Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we headed down the street to the KC Pumpkin Patch. It's pretty late in the year to pick out a good pumpkin as they were pretty well picked over, but I don't think Jo really felt like stumbling around a pumpkin patch while 9 months pregnant (I don't know what the problem with that is). Anyway...

...Devon wasn't really aware of anything that went on. I don't think he even opened his eyes the entire time we were there. But, Jake had a blast.

We took a hayride out to the depleted pumpkin field and spent most of the time trying to get Jake to stop picking at, poking and stepping on the rotted, decaying pumpkins. Until he found a decent small one for himself and an even smaller one for Devon.

He had a blast playing on the slides, playground equipment, walking through the hay bale maze (which wasn't much of a challenge since daddy could see over the tops of the hay bales and see our way out), and going through the haunted barn with mommy.

It was an easy, inexpensive way to exhaust him so we could get some rest later in the afternoon, and he had a great time doing it.

Pirate Speak

Jake has been really into this one particular series of books lately about a boy named Jeremy Jacob. One of them is entitled "How I Became I Pirate"..

A week or so ago, Jo and I were working on dinner, and Jake was running around the house from here to there, playing. I don't remember exactly what he was doing at the time, but I do remember I had to interrupt my conversation with Jo to tell him to stop doing something. Here's how the brief, one-sided conversation went:

Daddy: "Jake, stop it."

Jake: *ignoring me*

Daddy: "Jake...STOP it."

Jake: *continues to ignore me*

Daddy: "JAKE! STOP!!"

Jake: *still not paying attention to me*

Daddy: "JAKE!!!"

Jake: "OKAY...okay........shiver me timbers."

How am I supposed to repond to that? How do I exert my 'parental authority' in situations like this when I have to turn around to laugh without him seeing me?

Shiver me timbers.

Trickeration.

Anyone who knows Jake knows how much he loves Lightning McQueen. I guess you don't really even need to know him. Heck, there are Wal-Mart cashiers out there that know how much he loves his Cars. We generally carry one most everywhere we go. And he's all too eager to ramble on if you'll lend an ear...

Now, sometimes it seems like he has about 800 Lightning McQueen cars....there's Lightning McQueen, Tongue McQueen, Dirt Track McQueen, Bug-Mouth McQueen, Radiator Springs McQueen, Cruisin' McQueen, Cactus McQueen, Bling-Bling McQueen, Dinoco McQueen (the last two however, are easily distinguishable by their bright blue paint). These are their "official" names.

He has so many McQueens (and some duplicates) that he's even given them custom names--names that are easy for him to keep track of: Old McQueen, or New McQueen (which isn't even the newest of the new regular Lightning McQueens). Are you completely lost now?

Tonight Jo went to check on him and give him a kiss before she went to bed and he was still wide awake. And he wanted "McQueen". He didn't remember where he was...which meant I had to search. I couldn't find the one I knew he wanted, so I grabbed the closest match. It was still regular Lightning McQueen--just not the one he wanted.

He was sitting on Jo's lap while she rocked him. It was dark and I handed him "Imposter" McQueen. He looked at it closely, then looked at me and said "Thanks, Dad!". I thought I'd pulled it off. I smiled and kissed him goodnight...

He sat on Jo's lap while she rocked him, and in the dark he was feeling McQueen with his fingertips -- FEELING FOR SCRATCHES that he knew should be there!

He was on to me.

Once he got down off Jo's lap, he went over and held McQueen up to the tiny night light and examined the car more closely. He then promptly threw McQueen on the floor and exclaimed "That's NOT New McQueen!"

Busted. I knew better than to try and trick him.

So he and I headed downstairs to find the real McQueen....he proclaimed "Padre knows where he is." But, Padre wasn't telling. We quickly found the right McQueen though. Crisis averted.

Summer's End

Well, today was our last official weekend day of Summer. Kind of depressing. I always hate it when summer's over; cold weather, ice and snow are just around the corner...

Jake and I went to "Red Park" today. It's actually Meadowbrook Park, but all of the parks in Gardner are sort of color-coded. The equipment at each park has a basic color. The other park we go to most of the time is "Green Park", which is where we held his birthday party.

We played at Red Park for a while until a birthday party with a group of raucous kids were on the brink of storming the playground. So, we headed to Green Park for a little while. I brought a little "picnic" lunch for Jake (pb&j, Cheez-Its, Capri Sun). Once he was done eating, we played for about 30 more minutes before finally heading home for a nice 3-hour nap (Jake, not me).

Great weather, great day....very soon it will be much harder to get out on days like this with litle Devon in tow.

314

This is room 314 at St. Luke's South. The very room that my first child was born. This picture was taken moments before we left the room to take Jake home for the first time....July 22, 2005. I saw that room again today for the first time in three years. Jo, Jake and I went to the hospital for our meeting with the Maternity Coordinator. We basically went over general information, signed some forms, yada, yada, yada....so we don't have to do all of it in the middle of labor next month.

It was extremely surreal to see that room again today. It brought back an overwhelming amount of memories and emotions. The last time we were in there, we carried out this tiny bundle of joy...

Today, I was chasing around a borderline hyperactive 3-year-old who wanted to do nothing but play with a Buzz Lightyear toy he found in the Coordinator's office (and eat a random Cheerio he found stuffed in the couch cushions)...all the while climbing in, on, over, and around every piece of furniture in her office. Then, we had to deal with the meltdown when we had to remove Buzz from Jake's sticky little fingers because Buzz had to stay behind.

I tried explaining to Jake the significance of that room as we walked down the hall after our meeting. I don't think he grasped what it was all about....with tears streaming down his cheeks, he was a little more concerned about having to abandon Buzz.

As stressful as Jake can be sometimes, it's all worth it....and then some. I cannot wait to see Devon for the first time. Hopefully, if Room 314 is available when we go into labor, we can welcome Devon into the world in the same little room that his big brother was born in.