Three year old at the Renn Faire most authentic thing there
There’s an issue of The Sandman in which an immortal visits a Renn Faire and mentions that the overflowing portapotties were just about the closest thing to what life was like in the renaissance at the fair.
This weekend I sort of felt like my three year old’s misery/dislike of the universe and constant whinging probably were the closest thing to period accuracy I was going to see that day.
We embarked on a trip to the Renn Faire at a reasonable time, we should have gotten there and had an hour and a half or two before the naptime problems kicked in. Unfortunately someone got into a wreck, we were delayed on our start, and just as we were pulling in the 3yo went from awake to “I hate the world”.
She refused to walk, ended up in the stroller, and repeated “I want to go home” somewhere around 300 times after refusing to just close her eyes and take a nap in the stroller I was having to push through gravel that it was determined to dig into. I was plowing my way through some of the areas. Feh.
It became a march of listening to constant complaints of a tired toddler who wanted to go home and sleep. Doesn’t matter that if she was at home that she’d fight sleep and do anything in her power to stay awake. Nope, this was epic meltdown time.
Look, there’s some horses and a jousting match! Toddler: ooh dirt and sticks, I’m going to throw them. Look there’s an a troll and some faeries! Toddler: I want to be at home. Ooh look there’s some dancers. Toddler: Where’s the car?
We joked we probably just needed to grab her a Red Bull and then non-jokingly decided to grab her a Coke. Not my shiniest parenting moment, but the cool sugary beverage tended to break Maggie out of the medieval performance she was having at hour two or three of the faire.
It wasn’t all bad, and it did get better after the sugar infusion, but these three year old schedules if not properly observed quickly turn into meltdown city.
Maggie went and knocked at all the castle doors and was convinced the knight armor had something to do with Star Wars and kept screaming “Star Wars!” which was darned cute and confusing to some people.
I think what she’s going to remember about that trip was a bubble wand, a school bus ride, and the queen.
I’m going to remember that I like air conditioning and that a six hour excursion is a bit much for a three year old. Also I’m packing Red Bull and chloroform just in case next time.
