It's Great To Be A Kid

Today was so much fun. Mommy took me to the Vancouver International Children's Festival. All of Vanier Park was full tents and there was a ton of different things for kids to do.


I love getting my face painted so that's the first tent that we went to. On one cheek a got a happy face to go with the Mr. Happy t-shirt I was wearing. The next tent was a self-serve face painting tent so I got Mommy to put a school bus on my other cheek.



After that, there was so much to choose from. I made and flew a kite, played with some giant bubble makers, flew a wooden airplane, learned about crafts and games from Taiwan and rode a bike so fast that I lit up five light bulbs!


Mommy thought we should stop for lunch (I think SHE was hungry) but I was too excited. We found a wooden train to ride, then a real ambulance and fire truck with paramedics and firemen! I spent a long time in the fire truck and got a real surprise when my friend Hayden, from preschool, showed up right beside me. When it was Hayden's turn to be the driver, I played with the computer on the fire truck and navigated for him. We're a great team.



Next we visited the bike rodeo. Here I learned how to ride a bicycle and tricycle safely. There was a pretend bike route and I had to put on a helmet and ride around following the traffic rules. I stopped at the yellow and red traffic lights, stopped again at the stop sign, watched out for other traffic when I went through the intersection and had to walk my bike through the cross walk. They even taught me how to use hand signals to tell the cars which way I'm going. I really liked the bike rodeo and it wasn't too busy so I went around it six times. I was an expert by the time I finished and all the police men knew my name.



After the bike rodeo, we found a tent called the Sonic Playground. It was full of interesting things that make noise - sort of like instruments. They were funny instruments though. I've never seen anything like them before. Some had phones attached to them, others used popcorn to make noise, one had a computer attached to it, another made different noises depending upon where you turned its arrow. All of it was kinda weird. Outside the Sonic Playground tent, I had lots of fun banging on the xylophone. The shiny thing in the middle was really fun to bang too. It's fun to be noisy!


From here, I asked Mommy if we could go to the Sandbox tent that I saw. It was full of trucks, pails, shovels, rakes, tubes, sand (of course) and kids. I love playing with trucks in the sand and I found a steam roller that I've never played with before. I found it really interesting to see how it flattened the sand. I think Mommy enjoyed the shade and a chance to sit down for a little while. She even ran into her friend Ching Yi whom she hadn't seen for a long, long time.



Now I was hungry. Mommy brought a lot of food in her back pack so we found a shady place to sit. I ate everything! A peanut butter "smartie-pants" sandwich, a big apple muffin, a fruit leather, a whole cup of juice, a cheese stick and some of Mommy's nut bar. That's WAY more than I ever eat. I was still hungry but Mommy said our concert was going to start soon. We agreed to have some ice cream after the show.

Family Place gave us tickets to see Connie Kaldor. I hadn't heard her before and Mommy didn't know she played music for kids. We both enjoyed the show. Connie Kaldor was funny and even though I was getting really tired, I couldn't help but get up and dance. My favourite was a fiddling song. The song kept getting faster and faster and faster and I had to dance faster and faster and faster to try and keep up.

After the concert and ice cream, I sat in a real teepee. Just as I was about to leave the teepee, my friend Taylor popped in. She was hiding from her mom. I know Taylor from Family Place and we always have fun playing together. We ran around together for a while while our Mommies talked.

Next it was time to try to circus tricks. I was too small for most of them. Juggling looks fun but it's too hard to hold three balls at the same time. I didn't even try to throw them up into the air at the same time. They just kept popping out of my hands. Hoola hooping was hard to do too. The hoop just wouldn't stick on my hips no matter how much I span around. Stilt walking was much easier and fun. I can't do it all by myself yet but I think I know what to do in case Daddy wants to build me some stilts for home.



After stilt walking I was getting pretty hot and tired. Mommy said she's buy me something from the toy tent - I chose a tiny train and a pin wheel - then I convinced her to take me back to the bike rodeo for three more loops. After that I was ready to go home. I'm sure glad that I'm a kid. The Children's Festival was so much fun!