A trip down to Indianapolis

We went to visit some friends in Indianapolis this weekend. Although this is Sophie's third trip down there, in many ways it was more like her first. She had an awareness about her that she didn't have in previous trips. Last time our friends saw her, she was just learning how to walk and was figuring out how to crawl up one stair. Now she runs after cats and tells you that cows say moo.

Our first day there, we went to Conner's Prairie, an interactive historical park, a place that was never on my radar until this trip. We ended up there because the one day we had free to go to the zoo, it was closed for the public-grrr. So we ended up going to this living museum of 1800s villages. It was strangely uncanny to see a group of Amish girls visiting. The humidity was 98% and we were about to melt after a couple of hours walking around the houses and buildings so we returned to the welcome center and fully embraced our modern roots in the air conditioned building.

The second day we went to a PBS fair that was held in a park. There were free bouncy castles and visits with PBS cast members, like Elmo. This event has reassured me that paying for events isn't all bad. Free too often means long lines. I apparently won't wait 30 minutes in very hot weather to let Sophie jump in a bouncy castle with kids mostly bigger than she, even if it's free. We did, however, find a free inflatable caterpillar to crawl through with a relatively short line, so we did that twice. I was willing to wait in line again, but apparently she figured twice was all you could go because she just moved on.

The really insidious part, Elmo and Abby balloons. I saw kids walking around with them, a lot of them, so I decided PBS must be giving them out free. When we got close to the balloon area, I saw the price $3.00 each for an item that has been designed to appeal to my daughter and goes against my environmental beliefs. That's a low blow, especially coming from PBS. I was willing to shell out my money, but noticed Sophie wasn't even noticing them so we just kept moving. This fair was like a mine field, dodging and weaving all of these temptations.

We check out some booths, many of which are offering organized activities for children, none of which were too interesting since we don't live in the area. Nonetheless, many of them had an interactive area for kids, so we'd let Sophie Tegel play around while we found out more about the organization. More than one was for daycares. I've come to realize that daycares are tiered. There is the first tier that always has a wait list so they rarely attend events like these--why bother paying for a booth, when there's no need to advertise or recruit new students. Then there is another tier of daycares that sets up booths and tries to cajole you to attend by offering free candy. I'm struck by why a daycare, of all places, thinks it is either safe or healthy to offer my child a sucker. I'm not a total jerk about food, but Sophie doesn't need to know what candy is yet, especially suckers. After a couple of hours of this we are all melting because of the humidity, so we head back to our friend's house. As I am putting her into her car seat she states: "It's so hot in here." It was very articulate for her and so very true, it was way too hot. We headed back to find some lunch and take a nap