Wow, the weekend is over!
This weekend began our new regimen of two nights in a row on duty with Hannah. Since, she has only needed the ventilator at night our nursing hours has been reduced. Since, I still need to have some day shifts we had to sacrifice some night shifts to accommodate that.
We had a surprise nurse cancellation but went ahead and decided to move forward with our plans. We have lived in the Portland, Oregon area now for over 5 years, and I have never been to the city’s biggest event. This weekend marked beginning of the Portland Rose Festival this year. We decided we were all going to go.
I slathered up both children with sun block and dressed them in cool clothing then packed up the car. We were originally going to try to take the Max (the local light rail train) but decided we needed faster transportation if things with Hannah went south. So we drove down town.
Gabriel was in rare form of asking us if we were there yet twenty different times. Hannah was bright eyed and smiling while she grabbed my arm. She lavished my arm with kisses and hugs all the way there. True to form she fell asleep two minutes before we parked. Gabriel had tried to keep her awake he kept looking back and yelling, "Don’t go to sleep Hannah!"
We found a parking lot near the event for a whopping 7 dollars. Yeah, laugh all you want people from Los Angeles and back East where 16 dollars is the norm for event parking. For Portland 7 dollars is pretty steep.
We made it to the event pretty fast. Hannah did ok with her two-minute nap since she was in a new place. This was officially her first fair experience.
We were greeted at the gate by women in pretty pirate garb who were guarding the privies. (The most important doors in any public function.) We started to walk the booths. We found one selling satellite TV connections. We stopped there because it was the company we were using and went to try to upgrade our PVR. We were informed that our particular company didn’t care if you were an old customer all they cared about was new customers. So we switched providers. While Robert was working on the paperwork, I walked with the kids. Hannah in particular and true to three-year-old behavior doesn’t like to stand still. So I found a tent-exhibiting animals from the rainforest and we went into the warm smelly tent.
Navigating Hannah’s wheelchair through crowded uneven ground was a challenge. I doubt Hannah really saw any animals she was to busy watching all the people. Here and there, the crowd was peppered with little girls in tutus and dance costumes. She tended to focus on those. Gabriel just wanted us to move forward toward the next thing so I was the only one who looked at the animals. Shrug.. The fans in the tent were nice to stand in front of.
From that tent I saw the sponsors tent so we went there and I did my consumer duty and bought some event merchandise. Several pins, a future rose princess T-shirt for Hannah, a pirate’s life is hard T-shirt for Gabriel and a cooking apron for me. Robert met us there. It was almost noon at this point and we realized we should sit down somewhere to feed Hannah and ourselves. We found a shaded tent. The tables and chairs were tightly configured so we were doing a great deal of: "excuse me", "pardon me" and "Can I just move that over slightly". Of course when we got to the table we spotted someone else arrived too. We all decided to share.
Robert went forging for food while Hannah; Gabriel and I made us comfortable. I pulled out Hannah’s g-tube and syringes and our table companion decided to find another table. Oh well. Gabriel walked around to Hannah’s other side and spent time trying to make her laugh. She was still mesmerized by the people around us. We had found the tent right by the dancing exhibit that featured all the dancing troops. As the people waxed and waned so did the bright costumes. It was the easiest time eating out with Hannah I’ve ever had. She never got bored and demanded up.
From there we saw some pirates and colonial maritime officers. One of the officers sang for Hannah. Gabriel got attention because his baseball cap for the day was a Pirate of the Caribbean one. Gabriel was cute and hid his hat from the officers.
We then headed to the area Gabriel was interested in the most the midway full of rides. LOL it has been awhile since I’ve been to a fair. The last time I went there were physical tickets to exchange for rides. Now they give you plastic cards with the ticket amount linked to the number. So the operators just scan the card to take your tickets. Wow, how high-tech and less cumbersome!
--Mom
