Show-and-Tell, Round 3: Dora Blow-Up Doll

As we were leaving the State Fair last night, Ivie saw a balloon booth that had a Dora blow-up doll. She absolutely HAD to have it (and Daddy gave in fairly quickly, without forcing her to beg for long). Six dollars later (man, everything's expensive at the fair!), she walked away happily with Dora in tow.

Sadly, Dora developed a hole overnight (expensive AND cheap, all at the same time!). After doing my best to epoxy the plastic back together, Dora seemed to recover enough to make the trek to school with Ivie for show-and-tell. Though I have a feeling she will return home this afternoon in the form of a wall hanging, not a balloon.


This is a seemingly boring story, I know. So I thought, in addition, that I would tell you the story of the OTHER fair toy, which lived an even shorter life with the Herman family (if that's possible!).

At the $2 fish pond game, where every kid's a winner, every time, Ivie selected a glitter-filled baton with streamers on each end. It kept her attention at least until it was time to have the lady bug painted on her face, at which point she moved on to bigger and better (i.e., more expensive) things.

Following the fair, we headed out to our car. Picture this. Dale holding his caramel apple in the same hand that is securely grasping Ivie's foot, since she is riding on his shoulders holding Dora. At the same time, he's pushing Macie's stroller, which is empty, since Macie is in the Baby Bjorn on my chest. I'm also holding a large bowl of ice cream (they didn't have a "kid size" for Ivie, so of course I came out with a bowl, as well!) and pushing Ivie's stroller, which she sat in for a total of 10 minutes when we first arrived. Until she saw that Laney was walking freely, at which point she insisted on walking, too. So, back to the visual, you can imagine that anything not tied to one of the strollers might be hard to keep track of...

We got Ivie in her stroller by encouraging her to eat her ice cream while sitting still (much easier than trying to do it without dropping any on Daddy's head!). As we walked across a bumpy and dark parking lot path of rocks and dirt, the baton fell off the awning of Ivie's stroller. Thankfully, a nice lady walking toward us pointed out that it had fallen, and we recovered it. For about 2 minutes, that is. By the time we got to the car, it was missing again. So after getting Ivie in the car, Dale set off to re-trace our steps and look for it. He came back about 3 minutes later, empty-handed, and said, "I didn't find it, but I walked past an adult couple carrying one."

So the couple had found a free toy to take home to their niece or nephew. Good for them! Dale was not in the mood to confront them about it. If it had been me (the usually timid one), I would have said to the couple, "You didn't happen to find that on the ground, did you? I've got a distraught 2-year-old at the car that dropped hers...".

I have a feeling they would have handed it off, even if they WERE the ones that "won" it at the everyone-wins-a-prize fish pond in the Kids' Zone at the fair. What adult wants to get caught in THAT act?!?

Twelve hours later, Ivie has apparently forgotten about the baton. It was not mentioned this morning as she got ready for school. Shocking that she didn't remember it after the blur of money-dropping that was our trip to the State Fair. Thank goodness it only comes around once a year. Suze Orman would not be proud of us...