A midway birthday: The fair brings out the kid in all of us

Catherine Preus, Star Tribune

Catherine Preus at the fair with son Ellis.

By CATHERINE PREUS, Star Tribune

Last update: September 6, 2009 - 11:27 PM

So you hired ponies and a clown and a Hannah Montana karaoke system for your kid's birthday party? My kid's was better. For Ellis' first birthday, there were rides, bunnies, sheep, tractors, thousands of partiers, and best of all, mini-doughnuts instead of a birthday cake. He's a lucky boy, to be born during the State Fair.

With a little more luck, he could have been born at the fair -- another pregnant friend and I staggered around with our older kids in strollers last year, two days from my due date, reassuring ourselves that the folks at the Miracle of Birth barn would surely know what to do if it came down to it.

So this year, as a birthday present, his very responsible parents decided to take Ellis to the fair to taste its joys for himself: We gave him a Tiny Tim doughnut, warm and sugary. He sucked it down, hardly bothering with his six teeth, and with a pterodactyl yell, lunged toward the crinkly, grease-stained bag. He got three more before anyone could stop him.

He loved every piece of fair food we purchased, and tried to launch himself out of the backpack he was riding in to snatch it out of our mouths. People stopped to watch as I fed him kernels, then rows, then just handed him the whole cob of corn in disbelief.

His older brother, Theron, is also a fair enthusiast, and at age 4 he is starting to appreciate the fair's advertised attractions, things such as rides and food. At age 2, we could hardly pull him away from each manhole cover and downspout. At 3, the nice men selling aluminum trailers saw a lot of us. This year he wanted to go on "the booth ride where you go over the top of everything," and the Giant Slide. That sure is a short ride; at the bottom we noticed that most kids pick up their gunny sacks and automatically try to head back up the stairs.

Theron doesn't get tired at the fair -- he's gotten kicked out of the stroller by his brother -- as long as we're headed somewhere good. What counts: the noisy engines that make ice cream, animals you can touch, rides (even if we don't go on them), or anything sweet. What doesn't: retail, the art barn, the leafy green vegetable booth (as if), and the horticulture building, except the honey part (see above).

Like every little boy I know, and quite a few little girls, Theron would be happy to settle in at Machinery Hill for the day. Smart parents know to buy food and drink, and maybe pull out their unfinished seed art or hardanger needlework, before finding a shady spot near the John Deere shed.

For Ellis, it was a chance to nurse and snooze, because let's face it, a birthday's no good without a nap. I was a little jealous to see him sleeping peacefully, scarfing mini-doughnuts with abandon, howling when he got tired.

Look around, though, and you see a place where we all get to regress a little: drop onto a patch of shade to sleep, eat more than is polite, gawk, pet small animals, and play hooky from our grown-up lives.

Catherine Preus is a Star Tribune copy editor. She writes most every year about taking children to the fair.

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