(editor's note, the quote of the day goes to Buttercup who tied with these 2: When the teams were being announced she sputtered "Pirates! Giants! Yankees! What is this supposed to be, I thought we were here for baseball!" Her second quote came when on the bouncy castle kids were asking each other what team and division they were in - rookie nationals, t-ball diamond backs, softball rangers, etc.. Suddenly Buttercup announced "I'm a pro-ball player, I play for a living, I'm on TV." Buttercup the pro-ball player will stay with me forever. The lady running the bouncy castle said "of your 4 kids she's the one you need to watch out for, that's chutzpah man" Which made me laugh because how often in Albuquerque do you hear the word chutzpah randomly used?)



Part 3:
After taking a moment to cuddle Buttercup and Brian I grabbed Queak and realized we'd lost time and that his team was on the field first for the big parade. I then saw people I recognized, finally and made towards them with the banner, as promised.
I saw a lot of other banners, some much better than mine, some barely worth the effort. All in all I would say ours was a good effort. The coach reassured me that I was in time and in a good spot. The bleachers on the other side were totally full now, we were at the back, behind some trees, near some empty bleachers.

Celia approached me crying, holding Buttercup. I asked her if she was okay and she only nodded. I decided to leave her alone. I suspected Brian had let her have it. I was okay with that, she probably needed to be shaken up a little, losing a 3 year old girl is not a small deal. Still I didn't want her to suffer too much, she's the sister, I'm the mother and I wanted the rest of our day to be happy.
I realized then I didn't want to go back to the main bleachers, or that side of the field at all. I was happy here, in the shade, well away from everything and everyone. That suited my mood just fine.

I stayed with Queak's team while they were getting ready. The coach got the kids to pose for me, and then all the other parents turned up with cameras, the poor things stood for easily 10 minutes of photos. Who is that poor kid off to the side? The dejected looking one? That is my kid of course. I couldn't decide if the whole pomp and circumstance thing was putting him off or if he was also still reeling from losing his baby sister. I tried to cheer him up, I threatened him with enough cotton candy to choke a horse - no good.
Coach put him right in front so he could help carry the banner. He looked confused and dejected. I tried not to worry. Then they ran out onto the field, waving their banner and the crowd went wild. There were politicians, and people from the national little league organization and hundreds of family members. Our league goes from t-ball through the age of 16, that is an enormous amount of kids and families.

Coach said he likes to let the little ones express themselves, so they get to pick their own socks and pants and belts. Queak's favorite color is blue, at first I thought he'd clash, blue socks and belt with his white pants and maroon shirt but I think he looks pretty smart - if not dejected. Julia who had joined the team like the day before looked like she was having the most fun of any of them, and she freaking runs fast, I can't wait to cheer her on during the games.

Next up rookies - who are these good looking kids - who is that one off to the side - what is it with my kids? Actually when they ran out on to the field Leif was one of the ones chosen to carry their banner, that made me burn with just a little pride.

At least one of my children had the good grace to look like he was having a good time - Leif has done nothing but love this whole affair since it started. I can really see him playing up through the leagues as he gets older.

 The kids would either walk onto the field carefully carrying their banner or they would run out with someone trailing behind with the banners. I never heard who won the banner contest. Coach asked me to bring our banner to the games from now on, and so I will. I'm really looking forward to the games now that practice season is over.

I was like half a mile away at our bleachers under the tree (see next photo) but I liked sitting there in the shade, admiring from a distance. I could see the hundreds of little kids and I knew my boys' numbers so I watched them sit so patiently.
I even teared up a little when they stood and took their hats off for the national anthem - spending 8 years out of the country does something to you - trust me. Besides, I needed to let something let the tears out. The boys sat patiently while politicians spoke and the head of the league spoke. I thought long and hard about the part of the speech where someone said "your children will remember their days in Little League forever." I guess because that's what I wanted out of scouts and we missed that, that ship seems to have sailed while we are here - so I felt myself latching on even harder to this activity.

Right, the parade and the whole ceremonies is over, now he smiles. Brat.

 Finally, it was all over and the kids were dispatched to their parents to wait for the booths to all be set up for the carnival. I thanked my decision to buy wrist bands for them over and over. We didn't wait in the half a mile long line for tickets. We didn't pay full price. My kids got to do what they wanted, over and over and over and over. We spent easily hours in the bouncy castles and they went on the spin the wheel games a dozen or more times until each one had won the prize they were after. They now own a million t-shirts and water bottles and caps and more candy than you can shake a stick at. Before the games started I sat in the grass, with all of them, just soaking up the family time. What do my kids do when they see grass?

"SPIN ME, CELIA!"

"Spin Me, Celia!"

"SPIN ME, CELIA!"

Taking off his socks so she can get a better hold for ankle and airplane spins

At some point I discovered where his socks had gone -

 After the Spin Me cries had died down we decided to start visiting booths. We started at the magic and clown booth. This was a total bust because the clown was getting stressed out that there were ten thousand little kids. She tried to make each kid a personalized balloon to match their jersey or personalities. She did try, I'll give her credit. However, she made Leif a balloon that popped two second later ( so he savaged the remaining parts and turned it into a monkey which looked better than the original ironman and was hugely original). Then, she heard Buttercup was called Buttercup. She had made the 2 in front of Buttercup bright hats and flowers and you could see Buttercup's eyes light up. So she made Buttercup a Buttercup flower. "what is it?" asked Buttercup. "It's a Buttercup" I said. Buttercup pondered smashing it on the grass where all the other balloons were popping (baseball grass is sharp) but I convinced her to give it to Daddy and he'd dispose of it.

This was the nicest expression I could extract. Later Daddy drew a face on it for her and told her it was an octopus. Still, much later in the day on the way home, I heard a tell-tale pop when we handed her the octopus back in the car.

 Next, we spent the next 10 hours in the bouncy castles. Okay, well maybe not 10 but it was a lot. I sat for a long time in the grass and tried to let my happy come all the way back on. I was a little enchanted with the opening ceremonies and how polished the whole thing was. How great the kids looked in their parade and how well behaved the crowd was being. No one was pushing in line, everyone was deferring to the littler kids. Everyone cheered for everyone else. The feel good vibes were so wonderful. At one point, fantastically, they were going to throw free passes to the local fun center into the crowd. They asked the crowd to hold perfectly still until all the passes had been thrown. Amazingly, and to my utter astonishment, the entire crowd didn't move a muscle until the announcer said "okay get 'em". Then they all rushed in. Still not a child was hurt and further still every single one of my kids came back with a pass. People who got lots of passes were passing them to people who didn't get any. Wild.

bouncy castle madness

I took this for Stephanie, because yes, each of my children spent about 20 minutes sat in the grass picking dandelions and presenting them to me as beautiful.

 We decided to use the cash Brian had got from the atm at the food counters. We didn't really understand the method, apparently food came in combos that equaled a certain price. We had waited hours, till the lines had died down and all I knew was I felt like I owed Queak cotton candy - even if the little rat hadn't smiled once for my pictures (I have 50 more like the above of him staring at me blankly). Still cotton candy is like a once a year thing, so I thought - eh, we'll get some. Apparently, the combos work out so that 4 cotton candies net you 2 slices of pizza. So we got cheese pizza too - which we all shared, and I happily scarfed the crust on. I'm so bad. (wheat is not my friend)

I think this is more sugar than we have in our entire house, Mommee

Leif didn't come up for air until there were only a couple bites left

This was actual size, the cotton candy was easily half the size of this child

 We went in line for the dunk tanks a few times and as I was splashed with water again and again as the line wrapped around towards the front I wondered if the person who organized a dunk tank on a baseball pitch was feeling a bit silly right about now. The kids were having a great time, and I'm sure on some didactic level this helped the kids focus on their aim as they tried to dunk their coaches time and again. Buttercup succeeded in dunking one of the board of directors, Queak's coach helped her out a lot by holding her right up to the dunking button so she could throw the ball.
After the dunk tanks and our cotton candy rush, we sat in the grass until closing time while the kids played on one bouncy castle after another. Towards the end, it was only our kids, the other parents lost patience and left. I got too much sun, but I was enjoying the moment too much to leave.
The typical moment when I heard one of my children cry out for me and emerge covered in blood (I used to say it's not a trip to the park until someone trips at the park). Queak bleeding from his face, copiously.
I was in a crowd of other parents and suddenly, before I passed go (wouldn't you know it, Brian was gone again he'd gone to the gas station to buy some bottles of water) I was covered in wet-wipes and tissues and well meaning women with large handbags were holding Queak and pressing cloths onto his face. Aaaah, gotta love the Mom crowd. I wiped him off first, and I wiggled his nose - not broken. I held him over me so he wouldn't bleed on his white pants. I mentally thanked the powers that be that it was my least dramatic child and not the one who had last had stitches and not the baby - whom I could not deal with one more incident that day. After the bleeding stopped he ran back to the bouncy castle to make up lost time - see what I mean? Unflappable.
Eventually, the place was shutting down, we'd all had too much sun, and I needed to eat something not pizza.
I came home and fell asleep and woke to the fire on the mountain which is actually a previous post, so scroll back.
All in all, failing our side note - a great time was had by all.
I was thrilled that Brian enjoyed it as much as he did. He was dead set against Little League in the beginning, he has no use for sports and he is too traumatized from the mob mentality of sports in England to really have wanted to be a part of this with his kids. Still, he's shaping up nicely. He's proud of the boys, and he admitted to having a really nice time during the opening day celebrations. He admits the boys are perfectly gorgeous in their uniforms and he has started taking an interest in their stances and throw and batting skills. I hope this segues into a nice season and then a relaxed summer.
Sorry for the length - hope you enjoy the pictures

Pretty Boys

 This story has a happy ending, so stay with me.
There is just one side note and the rest of it is all happy. I'm only sharing the side note with you because it was incremental to the crash of my weekend I think. We arrived and took the first set of pictures.
I had become less stressed when the banner was finished and I felt that things were falling into place. We had company the night before and we stayed up late playing games rather than fretting over sewing.

I did get up early the morning of Opening Day to check the seams though and I did swing the iron a couple times of what could have been construed to be looser parts of the hem than others. Remember I chose hem tape and I did, unabashedly use a long arm stapler to staple the shirt on rather than sew it.

I did also decide I was afraid the foam letters would come off (the foam letters were an artist liberty taken by my husband who decided cutting out black felt was too time intensive and also ugly). I worried about the wind we've been having, and the foam on fabric. I decided to secure it with some fabric to fabric craft glue I had. I labored over the coloring of the letters and I still feel badly for not having a variety of colors for Julian's name. I'm not even sure which kid is Julian.
Brian said, no one will notice, no one will care, it will look great, stop freaking out. My friend who hemmed for me said the same thing.
So, I agonizingly quit fretting over sequence and on the day I admitted to you all that I had to have it ready for the next morning I set to gluing the foam.
Okay, it wasn't a joke. It glued to the carpet. I had thought about taking it outside but I worried the wind would get it. I thought, it won't glue to my carpet, I'll try just this one letter. I felt behind the letter, nothing happened after I glued it, so I let loose and glued it all. It took hours, hours. Like half an hour a name. I pressed down on them (probably my mistake) to make sure all the glue made contact with the fabric.
When I realized I didn't have room on the floor on one wall to get to those names I picked up the fabric - wait, no I didn't - it was glued to the floor. Now, adding to the Jackson Pollack finger paint stains I now have clear fabric paint markings of all the names on the team. I pulled the banner up, convinced I'd ruined it and lined the back with foil - ask me some other time about getting the foil off the next morning.

The next morning - Opening Day- I met at the field a dad who had brought me poles he thought would fit. Bless him because they did fit, perfectly, and I was spared using my only broom and mop handles.
This isn't a huge note to the story, just that I had a huge banner in one hand during the entire next sequence.
I looked for the teams and I didn't see them. I found Leif's team and left him with them with a kiss, insisting I needed to find Queak's team. I couldn't believe I was early, so I thought I had the wrong spot.
The place was filling up quickly and I wondered if I would get spots on the bleachers in front of the field.
I grabbed Queak, and I had him grab Buttercup. On the other side of Buttercup was Celia.
That is a main point. Buttercup reached up for Celia's hand and I set-off. I started walking us around the field, around the fence, looking for the other team for Queak.
We got exactly across from where we started. Brian had left to get cash.

I had bought wrist bands days before for the kids when they were on sale, I did not want to count money or tickets in what I visualized as mayhem (if it was anything like that first meeting). Still, Brian was sure that we'd need money for something. He had walked to a bank (that didn't have an atm- weirdos) and two gas stations. He finally decided he'd risk losing our parking spot and drive someplace. Which is what he did.
That left me alone with 3 children, that is not normally an issue.

We were in a large crowd but my children are good in crowds.

I pased the huge crowd who were vying for spots on the main bleachers. I passed the concession stands and I passed the ticket tents and I passed the next most main bleachers.

Then, I stopped and said, let's sit here, it is in the shade. Celia you take Buttercup and save us seats, make sure no one takes them.
Okay, she said but "Daddy has Buttercup."
No he doesn't I said, where is she?
"She went with Daddy"
No She Didn't. We had her, she had YOUR hand, where is she?
"I'm sure she went with Daddy"
Child! He left in the CAR. I saw her after that, on the side of YOU! I start swirling around, at first in slow motion, checking spot by spot.
No Buttercup.

I start shouting, "find her."
but, she went with Daddy, I'm sure!
Right then, I started thinking - I'm not crazy, I know we had her, I know we did.
I'm stood there with this huge banner in one hand, now terrified to let go of Queak or leave him with Celia so I can search. I am now spinning in circles and I scream
"stop saying that, she's not with Daddy - she's gone! Find her!"
Celia looked at me like I was mental. This would go down in history as the worst thing that ever happened between us had fate not intervened.
I thought, this is like in movies where you know everyone is an alien but no one else will believe you. Buttercup was lost and I was the only one moving.
I had to scream at Celia now. FIND HER, I'M NOT KIDDING - DO THIS NOW.
Finally, she went ambling off in the direction we had just left.

I stopped at the concessions and ticket stands, everyone was really good. Very calm - what does she look like, describe what she's wearing. Somewhere in the back of my head I thought, please don't let me be repeating this to the police soon. Somewhere in my head I'm going 20 seconds, 90 seconds, 4 minutes. Because you always hear how vital every second is in missing child cases.
I'm not seeing her. I'm scanning the crowd, feeling like I can't scan fast enough.

I get a message from Brian, he's back from the bank and parked, where am I.
I said, I know where I am, I don't know where Buttercup is. I started wheezing a little as I typed "help, please help me, honey" failed to send. I thought of dropping my phone it was slowing me up. I got a message out finally "lost Buttercup". I couldn't type more, or faster. Every time I typed 'help' my phone choked - bastard. I sometimes do think higher and malevolent forces are at hand when things like that happen.
Then, suddenly my phone shot back with "I have her, where are you?"

Now, before you too think I'm nuts and no one is an alien - he didn't have her. He'd found her, just then, in the crowd.
He said it was utterly fate, as he was just walking to find me, when he saw a child, off on its own that looked remarkably like Buttercup. Even dressed like her. He said he couldn't process that she wasn't with me (he trusts me - which made me sad for a minute) so he discounted it. But the child looked lost and the child was contemplating crossing the major intersection, the child was following the trajectory his car had taken when he went looking for an atm. At which point he ran and grabbed the child and whisked it up, to discover it was Buttercup and she was standing in traffic and I was no where to be seen.

He didn't let me have it. He didn't rub my face in it. He didn't blame me. He didn't even let me think for two seconds that everything was not okay. He said he's too long in the parenting game to have not known exactly what was going through my head and exactly the breakdown I was surely facing had she not materialized. He figured that punished me enough. I appreciated that. I also appreciated, intensely, the feeling of total let-down and relief I felt surge through me as I ran to the car and saw her in his arms. I realized I trust him too. He's always been my savior. I had a relationship before this, with another father and another little girl. A little girl that once got lost by her father at the mall, the state fair, the middle of a street and a restaurant to name a few. I remember the distinct panic I felt when she was alone with that father. That little girl is also genetically the same older girl who lost her little sister that day, during the opening ceremonies.

I said to Brian as I took him and Buttercup into my arms "I need to cry now." He said "I can well imagine." He never even asked me what happened. I just stood there shaking for a few minutes. Then I said, OK - I'm drawing a line under this. We're out to have a good day and if I spend more than 30 seconds thinking about what just happened I'll go insane. Which is why I put it away, which is also part of why I woke up feeling so foul today, because I needed to deal with what I had not dealt with yesterday. As punishment I made Celia go around to every single authority I had alerted and tell them we'd found the missing child.

She was actually quite melancholy for several hours afterwards, she chastised me a few times saying "I didn't lose you, Mommee, you lost me." Sums it up, would stand up in court. Sigh.

Now for the fun - Part 3

This year, what reminded me there was little league  was the ad that came home from the school. Also, then, signs up at the school advertising little league.
We're all friends here so I'll admit I am not a Lobos fan. I think the team sucks, I think their team mentality sucks. So there, I said it. The little league team associated with the boys' school was the lobos. Little lobos, or lobos little league or some such. I was not enchanted with the idea immediately. However, I had told the boys I'd put them in baseball and this seemed somehow a more organized idea than the after-school baseball class offered through the after-hours care people at the school.
When I started the process though I was immediately set back. Nothing I choose to do comes easily. That seems to be a common thread in my life. Firstly, they weren't great at returning phone calls and I was fretting over the small print that said 2 proofs of address required. Well that made no sense, if they cared where I lived we were screwed because my kids were transfers. Call after call, email after email and no answer on how to proceed. The deadline looming up. The second daunting factor was the price, $155 a child, no refunds. Yikes.

My oldest son was adamant he wanted to join. My younger was insecure.

Hmmm.

So I scavenged the web, looking for answers. I finally found a local little league team with a good website, only one of the 40 some in town, only one of the at least 40 some I'd already looked at or tried to contact. They had a gadget that you would type in your address and it would show you your team. It also had a neat map with the boundaries for each team clearly highlighted in a color. Indeed we were well out of the Lobos league area. I fretted over that some more, thinking of putting the boys in with strangers, and none of the kids from their school. I tried calling again to the Lobos. No answer. Typical Lobos. I was getting frustrated now and we were running out of money and I was thinking - do I bother? A friend of mine said she loved little league, she offered to help. I didn't take her help but I held it up in my head as a reason to go on. Sometimes that is actually the real help, talking me off ledges.
I went back on the website of the little league team and typed in our address. Hey - guess what - that was our team. The one with the functional website and complete contact list and phone numbers and emails of more than one person. That was our team. I had a vague sick feeling of hope. Hope and I aren't friends.
I realized we'd missed the deadline.
I gave it my one 'this is my last shot' effort. I emailed the entire board of directors. You might think I'm joking but no, not me, I was going to be sure I was going to fail so I could rest my conscience when I told the boys we'd try again next year.
The board of directors emailed me back. Two of them even called me. I had missed the deadline but they were running 2 late registrations, I could come to either. The second child was less than half price.
I went and registered one son with the promise that I could register the other if he felt he wanted to join.
He did not want to join that moment but I wanted him to. This team offered t-ball, not all the leagues seemed to have t-ball, so that excited me. I thought it was a good place to start.
We said we'd come to the big general meeting to meet our coaches.
The big general meeting freaked me out a bit. There were no fewer than fifty million people there, in one room, at a local school cafeteria. They were eating enchiladas, they all - all 50 million of them, knew each other. I walked up to the table and said "Hi, you don't know me, I'm new to this - just what the hell is going on here?" At which point one of the people burst into laughter and said "I'm on the board of directors, you're the one that emailed us aren't you?"
Wow, am I that obvious?
I was told who my team would be and I decided that since the meeting was intimidating me that's ALL I needed to know.
We left.
Soon our coach called us and said he couldn't wait to meet us. At the first practice we were given a full practice schedule and told everything we needed to do, what forms we had left to fill out and that we could call, text (yay) or email the coach, his girlfriend or his mother at any time with questions.
Who are these people and how did they land up in New Mexico? I mean this level of organization is nearly illegal here, I assure you.


Then, just because she felt like being super awesome the player's agent met my tiny-shy-boy and told me she was going to put him on a team that met his personality half way. To which end he ended up on a team of tiny, tiny, super shy, super worried looking 5 year olds. Something about this process was so endearing that I'll never forget it. Something about him not being the most freaked out kid on the field or the only kid to need 5 more minutes of Mommee-time before hitting the field really cheered me up. Somehow, just this once, fate intervened to make things better for me after giving me an unreasonably hard start.
We were thwarted in putting the boys on teams with their friends. However, we ended up with even better teams and even better coaches and surely an even better experience. Thus making Little League my new favorite thing ever to take part in as a parent.

This is an impromptu survey.
I would feel much more comfortable about posting this blog into public 'real life' if I used pseudo-names for us. Those of you following me now are close to me, and you know me and the family very well. So I'm asking for suggestions.
I need to re-name the husband
the oldest daughter
the oldest son
the youngest son
the youngest daughter
and possibly myself.
I'd like to do this now before the archives get too big to troll back through and fix.
I would like to make this blog available to the general public but I'm paranoid.
So work with me, help me, humor my neurosis, whatever you want to call it.
I'm sorely tempted to call my oldest son the drama king and sorely tempted to call my oldest daughter blind to plain sight. That's because we're having a miffy day. I'm sure there are days those won't fit.
Right? Right? Leave your suggestions as comments or email me, six of one. I read both -

Yesterday was great and maybe I can post about it later. Today, I'm run down and exhausted and I'm feeling very down.

Maybe it was the fire on the ridge (we live in the foothills and this fire was almost too close for comfort). The fire wasn't that big a deal and once again it was just a weird note to the childhood I'm severely out of touch with. I told Brian it's not a fire until it has taken some 16,000 acres with it.
Still, the kids were riled up and they even refused  to look at it. This is part of our fire-safety thing. I've gone over what to do in case of fire so many times that this fire just flew in the face of all of that. What if the fire comes from OUTSIDE the house, Mommee? What then? I explained that you get evacuated and it is not a deal. We have all the various types of house insurance, contents insurance and so forth, so at this point, you grab the irreplaceable, get in the car with your family and mentally let go. That was a tough concept and it really bothered them. They refused to see the fire as it came over the hill. The fire was still a mile or more away but it was enough to bother small children.

From behind our neighbor's house, this was a ways away and they said the flames were around 8ft. Tiny from where we were. I was just surprised to see them from my driveway.

From our driveway before I went to bed, you can almost see our neighbor's house in dark relief.

The fire was out by around mid-night, there were 2 helicopters and a lot of people on the ground. I think the fire ran about 6 hours all together.

So last night, with the smoke wafting towards our house I had a million mini-nightmares. I'd wake up every 5 minutes in a fit of nerves and go back to sleep. I wasn't actually worried.  I think the dreams were a hang-over from smelling the smoke and having to walk the kids through the protocol over and over.
I had some kind of sad but sure faith in the local authorities. I live in a neighborhood, they'd come and get us if there was an issue. I'm also a very leave it in G-d's hands kinda person. There comes a point when there is nothing you can do, so you just let go. I don't fixate on the uncontrollable - though I admit fully to over-fixating on the controllable.
The kids all woke up today telling me they had bad dreams. Fire is very atavistic, I wasn't surprised. There must have been some low lying tension in the house even though Brian was completely un-impressed by the fire and I was admittedly less than worried.
I'd texted my friend saying I'd evacuate to her house. She said the chickens could stay in the garage. We were technically taken care of.

In the meantime, yesterday, we'd had a good day (albeit with one side note - not relating to fire) and by the time we got home I realized I was physically and mentally exhausted. I had too much sun and too much sugar (not good for someone with blood sugar issues) and I fell asleep for a nap to wake to the fire. When Brian started texting me from the park I knew he was serious about seeing flames on the hill, however, I was too tired to care or take much notice of what he was saying. I told him if Fire on the Mountain were his pathetic attempts at song lyrics I was going back to sleep.

I didn't wake up much better today. 4 out of 6 of us are sporting sun burns. My husband teasing me that he thought brown people don't burn. I'm a brown person who stays pretty much religiously out of the sun and I'm half not brown - so I too am susceptible. Though he seems to think my cute little tiny sun burn on my cheeks is hugely amusing - I'm still thoroughly miffed.  I have no idea how people do this sort of thing all over their body - let alone to the point of peeling. Buttercup woke up dreaming the fire had got her, screaming her brains out, and making me put water on her shoulders. I tried to explain sun burns and while she acknowledged she was burned to this moment she thinks it happened in her dreams and just carried over to reality.

So - I will post on the opening day ceremony. I will put pictures up. I will. Just not right this moment.
I'm too bummed about losing an entire weekend to fatigue and moodiness. I need to sleep some more I think and drink some green tea and get the last of the sugar out of my system. Look, it was cotton candy - what was I supposed to do? Oh, and we got free tickets for pizza and I so rarely eat pizza that isn't homemade I confess I ate both crusts. Pizza crust is my arch enemy and that is surely where I got the the aches I have today. That and 6 solid hours of bouncy castles and dunk tanks and sun and cake walks and clowns and sun and bouncy castles and sun and wait, did I mention the sun?
This is probably why I won't go to State Fairs anymore.