Today, I brought Alex to the Stamford Museum and Nature Center. I stopped off at the supermarket to buy our picnic lunch and then headed off to the train station. Alex loves riding trains and buses - which we took in Stamford. He wasn't prepared for what we'd be doing, though. He got to run around a real live farm!
I parked the stroller near an animal pen close to the entrance and hooked him up to the puppy leash. He took off like a bandit! "Goats!" he cried when he saw that there were animals behind the fences. "Come on!" he cried to me as he ran to see what was next. He wanted me to open the barn (the classroom building there), but it was closed. "Barn open!" he insisted - but it wasn't. I had to make sure he saw where the goats were.
We came up to more goats, two of whom were smartly staying in the shade of their shelter. Alex called to the goats, but they wouldn't budge. "Goat is stuck", he told me. I told him that the goat was fine. He was just smarter than we were and was choosing to stay out of the hot sun.
Some ducks were sunning themselves on the bank of a nearby stream. Alex was delighted to chase after them - quacking all the way. Then they went into the stream and I had to stop him from following them. It was back to the stuck goats then. He amazed me by picking up loose straw from outside the gates and pushing it into the pen saying "Here goats!" How did he know that goats like hay and grass? Two baby goats were all too glad for Alex's presence, even when he pet them. Then he walked off without so much as a "By your leave." I asked him if he was going to say goodbye to the goats and he snooted "No!"
He soon discovered his favorite part - the chicken coop loaded with new chicks. He didn't want to leave those chickens for anything! Except for, of course, the new baby sheep. The lambs were bleating for their mommies and Alex was thrilled! Each time they bleated, he burst into laughter. "Funny!" he said and then he bleated back to them, hoping they'd respond. Then a sheep bleated at him and he said "Daddy sheep." I was pretty sure it was a Mommy Sheep, I told him.
The sheep continued to entertain him past the point of checking out a horse. This gigantic equine came a little too close for Mommy's comfort, though. It easily leaned over its fence and sniffeed around the front of Alex's stroller. Seems this horse is used to the idea that strollers usually contain sweet stuff. That sure got Alex's attention. Now he thought the horse was the funniest character on the farm. Between the sheep's bleating and the horse's begging, Alex was delighted. He wanted to get the horse to try to take a treat from him. When it didn't comply, (knowing there was no treat), Alex was done. "Bye-bye horse!" he told the animal.
He wanted to entertain the lambs again.
We stopped to say goodbye to the lambs and sheep. Alex tried to get them to bleat by playing his stroller toy music and honking it's horn. He had more success when he bleated at them.
Alex told me that he wanted to see the chickens before we left, but by the time we got back to the coop, he told me "No more."
Wow! I finally found the point at which Alex will finally say he wants to go home! Poor, tired baby. Bye-bye farm!
Of course, that didn't stop him from asking when we could go to the farm again.
May 22, 2009
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