Gourdrific!

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker. I love the Elyria Memorial Day Parade, I try not to miss the Bloomfield Halloween Parade and, speaking of Bloomfield, there's something about a good, old fashioned Catholic church carnival that gets me all misty. It should come as no surprise then that I was pretty darn excited for the Eastminster Daycare Fall Festival. All 60 minutes of it.

I got to take off of work early enough to get there right at the start. I was'nt sure if I was supposed to get the boy or if he would be brought down to the assembly room where it took place but, after watching all the other kids come in, I went and woke him up and brought him down. The older kids all sat on the floor to start with and sang a couple of rousing choruses of "Jesus Loves Me" and "I'm a Little Tea Pot." It took me a while to figure out that each of the tables in the first room was a different station: cookie decorating at one, paper pumpkins and rubber stamps at another, etc. Over in the far corner was about half a dozen high chairs set up for the "Infant Texture" station. This is where the young kids like Donny could crumple tissue paper, feel a bumpy gourd and commune with an ear of dried Indian corn:



As promised, he also got to feel the inside of a pumpkin--something I was much more excited about than he was. And as far as the hayride, can I call 'em or can I call 'em?:



I also liked the mini pumpkin patch:



I think I should set one up in our front room.

There were lots of things I liked about this event--first, there was no weirdness about sugar: the kids who were old enough got a little bag of candy that was just the right size. Second, there were alot of older kids running around being excitable but no one was being "bad." There were no scoldings, no tantrums and lots of hugs and encouragement from parents and staff members alike. When I think how green we were in looking for daycare and how lucky we are that Donny ended up where he is--with people who really care about him and take good care of him--dang. Remember: I choose Eastminster because the other place we looked at did'nt have windows.

Color me lucky.