Deja vu

On Sunday, our company’s annual Family Day took place at TJ Stables. (I have mentioned TJ Stables on here enough this past week that I am sure that anyone doing a Google search of the term will wind up on my site!) Although they were forecasting rain for the day, I checked the radar loop before we headed out, and it didn’t indicate any moisture in the area. Sure enough, the rain held off and the sun even came out for a bit to make for a great day.We were expecting large crowds so we arrived a few minutes early and planned to hit the popular attractions first. Things were not quite set up yet, so we strolled around. As luck would have it, we ran across the face painting lady, who invited us over to her gazebo. Liam and Mallory flipped through her pages of designs before settling on a cat and a fish…After the face painting, we went straight for the pony rides. Mallory was saying all morning that she wanted to ride Licorice, having heard that Liam rode him on Friday. Unfortunately for her, Licorice was taking a break on Sunday. She got to ride Nelson on her first go-round and Penny on her second.We visited the petting farm…And the inflatables…And then went for lunch. During lunch, they announced a scavenger hunt, so we decided to try that when we finished eating. The hunt was held in a large wooded pasture where trail rides pass through. On the list of items to collect were things like a pinecone, an acorn, etc., and then, a horse shoe. Knowing those horse shoes were out there just about drove me crazy. We walked around and around this pasture for about an hour looking for the damn horse shoes, and never did find one.

Not long after starting the scavenger hunt, Mallory needed to pee, so I hauled her back out to the port-a-john and then back into the pasture we went. When we had reached the far back corner of the pasture, she decided that she had to poop. Like, now. I told her I would take her back to the port-a-john but that she would have to hold it for a while because we were pretty far back in the woods. “I can’t! My bum is squeezing it out right now!” she said. So, Mallory took her inaugural shit in the woods. And as luck would have it, even though she normally poops like a rabbit, a little trail of pellets indicating that she hasn’t had enough fibre that day, this poop was not nearly so neat and tidy. The first wipe was done with my list of scavenger hunt items (so much for completing the list!) After that I resorted to various leaves, praying the entire time that none were poison ivy. In the end, I got most of it off, vowed to give the panties she was wearing an extra pre-wash soak, and couldn’t help but laugh when she said as we finished up, “Wow, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be.” Speak for yourself, Mallory.

Then we high-tailed it out of there so that nobody would trace that particular little treasure back to us.We finished up our day on the farm with a brief stint at the fishing hole for Liam (no catches) and another romp in a bouncy castle for Mallory, which did not stop her from crying when they deflated a short time later, “But I want to go again!...” Well, I assume she was talking about the bouncy castle, but you never know. Part of me is now worried that I'm going to find her outside in the back yard with her pants down, too preoccupied with the sandbox to want to make the long trip back into the house.