My Little Carnie

This past weekend was Downtown Franklin’s annual Main Street Festival. Always fun, always crowded. Which is why, when we noticed a mini-carnival set up a few blocks off the square we opted to escape the main crowd in favor of a few rides and carnival games.

Bad idea.

I’m pretty sure it was not DTF-sanctioned. The rides were bad. Not just bad compared to Disney World, bad compared to a root canal. Some of the legs of the machines weren’t actually touching the ground. And at one point a worker jumped up on one of the rides, dug around a bit, then produced a few forgotten tools he’d left IN THE RIDE. Not classy.

We paid six tickets (at $1 apiece) for Oliver and I to ride the swing ride. You know the one – everybody clips into  the precariously tipsy swings on loooong, long chains, then the ride begins and we get spinning so fast and so high that we soar above the crowds giving us both a thrill and a birds-eye view of the grounds. So not the case. We spun alright. But so slow and low that I literally had to hold my feet up to keep my shoes from dragging in the gravel the entire time. As we swung slowly past the operator I asked him if we would be going higher. He avoided eye contact and took another drag of his cigarette. No answer. Not long after, the ride ended and even Oliver was disappointed. That $6 could have had him halfway to a decent Star Wars Lego kit. Ah well.

We had 4 tickets left and decided to go ahead and use them despite our better judgment. We let the kids ride together on a relatively benign spinning car ride. I wasn’t allowed to ride with them (okay by me), but I made certain to buckle them in myself.

The ride was fun for about 30 seconds, then they got bored and spent the remaining minute and a half unclipping and switching seats in their car while the ride was still going. They couldn’t hear me tell them to sit down and the guy didn’t seem to be concerned. And we’ll be going now.

Needless to say, the off-the-beaten-path carnival we’d discovered was not everything we had dreamed it would be. But Oliver had caught the carnival bug and after dinner that night he began laying plans for a backyard carnival of his own.

Audrey sat with him at the table and helped him make tickets, and Ryan helped him with spelling as he wrote out his list of games. Hazel snuggled up to the iPod dock and listened to an episode of Adventures in Odyssey because the carnival plans were only mildly interesting to her.

The next day we ran to Target and shopped for prizes (bubbles and chocolate bars) and invited neighborhood friends to join us but the short notice put quite a dent in Oliver’s guest list. Fortunately, we kept the four Faires kids for the afternoon, so the waterside was beyond accomplished.

The rest waited for that evening after dinner. While Ryan cleaned up, I helped Oliver set things back up and we reconvened in the backyard for a carnival better than I’d attended in a long time. Or at least in the past week!

While everyone was getting things in order for the event, Hazel awarded herself a bottle of bubbles.

She of course spilled them on the outdoor rug so Ryan stepped in and monitored (and improved!) the bubble activity while Oliver and I finished things up.

Our first event was Oliver’s brainchild: Blow the Crayon, in which – you guessed it – you race to blow your crayon across the finish line before your opponent. Ryan and I thought it would be more fun to play it war-style where there was a single crayon and the competitors were on opposite sides of the table trying to cross the other’s line. Oliver wanted to race though – so race we did.

(For the record: I really tried to let him do this all by himself without getting my paws all over it. I wanted him to make everything, including the Blow the Crayon sign, but he asked me to write the words and he’d decorate it. I must have forgotten myself because all of a sudden Oliver looked at it and said, “hey, I was going to decorate that!!” Fail. It is SO hard to resist! I think I remembered to step back for the rest of the crafting.)

Hazel wanted to get in on the action, but she was a little confused on the method. She wanted to bite the crayon or roll it with her lips. She did not win any chocolate bars for her efforts.

Game #2 was “Target“. Oliver and I drew a target on a piece of printer paper, laminated it, then tacked it to a pergola post. A Nerf gun and a few suction darts later, we had a really fun game!

Oliver had us stand way back for our turns, but as you can see, shooting from far away wasn’t as fun as nailing the bullseye point-blank. That feels awesome.

Before our final event Oliver rewarded us (and himself) with KitKats and Twix bars. Even Hazey. It was a nice break in the games.

And our final (and my favorite) part of the evening was Oliver’s “Concert”. He’d worked all day to build instruments from plastic cutlery and rubber bands but nothing was working how he wanted. He finally landed introducing himself with the lid to my cotton ball jar as a microphone, then tossing it in the yard and reciting “What the Robin Says” from his preschool poetry day.

He lit up so sweetly for his recitation. He even projected really well.

And the final line of the poem was: “Wake up, wake up! Springtime is heeeeere!”

By far my favorite part of the carnival. But I’m a Mommy, so of course I’d say that. :)

I think Oliver has a future as the world’s coolest carnie! (Particularly because we’ve played “carnival” every night after dinner since, and each night has a different set of games.)

Happy Friday, friends! Have a lovely weekend! Be visionaries!

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