Piggy Tails

For some reason Milo has a fascination with pigs. Stuffed pigs, toy pigs, pictures of pigs, cartoon pigs, and pigs on TV. The only pig I’ve seen that he didn’t like was a guy from a barbeque place who was dressed in a big pig costume; he was handing out stuffed pigs at the hospital. Milo ended up with three of the barbeque pigs since he was in the hospital so long. These pigs are his prized possessions; unfortunately I think we lost one the other day, oops. In January we ventured out to the National Western Stock Show. We found the animal petting area and waited in line. Milo had no idea what we were going to do and was a bit impatient. As we passed the big huge sign notifying everyone of the possibility of e. coli I wondered if this was a good idea but I knew he would love it so doubled checked to make sure his trach cap was securely on and we continued. I bought an ice cream cone full of animal feed and we ventured into the pin. OK so the food probably wasn’t the best idea, there was one bully of a goat who jumped up on me to get it and scared Milo a bit. Once the food was gone I put Milo down and he didn’t know what to do. I guided him over to a small fenced in spot that had ducks, another of his favorite animals. He LOVED them, and then he discovered the goats but was not impressed. A sheep walked by and he tried to pick the bedding out of it’s wooly coat, my guy likes to be clean :0) He was standing right by a pig but had no idea what the animal was, it wasn’t pink like all the pigs he had seen in pictures, it was grey. I kept telling him it was a pig but he didn’t believe me. He finally noticed it’s curly little tail swinging around and tried to catch it, poor pig. I directed him to the front end of the pig and Milo squealed with delight. He sat right down on the floor where the pig was snorting in the bedding and blowing it around. Milo put his face right in the pig’s face & I’m pretty sure he ended up with pig slobber on him but he didn’t seem to care. He was so EXCITED I thought he would poke the pig’s eye out. After several minutes I had to drag him away, other kids wanted access. I tried to distract him with the huge llama that was sitting right next to him, no interest…the donkey, nope…he found another pig to accost…I decided for the animal’s sake it was time to go. We went straight to the hand sanitizer cuz e. coli isn’t something to mess around with, especially with a kid who has an open airway and a slightly depressed immune system. Unfortunately there were several people who did contract e. coli at the Stock Show.

After the animal petting adventure we wandered around and found pony rides. Milo was on his uncle’s shoulders when we walked into the area with the ponies. Again he squealed very loudly pointing at the ponies. Several people turned around to see if he was alright, then smiled with the realized how excited he was. His happy noises and his hurt/mad noises sound a lot alike. This line was even longer but I gave in. After a very long wait it was our turn. I sat Milo on a pony and he tried to get off. A guy came by, strapped him on and shortly the pony began to walk around the circle. The look on Milo’s face was priceless, he was worried and then excited all in the span of about 10 seconds. He had a great time and the experience was a success!

We adventured outside to the corrals so Milo could see some big cows up close and personal. The only animal sound he really makes is a “mmmmmm” sound that is supposed to be a cow. Of course he had his Carhart overalls on and it made for some really cute pictures.