Did Tayla want to go to Cracker Island? No. Did she care for the Halloween Festival? Not since she was a kid, but she has a kid now. Which mean doing shit and going to shit she'd rather be at home during.
Siwan's too young to remember any of this anyway, but she wouldn't be doing her due diligence as a parent if she didn't take her baby to the festival. Her father's coming too. It's been awhile since they all hung out somewhere that wasn't the boat or at home. Didn't help she had that god awful dream last night. It bothered her so much, she called in sick and kept Siwan home from school. She needed to have him close. That dream was too bizarre for her to feel comfortable without him being away from her.
She didn't put any effort into her 'costume.' She painted blue shimmery stars on the left side of her face with her eyeshadow, wore a black baggy sweat suit, That Melody, and called it a day. For Siwan though, she put him in the cutest little
pumpkin costume and took a lot of pictures of him, before they left the house at 2pm. She wanted to get there early. That's when all the baby to toddler activities would be in full swing. Most of which would close by the time it got dark around 5pm.
They arrive at the island on their boat, docking it, then standing in line for tickets. Siwan looked around in her arms in wide eyed wonder at everything around them. He's never been to a festival before. He couldn't speak well enough to ask questions, but he did point at stuff he wanted her to answer.
"That's a pumpkin. Like you. You're dressed like a pumpkin. And that's a Ferris Wheel. I'll take you up when it's dark out, so you can see all the lights." The moment she said that, she decided she wouldn't wait until the sun was down. The water would be pitch black in the darkness and that freaked her out a little bit. The sea at night looked like a void of nothingness. She avoided looking out the windows at home before the sun came up for that very reason. She could deal with it in the early morning, since the sun put in the work to rise while she put in the work to help her father earn money.
"Never mind. We'll go sooner." She wanted to be out of here by sundown. All the adults and teens up to no good come late. She can't have her baby exposed to even the slightest hint of the people she used to hang around. Since he was under 2, Siwan got in free, but her and her father had to pay for their tickets. They got in. Everything was orange, somewhat scary looking, and Halloween festive. It was a Tuesday, not a lot of people arrived yet. Kids were still in school and not many parents were going to take off work to bring their kids early. It was most elderly, people that wanted to be here with plenty of day time to spare, and mothers with their toddlers here.
They took Siwan to the baby section. It had a petting zoo, coloring table, Halloween play, Halloween story time that started at 3, games meant for his age group. It was all very cute and wholesome. [color=DE198A]"Pig!" he squealed, pointing at the piglet in the petting zoo. She took him to the hand sanitizer and rubbed it into his hands, before taking a cup of animal feed and giving him a little bit to give to the piglet.
"It's 돼지. Can you say 돼지?" she asked him, holding it his hand out. The piglet ate right from his hand. The slimy texture made him squeal some more. He pulled his hand back, trying to decide if he like it or not.
"대지!" he attempted to repeat.
"You're not wrong, but you just skipped the W altogether." She laughed and kissed his cheek, getting some of her red lipstick on him.
"We'll work on it." She wiped it off, then gave him more feed to give to the other animals, picking him up to reach the taller ones like the baby cow and llama.
They feed the animals, until he ran out of feed in the cup. She took him to a port-a-potty to wash his hands and made it back just in time for story time. Her father decided he wanted to do that activity with him, so she let them find their seats. She sat on a bench a few feet away and put That Melody on. She needed to get in some practice and what better way to do it, then in a decently crowded area.
A myriad of thoughts assaulted her at once. She got her bearings and concentrated on a group of old people across the way ordering funnel cake. It was all flitting thoughts of the food being too expensive. Someone's wife used to love this (she died 2 years ago). Another wished their grandkids were here (they lived too far). It was all boring. She focused on family getting apple cider. The dad was having fun, but his wife was tired. Their kids hated the cider, but drank it anyway. Mom would get mad if they wasted money. More boring. She hopped from group to group, purposely avoiding the story time area. She didn't want to zero in on her family's thoughts. Story time went on for an hour. She stopped training in thirty. It was going to take some stamina to get used to taking in thoughts and filtering through the bullshit. She can't let the Dollhouse down. Not with the deal to keep Dean the hell away from her.