My 3 year old is learning about FARMS at school.

So the other day, the whole class went for an excursion to visit a real life working farm, called Landsdale Farm School, run by the Department of Education and Training.

It is seriously an awesome place to take kids. There are so many farm animals, gardens, play areas, picnic areas, a sun safe playground, and a café that does decent food.

But the catch was, parents HAD to attend. Which I guess is fair enough, because there were only 4 teachers and 30+ kids.

The truth was… I had already taken my older 2 children to this farm years ago. I had already seen the sheep show, fed the goats, gawked at the pigs, chased the chickens, had the tractor ride, and a donkey ride, ate at the café.

And the thought of spending 5 hours there – during the day – made me sigh inwardly with irritation and reluctance. Haha I’m such a bad mum.

But it was my 3 year old’s first time at a farm. He’s a bit of a clean freak and he doesn’t like to go to new places, so I knew the experience of new sights and activities…would be good for him.

So I sucked it up and was ENTHUSIASTIC AS CAN BE!!

But perhaps he saw my façade.

Because on the day, my 3 year old was SO GRUMPY about the whole thing.

For me, I (surprisingly) enjoyed myself. It was really nice to revisit the farm, and to see how the whole set up had been designed for children and education. Fascinating stuff.

But Liam didn’t like the cows, or sheep, or goats, or pigs, or turkeys, or the tractor rides, or the farmer’s scones.

He didn’t like how the chickens ran around loose and wild. Or how the baby goats followed us around. He didn’t like the gnomes. Or the walking between animal pens.

He just clung onto my legs for most of the time, grizzling and grumbling and saying things like, “I just want to go home and play with my Lego.”

“I really want to go home and eat noodles.”

“Are there any puzzles here? Can I watch TV or something?”

Ergh, I was so irritated at him.

In fact, he only cheered up when he found NUMBERS to look at!

So we walked around pointing at signs with letters and numbers, of which there were few.

(Oh he thought the bunnies were cute, and enjoyed feeding them stalks of grass.)

Anyway, that’s life with kids. Good intentions quashed. You feel like you put so much effort into things and it ends up being spat on the floor and stomped on. Eh.

To end on a lighter note, I just want to share this painting that Liam did during class time activities.

Pink. Blue. And total randomness!

Hilarious!!