Babies and ACL

This past weekend was the 3 day ACL Music Festival.  We bought tickets last year and fully anticipated taking Calvin with us for the entire thing.  Babies are portable, right?  Oh what naive parents-to-be we were.

Babies are portable, to a point.  But Calvin's happiness and well-being, or more specifically how that would affect OUR happiness and well-being, started to weigh on my mind as the weekend approached.  Friends with a slightly younger child quickly found out on Friday afternoon that a music festival was not to their baby's liking at all.

My plan was to take Calvin with me all day on Friday.  I love being at the fest during the day and as the evening comes and the crowds increase for the headliners (who I am often not that interested in) I get out of dodge, so Friday would be an early day for me.  Unfortunately, I did want to see the last bands on Saturday and Sunday and thought Calvin would benefit from a normal bedtime.  I lined up a baby sitter and picked the most convenient time to get him home/picked up.    All in all not a bad plan, except...

Calvin got a stomach virus on Thursday night.

And he proceeded to pass versions of his illness along to Chris and me.  With all the being puked and pooped on it was inevitable.

I spent a very frustrated Friday afternoon at home with a sick baby.  There was too much going on in the diaper area to brave an all day outing and he was at risk for dehydration which wouldn't be helped by a day in the heat and humidity.  We did make it for a couple of hours in the evening and Calvin made friends and enjoyed exploring the bottom of the stroller.

Saturday I had the sitter come in the afternoon so I could be sick and Chris could go have some fun - until his symptoms appeared anyway.  Sunday pretty much went as planned, but with everyone feeling a little less than their best.  I've never seen Calvin drink so much water.

The end result is that we learned a few lessons on how to survive an event with baby (toddler?) in tow; we survived our first tumultuous tummy; we have very few pictures to commemorate our success.

More visitors

Calvin and Pop

Miss Martha and Pop came to visit as few weeks ago - right around Calvin's 10 month birthday.  I've been so busy I missed posting about it.

Pop spent much of the weekend on the floor with Calvin or carrying him around.  On Saturday we took Calvin to the Children's Museum so we could all watch him play.

Calvin had a great time and the rest of us had about as much fun as you can have at the Children's Museum.

On Sunday we took an extra long car trip to eat BBQ.  None for Calvin, but he did get this spoon.

As you can see he was very excited about it.

Then we pilgrimaged even further south to the house of beaver.  Chris has an unnatural desire to show this place to people from out of town.

we have a new Buc-ee's fan

If you don't know, Buc-ee's is basically a travel plaza that is off limits to truckers.  They have the normal stuff: gas, ice, meat snacks

and the not so normal stuff: a deli full of many different types of jerky, extremely clean bathrooms, a souvenir penny machine, and gift shop  You can buy everything from buc-ee coozies to cast iron skillets.  Martha got a lovely handmade tile.

We both have a soft spot with this convenience store, but probably because we were stuck down the road from one, camping at a state park on a rainy weekend.  We went to Buc-ee's no less than 3 times in those 2 days.  I am less inclined to take visitors there.  I would like them to come back some day.

Pumpkin Patch

October has arrived and with it came some great fall weather.  Not one to waste a cool weekend, we packed Calvin and his accessories into the car and journeyed an hour to Marble Falls and Sweet Berry Farm for some pumptastic fun.

obligatory cute pumpkin photo

We honestly drove all that way just so I could take this picture - and 50 others just like it.  But there was so much more.  Obviously most of the activities were not appropriate for Calvin, but he enjoyed feeding the goats.

He cried when it was time to move on.  But then we found this guy, who got a little too friendly with Calvin for my taste.  Calvin didn't mind.

and to my delight, they were offering u-pick flowers.  I picked them, Calvin ate them...

                   
and Chris carried them.

We ended the day with a barrel train ride for Calvin and pumpkin ice cream for Chris and me (and a little for Calvin too)

It was a lot of fun and I'm already looking forward to next year when Calvin can run around the candy corn maze.

10 months!

10 months have come and gone quicker than I could capture them.

Look at that big boy sitting there!

New tricks:

• Waving - he just did this for the first time on Friday.  I am so excited.
• Walking - We bought him a walking toy.  It's a little truck that carries blocks.  He took his first tentative steps behind it last week and he does it every day with the truck at home and pushing a table toy around at daycare.  The look of joy and pride on his  face as he moves across the room is too much.

oh no!  he has the hang of it now.

• Peek-a-boo - he played this game last month, but his understanding of it has grown.  He will now instigate the game by ducking below or behind and object and then popping back out.  

Likes:

• his carrot.  When he starts crying, a freshly prepared carrot will usually make him stop.  He drops other teethers within minutes, but he will have that carrot in his sweaty little fist an hour later.

More from the 10 month photo shoot

these little checked shoes kill me