Free Lawn Tractor

Sometimes my husband comes home with random machinery for no other reason than he found it for free.  

For example, this lawn tractor from the 1960s that doesn't run and has four flat tires that he showed up with the other day. 

Sometimes I worry that our yard is going to end up looking like a junk yard. But I'm sure my grandfather would be happy to know that someone--three someones--are carrying on not only his love for this sort of "collectible" but also his trademark statement of, "it will be worth some thing someday."

The Fair

   I have never been a big fair person.  Growing up, we would go for the marching band events and maybe look at the animals and tractors.  I went and rode rides with friends a couple times.  And for two summers in elementary school I went and stayed overnight in a camper at the fair with a friend and helped her take care of her pigs.  That experience made me want to completely avoid fairs forever; I like the great outdoors but please don't make me sleep in a camper, and PLEASE do not make me live on fair food for two days.
    When G and I were dating he started to work towards changing my mind about county fairs.  We attended all the romantic fair events, like combine demolition derbies and tractor pulls and free country concerts in condemned grandstands.
    And then I gave him two sons to attend those kind of things with him instead.
    And now that we have two sons that love demo derbies and tractor pulls and barns with endless stalls of farm animals, the county fair is the highlight of our year.
    Every week on our way to the library we pass the fair grounds and GD asks when it will be demo derby time again or when the next pull is.  GE doesn't remember the fair from last year, but even he moos when we drive by the fairgrounds (well, that may just be because he likes to moo and have nothing to do with the cows that will be there).
    Well, last week we finally had our county fair.  Never did I think that I would be having a discussion with my husband about the pros and cons and the cost-effectiveness of buying a fair pass, but we had a couple conversations about whether we would be purchasing one this year (ultimately we decided against it, which was good because some of the events on our to-attend list got rained out anyway).
    Schools around here close during the fair, so last Thursday morning instead of preschool, I took the boys to the fair for our annual tractor and animal viewing.  There was some disagreement and unhappiness because GD wanted to see the antique tractors first and GE wanted to see the cows first.  The cows are on the opposite end of the fair from where we parked and the antique tractors are at the front, so GD won that one.  GE got over it but mooed the whole time we looked at the tractors.
   GD loves antique tractors ('putt-putts') and every tractor we looked at received some sort of exclamatory comment, such as, "Look at the size of that oil filter!" or "This would be good for plowing through the mud!'

    Next we made up for the delay in seeing the cows to GE by taking him to the rabbit barn.  GE loves bunnies maybe even more than he loves cows.  This is his, "Bunnies!" face.

    We then proceeded to see and greet almost every single livestock at the fair.  And we finally took GE through the moo barns, although I think he liked the bunnies and the ponies the best.

   Next we had to check out and touch every piece of new farm equipment on display (GD differentiates between the putt-putts and the new machinery as "tractors I can't touch" and "tractors I can touch").

   After two hours at the fair the boys were "starving!".  So I bought them a fair pretzel.  They were not impressed.  Next time we'll just get corn dogs.

   And that was just our first visit to the fair.  The next day G took GD to compete in the Kiddie Pedal Tractor Pull and he won!  The tractor trophy he got was pretty much the highlight of his young life.

   Then on Sunday we took the boys to the demolition derby.  This wasn't one of our best-planned outings of our parenting life.  In the future, I will never wake a toddler up from his nap to attend a demolition derby.  No matter how much we think he's going to like it. The boys did enjoy it though, and when GE got too tired to keep watching he got to go see the moos again, and laugh maniacally at all other animals again.  And the boys finally got their fair corn dogs.

   The next day, GD sadly commented that it would be a whole year until we had the fair again.

   

Our First First Day of School

   Our family had our first first day of school two weeks ago.  GD started preschool!

    Not a single tear was shed by three out of the four family members, and the one that couldn't hold himself together is probably not who you think.  GE was the only one that couldn't quite get over the fact that his older brother was leaving him.

A Pocket Translator for Communicating with GE

GE is 20-months old and appears to be mostly taking after me in terms of personality, including his outgoing-ness and his love of talking.  Like GD, we attempted to teach GE sign language when he was a baby but GE has always preferred to just use speech.  He has quite a sense of humor and surprises us daily with the things that he says  Here are just a few of his most common words and phrases in case you ever need help in translating.

Repost from My Old Blog: "Learning a Second Language"

I originally wrote this over 3 years ago when GD was about 15 months old.  He has a much wider vocabulary now!

I used to never understand how parents could comprehend what their small children were saying.  I would hear a mother carrying on a conversation with a toddler in which one side of the exchange sounded like a jumble of syllables.  I used to think the parents were just pretending to understand and making up responses, but now I'm realizing that as a child is learning to communicate his or her parents are learning a second language.  My new second language consists of words and gestures and mainly revolves around tractors, our cat Jack, and ducks, but every day I am adding to my vocabulary.  This is what I've learned so far; italicized words refer to actions used to communicate.