Catching Up...

All right; lest you think I've gone all "crazy cat lady" on you and you assume that I'm at home, sitting shiva for the felines, I suppose I should actually post something. It has been a tough week, and I appreciate all of your kind words and condolences about the kitties. It really is odd and empty-feeling to sit on my couch at night and not have a soft furry ball at my feet, purring and adoring. But I'm muddling through, usually with just one good cry a day, normally when I realize it's 9pm and my feet are cold, when they would otherwise be warmed by the aforementioned purring ball o' love.

But, such is life, and we move on.

So this weekend, after 90+ temperatures and not a drop of rain for 90+ days, we were graced with a day of full-on overcast and drizzle and temperatures that didn't get out of the 60's all day. I was tempted to strip down to my underwear (unpleasant) and go lie out in the front yard to bask in the chilly drizzly goodness of it all; seriously, my entire being is so parched from living on the surface of the sun for the past three months that nothing sounded more appealing to me than communing with the east-coast-esque weather for just a little bit.

Instead, though, we decided to get into the spirit of the fall weather, knowing it would be fleeting (it was 104 degrees today), and we dressed Ethan in long sleeves for the first time in eleventy billion years and probably the only time we'll be able to until December, and headed to the pumpkin festival.

Let me just pause here for a minute to say: OMFG, Panera people!!! I ordered an Orchard Harvest salad 30 minutes ago and have had to go up and inquire about it TWICE!!! One time I was given something else with mandarin oranges and walnuts in it--NOT what I want. Get it right! I'm HUNGRY! I'm sure someone else in this vibrating restaurant is currently dining on my order (or 1/2 way through digesting it given how long it's been since I freaking paid for it!), but I am still sitting here by the soda machines with a rumbling tummy!! FEED ME!

Okay--I can focus again having gotten that out. I have been promised my salad for a 3rd time. We will see if it arrives. If not, I will be eating the heart of the fool behind the counter because I am just that hungry and annoyed.

So, back to the pumpkin festival. We took Ethan in the drizzly rain (have I mentioned how happy I was about the drizzly rain? hmmmm??) and let him have at it. Honestly, the place should have been called the "big giant bounce house and scary-ass choo-choo" festival, because that's really all Ethan cared about.

The choo-choo was our first order of business after making our way through the farmer's stand type country store. Ethan loves him a choo-choo so as soon as we saw it, we imagined we'd be stuck there for a good portion of the rest of our natural lives, handing over activity tickets to the carney conductor. Fortunately for us, and less so for Ethan, the train was more along the lines of a thrill ride in that it whipped around the tiny track at what must have seemed to Ethan like break-neck speeds. Our Sunday morning choo-choo at the farmer's market is a bit of a lolly-gagger (I'm thinking hung-over carney-induced sluggishness), so this one was a shock to Ethan's system. The first couple of times around he put on a brave face, but after the fourth or fifth time around, there were tears. And screaming. So we bid farewell to the train, and what we figured would be any chance of Ethan getting on any other ride for the rest of the day, and headed over to the bounce house

(Panera update: The correct salad has arrived, and with a complimentary cookie to boot. That could either be a really sweet "we effed up; let us make it up to you" gesture, OR the woman can sense that I was threatening to eat her heart and she gave me the cookie on the off chance that I have a deadly peanut allergy. Either way, yummy salad. yummy cookie. All is well. Except that I keep dropping field greens all over myself like I've never eaten with a fork before. I'm super charming.)

The bounce house was a success once I hauled my adult-sized self through the child-sized entrance. It was AWESOME for my confidence and ego when I asked the two slack-jawed teenaged girls if I could get into the bounce house with Ethan. They thought I meant to actually jump and they looked at each other like, "um. she'll like totally like bust that thing like to pieces if we actually like let her in there." That felt good, that glance between them, I can tell you that. When I clarified that I simply intended to crawl in to show Ethan that it was safe and that then I'd just sit on the "floor" while all 21lbs of my child did the actual bouncing, you could hear whatever air was left in their heads woooooshing out in relief.

So bounce house it was. Sure, he ran through the rows of pumpkins after we begged him to and he got on the carousel after several "are you sure you don't want to get on the carousel???"'s (nothing like mandatory fun!), but the bounce house was where it was at. And considering the nap he took afterwards, we're seriously contemplating getting a bounce house for the back yard.

No tears yet, but see how he's hanging on for dear life...

Aaaaand, there they are; the tears of complete and abject terror. "Why did my parents put me on this and why are they taking pictures of me in my agony??!! I am so filing for parental emancipation when I get off this damn thing! Mommy!!"

Attempting to ease the post-choo-choo nausea...

Promising never to make him ride on the scary-ass choo-choo ever again and begging forgiveness for being such a bad mommy (clearly he's not convinced)....

Behold, five minutes later, the return of jovial Ethan, courtesy of the bounce house!

You've heard of James and the Giant Peach, no? Meet Ethan and the giant tractor wheel...

...and Ethan and giant bales of hay....

...and Ethan avoiding the giant pumpkin...

Awkward self-portrait: can you tell we've not had any pictures of ourselves taken in, oh, about 2.5 year? (And yes, I realize there's a joke in here somewhere along the lines of "the giant nose", but I'm too tired to go fishing for it, so add it at will.)

Ethan's new "I will go about my life and let you snap all the pictures you want, crazy lady; but I will NOT look at you!! You can't make me". Sadly, he is correct.

More of the "this pumpkin stalk is wayyyyy more interesting than your camera lens, woman."