turn.

At first I started thinking about literally staying home with Miss A and using the time to get household chores taken care of but then I realized how silly it would be to not take better advantage of the bonus time. I quickly got to brainstorming of where and what we could do that would be out of the ordinary and really fun. That's how I was able to come up with going to a local area farm, petting zoo, and "Enchanted Forest." The place where we went was Clark's Elioak Farm. What a ball that place was for us!

Miss A was honestly a little overwhelmed when we first got there. There are three parts of the farm and it was a lot to take in! There were giant sculptures and statues of classic storybooks (that's the Enchanted Forest part of it), tiny little playhouses scattered all about to play pretend, animals to pet, cuddle up to, and ride on, and a maze to scamper around in. To help Miss A ease into it all a little easier, we started out in a play area with toys that she was familiar enough with...

It helped tremendously and she began to feel right at home with it all. (Please note Miss A's sandals that show her freshly pedicured piggies done earlier that day! She's finally at the age where she enjoys such a thing much more and spent a good part of the day just looking down at her feet when she walked around.)

Since I couldn't wait to get her to the petting zoo that was our next stop. I thought she would be thrilled to see and touch all of the animals but surprisingly it wasn't "all that" to her.

We started out with the miniature goats that were so tiny they didn't even look real. Since Miss A has had limited exposure to live animals other than dogs, cats, and most recently rabbits, she was confused about the goats. She kept calling them dogs and puppies and barely took a moment to get to know them better. I encouraged her to sit down next to them because they really were that nice and gentle to be able to get closer to but she just wasn't impressed. I mean, it was a DOG just like her dog at home wasn't it? Why should she even care about seeing another dog?!!

After a lot of encouragement from me (and I think just to get me to be quiet already) she obliged my requests and did a "one-finger touch" like what she was taught at daycare. Eh. I'll take what I can get.


After being forced to touch the goat, she jumped up and ran away and straight for the wooden cut out cow and she had no issue walking right up to it and petting it like it was an old friend who she hadn't seen in years. Go figure.

Thankfully, the experience with the wooden cow seemed to be the gateway to her feeling much more confident with interacting with the rest of the animals by her own initiation.

She still wasn't inclined to touch them but at least she walked around and said "Hi" to all of them. Her favorite (by far) was the bunnies but I think it was only because of her recent introduction to the bunny at Grammy and Grandpap's house over Easter. She enjoyed the bunny so much (in fact) that she spent most of the time rattling the lock on the cage to try and open it and set it free.

After the petting zoo we stopped off at the handwashing stations and (not surprisingly) this was one of the highlights of the whole day. She just LOVES playing in water and never lets an opportunity pass her by to play, splash, and drench herself. It's a good thing it was close to 90 degrees otherwise I wouldn't have been able to let her get as wet as she did. Oh the joy of being almost two when your mama says it's OK to make a mess...

So that was the first half of our time on the farm. The rest (in the Enchanted Forest) is going to have to wait for the next time because I gotta get back to work now finishing up grades for third marking period. *Wooo!* I can hardly believe I've got only nine weeks of the school year left. Where did the time go?!!