Archive for October, 2009
We started out the day with a huge error in judgement. We went to Zoo Boo. On Halloween. Let’s just say it was not a good idea for one such as me who hates, loathes, and despises crowds.
We waited in line FOREVER just to get in. While we were waiting the lady in line behind me decided that she simply must talk to me the entire time – except it was mostly whines, complaints, and grouches about anything and everything. She was also the most ill-prepared mom that I’d ever seen. I ended up kleenex-ing, band aid-ing, and medicating her children while she was absolutely agog over the fact that I had all of that stuff in my purse despite the fact that (and I quote) “she’d been a mom for ages and I’d only been at it for a couple of years.”
Thankfully Ava was mostly okay with the wait.
Costume #4 of 4.
So, once the zoo people realized they had a near mob on their hands with the growing crowds, 80 degree weather, and only 4 ticket booths open, they opened up some cash only entrances. I totally walked out on her mid-conversation, left John and Ava standing, and ran(ish) to the front of the line. Since I never, ever run this should give you some idea of how desperate I was to get away from the incessant chatter.
We finally got in and Ava (really, J) wanted to ride the train right away. We forked over more dollars only to ride the cheesiest train ride, the ZooBoo ChooChoo, ever. Really it was. There were all sorts of bad decorations, Disney characters gone wrong, cowboy shootouts, and zombies dancing to Thriller (over and over and over again). It was really, really bad and I loved it. I can’t tell you the last time I laughed that hard.
There was also an Alice in Wonderland that I’m pretty sure was a guy, the ugliest Prince Charming I’ve ever seen, and the princess in the above picture was clearly past her prime by about 30 years.
After the train ride we got in some trick or treating. The zoo was very proud that the candy and treats they were distributing was 85% palm oil free and many were organic – which meant that they were pretty much crap unless you liked granola and suckers.
Except there was cheese. And there was a line…for cheese. I think this shows pretty clearly that the candy sucked.
I tried very hard to get a picture of her with the witch hat on but it was pretty much a no go. I bribed her with one of the million lollipops we had and got one shot of the hat. It was on backward, but whatever.
We closed the place down (okay, it closed at 3PM) and Ava power napped on the way home. Wish I could have. I think I needed it worse than she did. The day had taken a toll on me (I think it was the lady in line) and a migraine had kicked in full force by then so we cancelled our plans for more trick or treating with my best friend and my goddaughter. Thank goodness they were understanding about it – although I hated to do it since we don’t see them often enough as is.
Except Ava wasn’t having it. She could see the kids outside and she knew that someting was going on and she was missing it – so I uber-medicated and off we went to just a few of our neighbors’ houses.
Back to costume #2:
Remember – it was 80 degrees during the day so the butterfly costume (velour) was too hot while the witch costume (short sleeves) was too cold. The kitty cat costume was just right and she even consented to wear the ears – for a little while, anyway.
She got the hang of the trick-or-treating thing pretty quickly and my normally shy little girl disappeared when she realized there was good candy (like chocolate) involved. She even shouted (at the tip-top of her lungs) at one guy who didn’t see her coming up the stairs and started to close the door. “Look at meeeeee. Trick or treeeeeet,” she screeched.
She got lots o’ loot.
And snuck in a few (hundred) bites while she thought we weren’t looking.
By the way, I think this is what a sugar high looks like.
She tired out after only a few houses and since Mama was not feeling well at all we headed home so Daddy and Ava could hand out candy for the rest of the night. Ava got so excited with all of the kids coming to the door that, oops, there was a teeny potty incident and she ended up back in costume #3 – the butterfly. Fortunately it had cooled down enough by then that she could wear it so she finished up the night showing her wings to everyone. Sam saw the writing on the wall and headed for his kennel – no more bee wear for him, thankyouverymuch.
After inspecting her booty and confiscating what J and I wanted…
we decided to let her eat all the candy her little heart desired that night. She was flummoxed. Had absolutely no idea where to begin so she unwrapped nearly everything and took one bite out of each which actually ended up being a pretty good method to get rid of most of the candy in one go.
Clearly we should have had a costume #5 and dressed her as a squirrel. Just look at how full those cheeks are.
Ava’s daycare has a Fall Festival for all the children and, of course, all the parents are not only invited but also asked to participate. They do these parent-kid interactive activities in some form or another at least once a month, however I’m convinced it’s mainly an excuse for the parents to take their kids home early. Because, really, who is going to go for half an hour at 3:30PM and then leave their kid there?
I typically don’t go to any of these. J usually represents for our family, in part because he is already off work about that time but also because if I’m around Ava wants to hang with me and refuses to venture more than 2 feet from my side. That makes it kind of hard for her to do certain toddler oriented activities.
But because no one else in her room volunteered to help with the Fall Festival, J and I both got roped in to this one. And honestly, I also went because I wanted to see Ava and all of her friends in their costumes. Come on, they’re two. The cuteness was overwhelming.
So J and I show up in costume. And yes, we were the only parents to do so. Score one for us. I was dressed as a 4-star general (inside joke at work) and J was a non-scary vampire-y count sort of creature.
Ava was a leopard-y sort of cat for costume #2 of 4. It was sort of a leotard thing with a tulle skirt and she was getting dressed when we got there. Of course as soon as she got said leotard on nature called and we had to do the whole thing in reverse, followed by hand washing, which makes her absolutely giddy (SOAP! WATER!).
Except this was about the happiest she was for the rest of our time there.
The concept of the festival is that the kids played a different game in every room and then got to trick or treat from the daycare workers. After all the games were done they did a parade down the little strip mall adjacent to her daycare, trick-or-treating from the merchants while showing off their costumes.
Remember I said Ava wouldn’t go more than 2 feet away from me? Yeah, make that about 6 inches. If I attempted to pry her from my arms then there was much screaming and a downright refusal to participate. Note that she is not visible in either of the following two photos:
That’s because she was glued to me. I tried to put her down. Really I did. I tried to encourage her to play with the others. I even tried to bribe her with candy.
Nope.
Not only did we have crying every single time her feet touched the ground we also had an out and out meltdown. It was the worst we’ve ever had in public and all precipitated by me trying to coax her into actually having fun. Suffice it to say that it was a teeny bit embarrassing but thankfully all the other parents around us were also raising two year olds so I figured it wasn’t anything they hadn’t seen or experienced already themselves.
She did finally trick or treat one daycare worker who had stickers and hopped down out of my arms just in time for the costume parade by the shops…only to scare the hell out of me when she broke and ran for the parking lot. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been that frightened because she took off in the blink of an eye and was gone before I could grab her. I’m still a little miffed that not one other parent reached out and blocked her on the way into traffic but I darted out and caught her (in boots with heels, no less) before she made it too far. I gotta tell you though, after a great big bear hug of relief that she hadn’t been squished by a car, that little girl got plunked right down on the curb and got a very stern talking to in front of everyone.
We (thankfully) wrapped it up shortly thereafter and headed home for dinner and her monthly birthday (just a little late this month) photo shoot.
Costume #3 was put into use at her request. This time she was a butterfly.
Accompanying her was her friend ~ Sam the Bumblebee.
Which she (and we) thought was hilarious.
Sam? Not so much. But he came around…eventually. Or at least he became resigned to the indignity of owners who dress their dogs and kid up as insects for fun.
Ava, ummmm, I mean he got a new toddler bike seat.
Despite immediate appearances to the contrary, it really was a gift for him. He’d long been bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t take the Chariot trailer on some of the local (easier) mountain biking trails – especially after it storms and gets muddy-ish – so I did some research and found one that works with the disc brakes on his bike. It’s also safe enough (with roll bar and all) for me to be comfortable with her riding in it as long as Daddy stays off of the Class 4 trails and attempts no fancy stuff like pedaling straight down the side of a mountain…which he’s been known to do every now and again.
He did give me ‘that’ look when I gave it to him. But ‘that’ look went away once he hooked it up, got her strapped in and helmeted up, and they took it for a test spin.
As she screamed “More, Daddy. More!” every time he tried to stop I think he realized that what I just gave him was not only another way to confine the child (yay!) but also another way that he could spend more quality time with his daughter sharing something with her that he loves to do.
I mean really, just look at the way she’s looking at him. There’s no way to put a dollar figure on that.
Score:
Build-A-Be.ar – 1
Parents – 0
On our way back after a quick weekend at the parents’ place we decided to stop for a bite to eat. Mama spied a Pottery Barn store in the distance so convinced Daddy to cruise on over for a quick walk-thru, ostensibly to take an in-person peek at a bench she’s been eyeballing for some time. Sadly, however, said bench is only sold online (really didn’t know that at the time) so Mama then convinced Daddy that a quick walk throughout the mall would be an okay idea – you know, stretching the legs and all that after a long car ride.
It’s important to remind you that one of Ava’s favorite books of all time is Eric Carle’s “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.” She loves it so much that for my sanity it’s had to be hidden retired for a little while, however that hasn’t stopped her from picking up any old book and ‘reading’ it by reciting the memorized lines from “Brown Bear.”
As we were walking through the mall I hear her reciting these lines:
“Purple Cat, Purple Cat,
What Do You See”
with her own ad-lib thrown in
“I see YOU,
Looking At Me”
All this said as she’s dragging her feet and looking over her shoulder.
Yeah. We bought it.
Pretty much on the spot.
The making of PK was all kinds of cute though. She actually participated in the building of it by stepping on the pedal to stuff it and by kissing the heart (twice) before it went in to her new kitty. She flirted a bit with the associate who helped her (he was wonderful with her) and has hardly let go of purple kitty (yeah, that’s what she named it) since. She (it’s clearly a girl – it has a bow on her tail) is now a permanent fixture in the crib menagerie.
So yes, B-A-B wins once again. Come on, look at that face. We never had a chance.
Ava did get a visit to a pumpkin patch this year. It went moderately well – despite a couple of supremely stupid comments made by a group of college girls (“Ohhhhhhhh, I want me one of those Chinese babies. They’re so cute and smaaarrrrrtttttt, too.”) and Ava’s decision to act like a total and complete brat since my niece was there with us and Ava thought she could pull off some behaviors with her that we don’t allow. Because of the attitude we did end up cutting the day short, which in the end wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Ultimately the mission was successful in that we came away with a pumpkin, albeit one that cost 3x what we would have paid at a grocery store simply because we got to carry it in from a faux pumpkin field where they’d chucked out about a thousand or so pumpkins they probably bought from the grocery store themselves.
No matter. She was cute and we got plenty o’ the obligatory pumpkin shots.
We asked her to pick one out and she (naturally) went for the biggest one she could find. She tried to carry it to J but got creative and rolled it to him instead. Smart girl.
She most adamantly did not want to go on the hayride (“No mow, Mama”) but we forced her onto talked her into her first pony ride. I always feel guilty about the pony rides where the little ponies just walk ’round in a circle but the desire to see Ava ride her first horse overcame my moral objections so we paid our $5 and off she went.
It didn’t start well.
Note the lean into J:
There was also much whining and a few iffy moments where we weren’t sure if this was going to happen.
He managed to talk her down by promising to hold on to her at all times…
but, pshaw, the next thing we knew she was pushing J’s hands away and was all “Gidda up, horsey” and riding like she was born to the saddle.
By the way, getting her off the pony was a whole lot harder (and louder) than getting her on it. She did not want this particular carousel ride to end and did (loudly and screamily) protest having to say bye-bye to her new friend.
We convinced her to move on to the big pumpkin patch – and by convinced I mean J carried her, kicking and screaming, under one arm. She was soon (thankfully) distracted by the hayride once again, slipping into her homecoming queen mode and waving serenely as the tractor puttered past.
Of course, once we made it to the big patch she was all like, “What the heck…”
OMG. Too many. What to do?????
Well, she chose a pumpkin, of course – only to pick it up, drop it and break it – which engendered a few more tears. J quickly substituted another and we finished up just in time for more attitude and drama when we a) walked past the pony b) looked at her funny c) wouldn’t let her run amok in the crowds and d) oh, pretty much anything we did.
After she decided to lay down on the ground and refuse to move we knew it was time to go.
Another kicking and whiny football carry ensued and the day was done.
(Believe it or not, a good time was still had by all.)