Do you want to know the most amazing part of the fair?

Actually it is not the giant pig…or even that guys tattoo.

The most amazing attribute of the fair is that IT HAS NOT CHANGED in the past eight years since we last visited or really since we were kids.  From the greasy food stands to the rides to the animal tents to the exhibit halls…more or less the same.

One visit to the Western Idaho Fair has the ability to flash a person back to the days when my sister and I would run up to the height test of each ride, standing on our tippy toes to maximize ride eligibility potential, to the boy crazy teen years when we were on the prowl for new boys to flirt with, to the years with iron stomachs where we would ride every ride multiple times until closing time or the days when we were little and our dad would play fair games and win us sawdust-filled stuffed animals with a lifespan of about four days.

Our trip to the fair really was a veritable trip down the original memory lane.  The best part of all (and the reason why we went) is knowing this is the first of many trips for Belén’s memories of the fair.

This is the last of the Fair Week posts.  I hope you have enjoyed your own trip down memory lane of your own local fair.

I am surprised they let me enter the crafty people building.  I know that all of the members of the crafty people sisterhood could tell I didn’t belong but luckily crafty people are usually nice to the craft-challenged and often take it one unnecessary step forward telling us how easy and fun crafty things are and that we should try them.  I don’t think those people realize a) how bad I suck at crafts and b) how impatient I am.  But it’s a good thing crafty people exist because look at some of the cool things they make!

I love this cake but for some reason it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland.

I thought this quilt was really cool, but my mom who is a  really into quilting (and works at a quilt store and sells $10,000 embroidery sewing machines) commented that the quilt display was apparently disappointing.  Maybe crafty people aren’t so nice after all.

Um, I don’t even know what to say about this display?  Is it a “Whose Got The Coolest Knickknack” Contest?  And why do half of the entries have a blue ribbon.  I thought only one entry won the blue ribbon?  Maybe fair contests are like little kid contests where everybody wins?

Sign me up for judging this contest next year!

The entire time I was trying to get a good shot of this lady, I kept thinking, “Do llamas spit?  Or is that just camels?”

The last time I really remember caring about attending the Western Idaho Fair when I was a boy crazy teenage girl trolling for the 1992 version of Justin Bieber.  Back then, it was all about rides and boys.  Funny how things change.

As adults it was all about an indulgent day of fair food.  For Belén, it was all about new sights and smells everywhere, but most importantly, the animals.  We inhaled all food items (Chorizo sliders from the Basque booth, corn-on-the-cob from the Mountain Rescue booth and ProntoPups) before the camera could be brought out, but we got plenty of pictures of the animals.

Belén liked the small animals.

But wasn’t so sure of the large animals.

Horses were scary, the sheep were interesting, lambs move too quickly, roosters are too loud, cows were okay, pigs were so-so and donkeys not so much.

Luckily, Nana and Grandpa made the large animals much more tolerable!

Despite being not quite sure of all of the big animals, and a lot of very serious faces, I think the barnyard at the Western Idaho Fair was a success.

P.S. Sorry if these photos are loading slow.  I just figured out what I need to do to size them better for the web but I am too lazy to go redo these at the moment.

Andy is in Asia this week so I am playing single mom.  Playing a single parent is hard for any parent used to having a partner to share responsibilities with but in my case it is especially difficult because somewhere over the course of the last couple of years (since I was pregnant), Andy has picked up the lion’s share of the responsibilities around the house.  I offer to help but he mostly has it covered so I let him do it with very little arm twisting.  The conversation usually goes something like, “Oh, I can do dishes.”  ”I got it.”  ”Okay, thanks.”  And then I happily play with Belén instead.

So what Andy’s trip means is that I gotta step up my domestic game.  I have to figure out how to fit in work, exercise, getting myself ready, getting Belén ready, day care drop off, day care pick up, dinner, laundry, groceries, flower watering, mail getting, dishes, picking up the house, playing with the animals, playing with Belén, feeding the animals, paying bills, you get the picture…IT WILL BE A BUSY WEEK!

Because of this, I am going to space out the photos we took last week at the fair and keep it simple (but still exciting) on this here blog!

This was the first time we had been to the fair in probably eight years.  It was a lot of fun experiencing it through the yes of a 16-month old.

AND NOW…..LET FAIR WEEK BEGIN!

I am sitting here on my laptop on a Saturday night, getting ready to work on a presentation for work.  You are so jealous of my life right?  Oh wait, it gets better…you saw the title didn’t you?

Before beginning aforementioned presentation, I decided I should do my blog post for tomorrow.  But before I could even get started on that, I became distracted by the nearly identical scabs on each of my elbows (long story that I will not go into).  I have been a little bit obsessed with said scabs for the entire week I have had them since apparently I knock my elbows on on various objects a lot of damn times a day.  It got to the point that I literally planned my outfits around scab protection.

Cannot wear this t-shirt, I need at least 3/4-length sleeves.

Better find a different skirt to wear because all of the tops that match do not protect elbow scabs.

The obsession is culminating in a session of scab picking.  You all just groaned when you read that right?  I know, TMI and Gross!  But I am not going to mark this post as a TMI because I plan to go somewhere else with it.  Before doing so, I must mention that these scabs are creating the absolutely perfect picking scenario…large enough chunks, you get some meat with each pick.  Not blood-inducing.  Andy is not here to be grossed out by the carnage or the shrapnel.  No worry about scars on my elbows, they are already all pruney anyway.  Pure scab picking awesomeness!

Alas, I need to get to my point.  What does one do about activities like scab picking which we as parents and role models enjoy yet do not want our little sponges to inherit?

Belén is such a little mimic these days, I feel like I am counting the days until she repeats something I will not be proud of.  For goodness sakes, she can point to the red bird, the blue horse, the yellow duck, the teacher and the brown bear on the final page of her favorite book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  She clearly is learning from what we say and do around her each day.

Andy and I watched that movie Babies Friday night, which if you have not seen or heard about it is a documentary following four babies in very different cultures from birth to one-year old.  Even within the first year of life, the baby from Namibia is so incredibly different from the baby in Tokyo, Mongolia or San Francisco.  It is fascinating and I highly recommend watching the movie.  It also, brings home the point of how much nurture plays a part in who these little people become.

So does this mean that in an effort to not teach her bad habits, I should hide every habit, word or thought I do not want to pass on from our daughter?   Kids are smart, they pick up on so much, is it even possible to hide it?

I can already picture the conversation, “But…mommy picks her scabs too.”

My friend and co-worker, Padmaja, recently traveled to India to visit her family. I knew she was up to something when she asked for our address.

Belén’s ready for a trip to India!

Here’s to a weekend full of playing in the dirt or doing whatever it is you love!

Even though it is probably completely irrelevant to any of you, I feel compelled to tell you that there has been a change in my intent for this blog.  I created my first blog in 2003 when we moved to Mexico.  It was crappy by today’s standards but at the time I thought my little tripod blog was pretty cool.  I think I only wrote about four times the entire year we were away and we mostly used it to house pictures.  Those posts have since been copied over to this blog, by the way.

When we moved to China, I got more serious about blogging as it was a way to keep in touch with people back home and share our photos and experiences.  I tried to send updates once a week and if it became longer than that between updates, I felt like I was abandoning our friends and loved ones back home.  That blog was on Mobile Me and has since been copied to this blog as well.

Once I became pregnant with Belén, the blog was a great way to share pregnancy experiences and sort through some of my feelings about impending motherhood.  After we had Belén until I went back to work, we used it to share photos and experiences with our tiny infant and thoughts about being newly minted parents.

It was about that time when I started to realize that blogs could be more than just fun and informational but that people actually make money on them.  I immediately made it my life goal to be dooce, a woman whose entire family is supported by her blog.  After this realization, I shifted my goal for the blog to to be that of someday maybe I could quit my job and stay home with my baby because I am going to have a world famous blog.  Which if you read any other blogs, the authors will tell you is not very likely to happen.  But I think I needed that possibility to be out there in front of me to make it through my first year of being away from my baby eight plus hours a day.

I am here to tell you that I finally came out of my baby-induced haze of a pipe dream and making money on the blog is no longer a huge focus in my life.  It really doesn’t make sense and it was starting to take the fun out of it.

Why doesn’t it make sense you might ask?  I think I have about three people a month click on ads which makes me about $1.79.  I pay more to host the blog on godaddy a month than that.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not discouraging people from clicking on ads.  I definitely feel the love and the few pennies here and there still gets me excited because it makes me feel like a “professional” writer for a meager moment…and it would be great to at least get the hosting covered with ad revenue…but honestly I am over it.

The reason why this is likely irrelevant to you is that I don’t think the blog content will change much based on my change in inspiration.  Maybe it will get better because I now recognize I am writing because I love to.  I still love having readers and check my stats to see how many people are reading and subscribed to the blog because that is in my Type A, driver-manager nature, but honestly it is different now…and it feels good.

I should clarify that this does not mean that I am abandoning my “365 plan” where I intend to make a blog entry every day in 2010.  At this point, if nothing else, writing in this blog is my therapy!  That must make all of you readers therapists.  What kind of couch did you decide on?  Fight the urge to go for form over function!

When I was in fourth grade, I was convinced I wanted to be a writer.  I kept a journal and documented everything I could.  For whatever reason, I was selected to go to a writing workshop which I find out years later Andy was also attending.  All of the participants received navy blue t-shirts which I really wish I still had today.  In white letters it said, “tis my fate to write”.

You see, it was kismet.  I was born to be a starving writer…I just happened to be one with a back up plan.

Anyway, I THANK YOU each and every day for reading this blog!  You have no idea how happy it makes me to have such great  readers!

It’s funny eating meals with a toddler.  Sometimes I find myself  eating less than I had anticipated due to a certain little two foot tall person tugging on my pant leg saying “Ma-ee, ma-ee” until I give her what she wants (my food.)   Before my very eyes a 72-calorie banana becomes 63 and then 56 as Belén consumes her part.  If this were always the case, it might be a good diet plan.

But then there is the opposite effect when we order more food for her and then she doesn’t eat it.

Take tonight as an example.  We had a very healthy vegetable curry dish in the crock pot (thanks to my wonderful husband).  We were both thinking about curry all day long only to find raw vegetables in cold curry when we returned home from work.  The power had gone out early in the day and the crock pot was not smart enough to restart itself.  So we piled into the truck and headed to a local restaurant.  I ordered a healthy-ish spicy beef salad for myself and a cheeseburger from the kid’s meal for Belén.  I secretly wanted a taste of the cheeseburger too.

When the meals came, B’s cheeseburger was in my mind, adult-sized with a full side of fries.  She was a trooper eating quite a bit (for her), but it was way too much food.

But you see, this particular restaurant has fantastic fries and a good burger so I quickly found myself “helping” Belén way more than I needed to…until her plate was nearly clear.

So I think I am of the conclusion it is actually a net caloric positive having an extra mouth to feed of which it is very easy to share food with.