clowns, rides, sugar and a petting zoo - what could possibly be wrong with this equation?

Okay, so she didn't get any sugar. I know, I know - I'm a shitty mom. Take your kid to the fall fair and don't let them get cotton candy or a candy apple. We will all be thankful at bedtime tonight and my natural mama instincts will be glad that I didn't allow my child to ingest a pound of refined sugar. 

But still, what an asshole. 

I did, however; completely guilt trip my partner into taking us so the afternoon was about rides - primarily so he could get me to shut my trap about not having been on one since way before mamadom 3 years ago - it was also about demolition derby (no, I'm not joking actually) and attempting to get our child excited about goats and chickens, donkeys and llamas. The llamas she dug. The rest she didn't really have any use for. 

Until she saw the horses of the merry-go-round. I never got why they called it the "merry"-go-round. I mean, yeah I'm not so dense that I miss the "go-round" part, but I never found the ride exceptionally happy. Now I get it. The look on a two year old's face when, after picking out her favorite color of horse (oooge), going round and round and up and down, registers that she is indeed holding on to a horse and going round and round and up and down. 

  Also, when she spots her papa filming from the crowd and yells out a "HI PAPA" so loud I'm convinced he can hear it over the insane clowns-a-dancing-carnival music. He cannot. 

The slide was the other ride she got to experience. I have a photo of me and my grandfather on one of these from when I was 3. Who was I to deny the kid the slide.
She didn't love it. It was just... well, it was. Not as much excitement as I had hoped for. Expectations right? 

Interspersed with all of this I got to go on a ride with my friend Liz - who seems to be the only person in my life who isn't lame and will go on rides with me - and even the reluctant grump went on a ride.... 

and LOVED IT. 

The fair is so much more fun when you go on rides. Even when you don't get the sugar.