Fall Festival

We walked up to the folding table to buy our tickets to get into the boys’ school fall festival, and then sent them running off ahead of us into the bounce houses, never to be seen again.  (Well, maybe not never, but they were in those things for ages.  All I saw was a flash of crew cut, the suggestion of Liam’s red sweater fly by the net-covered window now and then.)  Craig stayed close to us, on the ground and exploring, but with some hesitation.  It was a lot of sensory information for him to process.  At one point he found a cornhole set and spent at least twenty minutes sliding the beanbags down the slope, and charming a bank manager into fetching them back to the top for him.  To return her kindness, I put my name on her mailing list.

There were scarecrows for auction, and raffle tickets for sale.  They had a cordoned off area for silly string fights, a pumpkin painting booth, an area for shooting water guns at tin cans.  I myself manned (womanned?) the sack race booth for a half hour, and then watched the boys get their faces painted and take a hayride.  There were lollipops and frozen yogurt, gum and more lollipops, while the Professor and I shared some nachos and I fed Craig bits of burger.  In the center of the fair was a giant mechanical bull, which the children could line up and pay money to ride.

We saw people we knew, here and there.  Quick hellos, cooing over a new baby, catching up.  The sun was up when we arrived, and it set shortly after, a brilliant pink wash of sky over the blinking, glittering scene.  The moon came out and though few stars were visible, Craig threw his head back and stared up at the sky and crooned “‘taaaaars, mooooo” [stars, moon].  Soon, he grew tired, and we gathered them all up for the long walk to the car.  Jack paused to “get down on it” as we walked by the stereo speakers.  Liam tackled a best friend, a little boy  named Xavier who seemed just as chuffed to see Liam as Liam was to see him.  We walked past the taco truck, the snowcone stand, the barbecue trailer, and through the darkened gravel parking lot to buckle our boys into the car.  At home, we showered and scrubbed the now-fratchy, past-their-bedtime boys, and shuffled them each to their beds.

Sigh.  These are the days of miracle and wonder.