jack o'lantern

somehow we've gotten to the end of october already!  it seems like time is just flying by and we're entering the busiest season of the year.  soon we'll be trick or treating, having daxton's birthday, recovering from his eye surgery, celebrating thanksgiving, and having a merry Christmas!

last night we carved a simple little pumpkin so that we'd have one on our porch this friday.  i had grandiose plans of carving a buzz lightyear pumpkin and even pinned several ideas, but as the time has gotten closer and the nights have gotten shorter we're just running out of time.  so, we pulled out the garbage bag, a giant spoon, a knife, a marker, and selected a pumpkin from the porch.  we thought dax was going to LOVE playing in the pumpkin guts but he ended up having a pretty big meltdown with a lot of "no punki, no, no carv, no gut, no!"  so, will and i just ended up doing the work to get something primitive accomplished so we could get a candle in its belly.  i ended up with a toothpick through my finger and screamed for a medic (just like you see on chopped) after we punched the pumpkin's eye ball out and needed to perform surgery on the jack o'lantern to get his eye reinstalled - but i survived and dax thought it was pretty interesting/entertaining.  

 

once we got the guts out and mr. pumpkin was all carved up dax thought he was a lot better looking.  he put his "hat" on and then wanted to smile and talk with him.

dax helped daddy put the pumpkin on the porch and told him bye bye until he could see him again in the morning.  he was not as excited as we'd hoped, but we anticipate that trick or treating will be a more successful activity on friday once he finds out he's going to be a certain special disney character.

on a sort of related note we have a ps -

several weeks ago we took dax to our favorite pumpkin patch and he had a blast of a time playing in the hay, riding a choo choo train, taking a hay ride, searching for pumpkins, and jumping around.  we always love our special day at the pumpkin patch since it's where will and i spent so many trips to various pumpkin patches longing to be parents.  (previous posts)  we always love sharing this trip with our sweet boy.

here are our favorite pics from that trip.

 

dax picked our pumpkins.  he loved the green ones, which we let him bring home - but unfortunately they all rotted before the main event so we had to buy some replacements from the grocery store.

bye bye "pie!"

it's official.  the passie is no more.  (in our house it was always dubbed the "pie" and i cannot say pie will be no more because then i might actually banish real pie and that would be terrible.  so here, i'll just refer to it as passie, so then everyone knows what we're really talking about.)

dax has been infatuated with the passie since he was a wee little baby.  it wasn't until he was about a year old that i really started to see that it may later become a problem, but at that time i thought well - he's a little guy its no big deal.  so, at about 18 months we made sure he only had it at home, then at two years we made sure he only had it in his bed or in the car, and then recently it was only in bed.  we'd tried a couple of times in between to just take it away all together and were met with full on revolt of this crazy notion.  so, as weak parents we caved within half an hour each time and just said at the next milestone we'd pull up our big parent pants and take it away.  never happened.

fast forward to last week.  it was long about tuesday that the passie got a slit in it from dax chewing on it.  he and i talked about how it was breaking and when it broke we'd have to get rid of it because it would no longer be safe.  we talked about how he did not really need it anymore because he was a big boy and that passies were for babies.  he seemed to be listening and so we thought we might be on to something.  on wednesday night at bed time we told him that we would take him to the disney store and let him pick out a toy in exchange for the passie.  he agreed that was a good idea, but went right back to hard workin' that passie.  i talked about it with him again on thursday and built up the excitement for what was about to happen and did a walk through demonstration of him giving me the passie and me giving him a toy.  he just wanted the passie back, but he was hearing what i was saying.  then, friday came.

on friday i was over the top about how great it was going to be to trade in the passie for the new toy.  he was getting pretty excited.  when daddy got home from work we put the passie in a zip lock bag and all piled in the car towards the store.  when we got there we talked again in the parking garage about what we were going to do inside the mall.  he really seemed okay with the concept.

forgive my quality as i came from the phone.

he grabbed the bag, inspected it, and was ready to run into the mall.  we followed him and guided him down the elevator and off to the disney store.  he loves the store because it has a motion display, a movie screen, and of course a million characters with gobs of paraphernalia.  he quickly ran to the buzz light year display and squatted down to check out buzz and all of his buttons.  after playing with him for about three minutes he laid down the passie in a bag and walked over to look at woody.  i pointed out to will that he was already over the passie.  we let him wander the store and check out all of his favorites.  we were probably in there for over an hour.  (the store is not that big, but its as close to disney world as you get in north carolina.)  it became pretty apparent that we were going to have to get two toys - blade from planes and buzz from toy story.  for the cost of trading in the passie, we were fine with that.  daddy stood in the long line and waited our turn.  when the time got close i got dax over into the line and told the cashier what our payment terms were.  

forgive my quality as i came from the phone.

dax handed over the passie in a bag as he sat on the counter.  he was irritated that we had to put the buzz in the bag, but once he saw that the bag had disney characters he was okay with it.  and so happily - he left the store.  we made it to the clarks store (two doors down) before he had to open the bag and open the box to retrieve buzz.  the shoe salesman actually cut buzz from his twist ties to please our happy fellow.  as we left the building he said "bye bye pie!"  memories of passie were long gone.

or were they?

well, he was happy in the car and we took him to an old fashioned diner.  we wanted to go somewhere he would find fun and where he could be loud (himself) if needed.  he loved putting money into the juke box on the table and didn't really care that ours was broken and would only play one song.  in the end it was just about putting the money in and getting it back out, so i gave him a stack of 2 pence coins that he played with.  he was happy with his mickey shaped pancakes, a slurp of a chocolate shake, and being allowed to stand up in the booth.  

forgive my quality as i came from the phone.

 the ride home was a bit long, about 40 minutes, and we thought for sure he'd fall asleep in the car.  he was up way after his bed time and we were hoping this would work to our advantage.  when we got home he was really sleepy, but not asleep.  as soon as we got into his room he asked for the "pie".  then, started the quiver lip.  the quiver lip kills me.  first of all its precious and second of all its sad that he is sad.  its too much.  however, this is why we left the passie at the store.  it was as much for him knowing it was traded in for buzz as it was for will and i to not have something to fall back on.  at one point will went to get his phone out of his pocket and dax thought for sure he was going for the passie.  he started to cry.  we told him that he had buzz now and the passie was gone.  he really did sob in mourning.  we hugged on him, loved on him, cradled him, and rocked him while he processed it all.  in the end he wanted to read every book that was out (we usually just do 3, but we did 8) - just to prolong the inevitable.  once we were done with books and we told him no more books he wanted to watch a tv show.  we told him it was too late and he needed to go to sleep.  in his bed.  with buzz.  he ran and got buzz and put him in the bed and then smiled and ran to me.  he hugged me in a full body hug as i sat on the floor.  will smiled as tears ran down my face because he knew that i knew at that moment that dax got it.  the passie was gone and buzz was here in his place.

he's looked terribly sad each night when it's time to actually lay down and put his head on raffie (that's what he uses for his pillow) and on the first night he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands, but each night gets a little easier than the first and by the third night he wasn't even asking for it any more.  

nap times are still pretty rough because we're battling the fact that he soothed himself to sleep with the passie and the fact that he's exerting some independence about almost being three years old (gasp) and so he likes to say "no nap", "no nigh nigh", "no bed", "no mommy, no".  he says all this with his back to me, arms crossed, in a very sassy tone.  i laugh (to myself of course) and i ask him where did he learn this?  of course he wont divulge his sources, but it makes for rough afternoons.  pretty much all this week he's either fallen asleep on my lap, on the couch, or not napped at all.  today however, i finally won the battle.  he is resting now, as i type in his bed with nothing but a raffie and buzz by his side.

so, we're really calling it a huge success and there's no looking back.

to infinity and beyond!