SCCC Fall Festival

The kids and I were on our own Saturday, while Dad was working in New York. I decided to head where we'd have gone if we'd had him with us: to the Sussex County Community College's Fall Festival.

I don't know what I expected beyond knowing that home sales companies like Pampered Chef were going to have booths. Besides commercial booths, they had a healthy living booth that gave us a free bottle of water and free apples (good thing, since I had $1.11 on me and it turned out to be a much warmer day than I'd expected!), a petting zoo with everything from a pot-bellied pig to a tiny kangaroo, and games for the children.

Not just any games, though. They had games that even Ralph could play! There were two we spent most of our time playing. The first involved a pair of salad tongs, and a set of small plastic balls with a bucket to match. Lanes had been set up on the grass, and the red, yellow or blue balls were spread out along the lane. The game involved using the salad tongs to fetch a ball, run the ball back to the bucket, then race out again to get another ball with the tongs. Ralph gave those tongs a good try, netting a couple of balls with it (two-handed) before tossing it down and running willy-nilly down the lane grabbing at the balls! He brought them back by the armload, dumping them in the appropriate bucket (he used both red and yellow lanes) or handing them off to Kaycie...who had a ball (so to speak) playing with them herself. She even explored one of the buckets when Ralph brought it over to her. Ralph earned a ribbon for playing!

We then found a booth with hula-hoops. We'd just learned how to play with these at Mommy and Me at the dance studio in Sparta, so Ralph knew just what to do! First, he held hoops up for himself and stepped through them, feet over the bottom, then head ducked under the top of the hoop. Then, we spread them out on the ground and he took turns walking the 'obstacle course' and jumping it. Jumping, for Ralph, means bending his knees deeply, then looking up at me until I come over and lift him up and onward! He understands the concept, but doesn't *quite* have the mechanics of it down. I can't imagine it will be long, now. He kicked a ball at the festival, first time I'd ever seen him do it, and now he gets his kicks in every day. When he got tired of stepping and jumping, he brought a selection of hoops over to Kaycie for her to enjoy. He then got to pick his own ribbon for playing with the hula hoops.



We visited the petting zoo area, where a gentleman with a fanny pack full of food for the animals doled it out to the children handful by handful. Ralph fed a donkey and a sheep, and tried to feed the thoroughly uninterested calf. He then ran over to watch the hopping kangaroo and glance at the pot-bellied pig, who probably weighed twice what he did.