This week is, much to my dismay, half term. This is not normally something I dread, but right now, I am still very much in recovery (who knew having an organ removed was such a big deal?) and our direct payment support person has suffered three bereavements and so is unable to help. If it wasn’t for the support of our fae’s grandparents, I’m not sure we would be coping at all.
Still, in an effort to not win the medal for most disengaged parent of the year, I did take my fae to the local ‘leisure farm’. This is, basically, a place that has sheep, goats, three pigs and a lost horse, in fields that are progressively getting smaller to make way for various activities such as rabbit and guinea pig petting, a sand pit & playground, and the saddest excuse for a soft play I have seen outside the local chain pub.
Still, we paid a pound so she could have the honour of feeding their food to their goats – and that has to be the biggest con on the planet; you pay to go in, you pay to buy the food FROM THEM to feed it to THEIR animals.
I’m digressing, anyway, we went, and as it has been some months since we last attended – I think the last time was to collect (sorry, pick) a pumpkin off their field for Halloween – she spent a thoroughly joyful two hours running round exploring the play village (note to self: never live in a house she builds), playing in the sand pit, getting mud all over her shoes and consequently the slide, which she then cleaned off by going down it again and transferring the dirt to her trousers, and eating chocolate cake. Each change in venue was preceded by a happy chirrup, well, more of a demanding drill sergeant shout of ‘follow me guys!’ as we were matched off.
So, myself and her grandparents trudged around after her, and tried to direct her attention to the things that we thought she might find interesting. Like the 9 day old piglets: “but mummy look at the POO!” Or the quail in the hatchery: “LOOK AT THE RATS!”. On the way out, she batted her eyelashes and managed to convince her grandmother to buy her a toy. She chose what I thought at the time was a little cuddly guinea pig.
When she placed it on the counter to pay, it squeaked. Wonderful, it’s a squeaking guinea pig, just what we need. Well, she seemed pleased. On the way back to the car, she informed me it’s a baby hamster. Then asked what you call a baby hamster. Which lead to a frantic google search, as my memory failed me. It turns out it’s a pup. All well and good, but what she was holding was, in fact, a baby guinea pig. And while logic would indicate that an infant of those would be a ‘piglet’ it too was a ‘pup’. When I informed her of this, I was told I was silly.
So, now she is attached to an oversized baby hamster that is actually a toy guinea pig, aptly called ‘Squeaks-a-lot’, which she has made a collar for from a bangle-making kit, and is dragging down the drop slide in a soft play. I’m not sure what Squeaks-a-lot thinks about this, but I’m happy it’s not me.
I miss term time.
Raising the Modern Fae 