Putting the Fun in Funfair

Tonight, the family went to Westview Elementary School for their Fun Festival. Freak, who was one of the organizers of the event, pre-paid for our tickets so our money would stretch a little further. We played 8 games, had 3 pieces of pizza, one lemonade and a cookie for $6 total for the three of us. 

We got there a little early and played on the playground, where we met a couple of The Boy's classmates. They were very patient with X-man on the bouncy bridges and showing him how to do the trolleys. 

But my favorite part was that 4 kids were playing McDonald's underneath the play structure. One cooked the burgers, one made the fries, one ran the drinks and one was a cashier... there was one obvious problem to this game -- no customers.

So I knelt down and ordered some food. And as quickly as possible, a heap of playground mulch was presented to me. I handed them a tree seedling for cash and walked away. X-man watched. When I came back, I ordered McNuggets, apple slices and a diet coke. X-man dove into the structure and came up with the apple. 

Then, after realizing there might be too many cooks in the kitchen. He became the customer. He ordered his fries, apple slices and chocolate milk. And MacTroll and I stood there and stared. He was playing WITH the big kids in his new favorite past time: pretend play.

At 5:25 we went inside and got our tickets and dinner. Then Freak showed up and we chatted with her mom and Lizzie before Carrie disappeared and came back with Quigs' brood. 

I wanted to spend more time with them, but when X-man heard the games were starting he threw away his garbage, wiped his hands and face and grabbed my hands chanting, "Game time! Game time!"

So off we went. The first games we played were the choose a duck game. X-man chose a duck, saw he had a star and picked a star prize. Then he got to go fishing, where he got a rainbow fish and a little yo-yo. He raced from game to game eager to hand people his tickets and take his turn. In 30 minutes, we'd used all 30 of our tickets. We'd thrown sticky spiders. We'd launched ping pong balls off of mini catapults. We played skee ball. We searched in a treasure chest. We played tic tac toe with bean bags, and we RACED pigs.

At first I thought racing small, stuffed mechanical pigs was silly. But X-man thought it was awesome, especially when he got to hold his pig and kiss it for good luck. He got third place, but still got a prize. 

Overall, it was a very bright and cheerful evening. When we were out of tickets, it was time to go, and X-man didn't put up any kind of fight. 

But he had a really good time. A big thank you to everyone in the Westview Elementary family who helped put this on. It was great fun, and we'll be back next year.