It's the Great Pumpkin, Greyden!

In preparation for my trip to China last week (which will be the topic of an upcoming post), I did what any Rock Star employee would do. No, I didn't work overtime to get things tied up before leaving. I took a day off. Okay, maybe I should have said that I did what any first-time mom would do before leaving her baby boy for an entire week. Two days before I was scheduled to leave, Kevin and I packed up Junior and headed out for a day at the pumpkin patch.

So "Great Pumpkin" might be too strong of phrase for the title of this post. Apparently pumpkin patch in Texas = pumpkins trucked in and dumped in a pile, complete with bar codes. So maybe "It's the Great Store-Bought Pumpkin, Greyden!" may be more applicable here. (Come to think of it, we didn't even come home with a pumpkin. How did that happen?) The "pumpkin patch" we found is about 15 miles from our house and is called Oil Ranch. Note to self: Any place that advertises itself as "Houston's largest ranch for corporate events, picnics, school field trips, and groups" is probably not the most authentic pumpkin patch we could have chosen. However it was the only one I could find so we made do with what we had to work with. 

In addition to the pile o' pumpkins in the middle of the lawn dirt, the ranch housed a petting zoo, some livestock, a train, a hayride, some playground equipment, and other random things. Like a tee pee in the middle of nowhere. Kevin and I both had to laugh at the place. It was very........different from what we used to do with our parents as children. My family vacations or outings involved driving....driving up north, driving up to the UP, driving to the west side of the state, or just driving around the back roads for hours on end. I'd say a good 90% of my childhood was spent riding in a car. According to Kevin, his parents didn't do the commercialized places either, so this was quite an experience for both of us. (I should have known it was not going to be our cup of tea when we had to park next to 98 school buses. Or maybe even earlier than that, when we pulled into the parking lot and Kevin said "SCHOOL BUSES?!?!?!" We probably would have stayed longer had they served beer.) Needless to say, we got to pet some animals, rode the train, snapped a few pictures, and got the hell out of Dodge. But it was fun to spend the day with Greyden and he got to see his first "pumpkin patch". And that's what counts.

Greyden's first encounter with an alien creature.



He liked the baby sheep.



I just liked the look on his face in this one. I really wasn't aiming for the sheep's butt.

After removing the animal feed pellets from Greyden's hands and mouth, we fed them to the sheep. Greyden wasn't happy with us.

Staring contest with the turkey.

He really didn't know what to think of these things. I think they reminded him of our cat Phyllis.

Resigned to being sat on a pumpkin.



He's not quite sure why he's in a wheelbarrow.



 

Pumpkin patch! Please disregard the white bar code stickers on them.

He loves to poke things with his thumb lately. Not sure what that's all about.  

Picking out his pumpkin that we didn't take home with us.

On the train

Trying to figure out how it worked.

Covered bridge

Hair blowing in the wind. He loved it. The kid is an adrenaline junkie.  

Practicing walking over the bridge. If we weren't in a severe drought, there would be water under it.

Random tee pee.

The only other picture of Mommy so I'm adding it.

Cool idea for cable spindles. I don't know why my parents didn't think of this. We only had about a hundred of them around the farm.

I added this picture because I am 12. HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

China Bound

T minus 2 days until the day I have been dreading since it appeared on my calendar 2 months ago. This Sunday, I leave for a week long trip to China. Alone. Well, not completely alone. I'll have my boss with me since it's a trip for work and she knows that if she didn't go, I wouldn't show up for the flight. But I will be alone in the sense that my baby boy will not be with me for only the second time since he was born. The first time was my one-nighter to New Jersey back in August. This one is going to be a five-nighter. FIVE NIGHTS PEOPLE. And if you want to get technical, I'll actually be gone six nights, but with the time change I end up spending one "night" on the plane. And although there's not that much of a difference, five sounds like a lot less time than six so I'm going with it. 

I'm trying really hard to be excited about the trip. I mean, I am excited of course, but at the same time I don't want to leave Greyden for that long. By the time I get back he'll probably walking, talking, and riding a bike. Or even driving a car. (But I can guarantee he won't have all of his teeth yet. God forbid he be done teething by the time I get back.) However, they're called once in a lifetime opportunities for a reason, so I'm sucking it up and going. Little does my boss know, I'll be spending the majority of the trip hanging onto her pant leg and wallowing in my sorrow if she doesn't keep me busy at all times. Therefore we are going to PAR-TAY every night until the cows (pandas?) come home. Get your game face on, Barb.

Practically before my trip was even booked, Kevin had decided that a week straight of caring for Junior on his own was a definite no-go and had his parents booked to come down for the week. (He used the excuse that he might have to travel for work. Riiiiight.) So my in-laws are scheduled to land on Saturday afternoon for their week-long babysitting extravaganza. That alone is enough to make me consider eating the cost of the trip and staying home. A full week of free baby sitting? Like, the kind that means that Kevin and I can actually go out without a baby in tow? Maybe have a conversation? I can't even remember what that's like. What would we even talk about? Last week we went out for dinner and ended up spending the entire time turning Junior back around in his high chair and sitting him down before he fell out. Why the kid insists on being backward in it (or standing in it), I'll never know. We swore right then and there that we were never eating out again.

The trip couldn't have come at a worse time in terms of the mommy stuff I have to do. For one thing, Junior's birthday is the weekend after I get back. And since my usual plan for birthdays (beer at Buffalo Wild Wings) isn't exactly kid-friendly, I had to come up with a Plan B. And then I had to come up a Plan C since Plan B involved me being lazy and doing a family (Kevin+Leah+Greyden) only party since I figured he wouldn't remember it anyway. It was only after my friends revolted and told me that I have to do something for it that Plan C was born. Now preparations are in full swing for Greyden's 1st birthday party! The invitations have been sent and we're on the calendar for October 30th. Well, the Evites have been sent anyway. I'm lazy just trying to do my part to save the planet. (Although the number of trees that I saved by not doing paper invitations may be negated by the fact that I have over $150 in paper and plastic decorations headed my way as we speak. This party is going to rock.) I'm even considering baking his cake myself. I mean, my mom made hundreds of cakes as a side business when I was a kid, so I have a lot of experience. Okay, most of my experience was in licking the beaters, but some of it had to have rubbed off, right? And since I tricked my friends into giving up their Sunday by disguising the party as a birthday/football party for the Texans game, there will even be quite a few guests. Although I just remembered that I forgot to note that Greyden only likes quiet toys on the invite. Which is why he is getting a Pottery Barn Kids Anywhere Chair from Daddy and me, along with something he can climb on. He's getting a little heavy for the bottom shelf of my wine rack....







This is what happens when you (okay, I) turn my back for 10 seconds:

And if he's not scaling either of those, he can probably be found trying to hike our headboard in the master bedroom. Thank God for pillow top mattresses. So yes, he's getting something to climb on. I am also seeing a guitar in his future.

Phyllis would prefer that we got him a new cat to torture.

Or we could just save our money and get him more foam sticks to play with.

We also have his 1 year pictures scheduled for the day before his birthday party. Of course he doesn't fit in anything he currently has so I need to make a shopping trip before I leave. On top of that, I just found out yesterday that he's having school pictures done the week I come back too. And of course we decided to get a family picture done at the same time so Kevin and I are going to need to find clothes too. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing some major jet-lagged shopping when I get back. Fun.

And if we're really feeling motivated, Kevin and I may even find time to celebrate our 7th anniversary that weekend. Although I highly doubt we'll be able to work in a dinner out. But we'll see what happens.

Until then, wish me luck next week! I have a feeling I'm going to need it.

11 Months!

We finally got Greyden's 11 month pictures done! And no, we didn't reuse the ones from last time, although that would have been MUCH easier. Nope, we dragged the him outside, slapped a sticker on his gut, and went to town, which I can assure you he loved. Well, maybe loved is a bit strong of a word. It didn't help that the poor kid was (and still is) sick so he wasn't thrilled with being confined to a blanket. (Although he wouldn't dream of stepping off of it. The kid has an inherent fear of grass.) You'll have to excuse the snotty nose and red eyes. The doctor said it's a sinus infection and early bronchitis. Joy.

We even managed to get a couple of tooth pictures. Barely.



If you look really closely (and click on the picture to make it bigger), you can see one of his bottom teeth. He has two and they're right next to each other, so I have no idea where the other one is in this picture and why you can't see it.



Top tooth picture. That's the only one up there as of right now, and so far there is no sign of the right one. I'm sure we'll just continue to teeth for the next 12 months or so until it finally decides to pop though.

Parenting an 11 month old has brought about a whole host of new challenges. For example, diaper changing is now a test of human endurance . I mean, in theory we should have a distinct advantage in both size and speed. In actual practice, it's much like roping a calf. Once you get him on his changing table, you have approximately 2 - 4 seconds before he begins to arch his back and rolls over. Obviously this isn't enough time to even remove the dirty diaper, let alone wipe, add diaper cream, apply the new diaper, and re-pants him, so the second we set him down, we immediately begin waving distractions in front of his face in hopes of keeping him on his back for as long as possible. So far we've had success with  remote controls, cell phones, unopened bottles of medicine, bottles of lotion, the diaper cream tube, a stuffed Easter hamster (don't ask), the box of wipes, a baby toothbrush, a rattle, and a snot sucker bulb. We basically grab whatever is within reach, including his nail clippers as Kevin realized about halfway through one of the diaper changes last week. (And even then the only reason he realized it is because I happened to walk into the room and ask "Nail clippers? Really?") I've even taking to changing him on the floor so that I can throw my leg over him and pin him down. It's like the kid turns into the Incredible Hulk at diaper changing time. I swear they must have the kids lifting weights at daycare or something.

Sometimes, if you're really, really lucky, he'll "discover" his *ahem* man parts and that will hold his attention long enough to get the diaper changed. I say "discover" because he honestly does this multiple times a day and each time it's like Christmas has come again. He is obviously a boy in every sense of the word. Bath times are especially interesting for him, since now that he's discovered it, he checks for it every 15 seconds or so. I won't say he takes after Daddy, but........