We pulled in and parked on the grass near the school buses (field trip time!), paid our admission, got our cups of animal feed, and was then greeted by a longhorn cow (or bull). Liam was excited to see her (or him...not sure which), and promptly said, "Dog!" At home when I show him pictures of a cow, he says dog. I can't tell if he's trying to be funny or not. But "dog" is the only proper animal name he says, so everything is usually a dog. I gave the longhorn a treat, and then all the other cows sauntered over to see if I would hook them up as well. As with all petting zoos, they've been trained to beg! We then made our way over to the sheep. I held the cup of feed where a sheep could get it, and he promptly took the cup from my hand, tipped it back and let the feed fall in his mouth (although most of it went on the ground). What a sight! I did get Liam to say "baa" when I asked him what a sheep said. Then we checked out the goats. They were professional moochers as well and stuck their heads out of the fence in hopes that they would be the one to get the precious cup of feed. Liam was really amused by them. They got really close to him and a couple even licked his shoes. He loved those "dogs." Same thing happened with the cup of feed...it was jerked from my hand and gobbled up in one motion. Petting zoo animals don't play.
It was a misty morning, so everything was kind of damp. It even sprinkled a little while we were there. Misty morning + ground not covered by cement = a muddy mess. Even so, I knew I couldn't keep Liam in his stroller the whole time. So I let him out to explore the pumpkin patch. For some reason, there were lots of dips and ridges in the patch, so treacherous ground for a toddler, especially one who had just been given freedom and wanted to run. Liam fell down a few times, got muddy hands, and finally picked out a pumpkin he could carry. I had to clean off the pumpkin before it was allowed in the stroller. At this point, Liam's shoes were caked in mud, so then it was time to walk on hay to make sure they got good and gross! We entered the hay bale maze and let Liam lead the way since he seemed to know where he was going. (That turned out to NOT be the case.) We encountered a dead end and lots of school kids running through. Then Liam got turned around and started going back towards the entrance where lots of kids were running in. He almost got trampled by some first graders. After exiting through the entrance, Liam just took off walking/running. He was going as fast as he could and swinging his left arm. When he does that, it means he DOES NOT want to be caught. He just wants to go! My mom caught him and I took him to a safer area to walk around. Then I caught him again and put him back in the stroller.
After that, we decided to go on the hayride since the school kids seemed to have all had their turn on it and it was now available. It was a pretty long ride and went around a pond and by a small church and a large barn. Decorated hay bales dotted the path. It sprinkled on us for part of the ride, but it wasn't too bad. Liam did a great job of sitting still in my lap for the ride. He tried to chew on some hay, but it tickled his mouth whenever he tried to chew it. After the hayride, we decided to leave. However, the leaving part took forever! This was because we had to deal with all the mud and grass/hay that accumulated on anything that touched the ground. Thankfully, I had thrown a fresh roll of these in the diaper bag. Off came Liam's shoes and they went straight into a plastic bag. I then got him buckled in his seat. The biggest challenge was the wheels of the stroller. I'd brought the big Chicco, so it had 6 wheels instead of just 4, and they were all caked in mud and grass. Since we had parked on grass, there was no concrete to help get the mud off. I didn't really want to put the stroller with nasty wheels in the back of my still new-ish car, but I figured that was my only choice. Until...I figured out that I could cover each wheel with one of the plastic bags! Thankfully, the bags did fit, and my mom held the stroller up while I covered them. Then I was able to put it in the back without getting dirt on everything. Mommy engineering. I got as much of the mud off my shoes as I could, but the floor mat still needed to be cleaned later. Those shoes (as well as Liam's) are still out of commission and needing to be cleaned.
When we finally left, we headed to Allen to have lunch at Uncle Julio's. Liam ate most of his PB&J and amused himself by swinging around a spoon. Then we went to the Stride Rite outlet store, and Nana bought Liam some new shoes! So it no longer mattered that his other ones were still dirty! It was a fun morning/early afternoon together, and Liam was so wound up afterward that it took him over an hour to fall asleep for his nap at home.
