Is Anyone Surprised That Horse Crap Ruined My Fun?

On Saturday, we got up bright and early and headed to Living History Farms, just a couple freeway exits away from my grandparents' house, but a world away at the same time. Okay-- I love me some reenactors, so I was really excited to go to this place. The calico skirts! The mock millinery! The unwieldy farm implements! We rushed my mom out the door, berating her for doing her hair and make up-- that's how bad I wanted to go to rural 1875.

I think, though, that I forgot the farm part of Living History Farms because rural 1875 was dirty, you know?

Ah yes-- the ATM of 1875. The fee per transaction? A wooden nickel, har, har, har. Note the flat screen TV of 1875 right above it-- way ahead of its time, doncha think? Wonder f you can buy that at the general store-- ha! If there's anything I love more than some good ole reenacting, it's an anachronism, boy howdy.


Here we are walking into an upper middle class home of 1875. Mmmm, chamber pots. There was even a woman in the kitchen making a roast and a pecan pie (Which? A lot of work. She had to start dinner at 10 a.m., for goodness sake. And kill a roast. With a hatchet.)

Harry thought this wagon was the bees knees.

Okay, so this was creepy. We were at the doctor's office, and that guy took his job wayyyyyy too seriously. And he had super bad breath. No Binaca in 1875, you know, but would it kill this guy to go across the street to the druggist and get some mint or something? He asked us who was sick, and we said Jack, to sort of involve him the experience. The doctor said, "Oh. He's dead then. I can't help him." Oooookay. Then we said I was sick. "Oh," the doctor said. "I wouldn't be able to work on you. I'd have to send for a midwife or a neighbor woman or maybe an Indian. Well, maybe I could. What's wrong with you?" Because we were slow to catch on, we said appendicitis. He explained in slow, stinky detail how I would die, and Harry started to get really worried. No wait, we said, how about a broken arm? "Oh," he said. "Well, I would tell you to lie back in the chair and," -- he leaned close to me and punctuated each word with a pause--"Prepare. For. Examination." This is when I got totally creeped out and left. My mom stayed behind and politely discussed the emergence of germ theory with Dr. Freakshow...or so we thought, but come to think of it she left the office fairly flustered, hair quite disheveled, and no Indian woman in sight...hmmm.

Then l I saw two ginormous horses pulling a wagon coming toward us and made us all get on board. Bad idea. Because horses? Poop. I was convinced that Harry stepped in horse crap and was smearing it all over the wagon bench and all over us. In actuality, I think I was just smelling the huge mounds of fresh dung the horses dropped with each step. An honest mistake.

So I made us all get off the wagon. Kind of pissily. Tantrummy even. Then Ben got angry, which made me really irate. I mean seriously. He has known me for 15 years. He should know how I feel about horse poop. The threat of horse poop even. How many times has he heard the story of a 3 year old me at the petting zoo with a Chanel soaked tissue on my nose? Who does he think he married Just because there are farms in my home town does not mean I like manure. Honestly!

A lamb nursing. Oh good. So if I ever feel too much like a cow, I can comfort myself with an image of a sheep. Baaa.


I'm not even going to tell you about the hissy I threw at the park entrance when I realized that Jack's pasty limbs were exposed to the sun, which caused me to run into the gift shop and buy a huge T-shirt to drape over the Bjorn. Wow-- I was super fun all day, I guess.

But I am getting ahead of myself-- let's start at the beginning of the weekend.

We have been wanting to take Jack to meet Jack and Bomma, but the thought of a five hour drive has dissuaded us. The car trip was not as bad as we feared, but it did pretty much suck. The visit? Wicked fun.

At first, we were fairly content, but Harry got sick of only playing on his lap; Ben tired of my never ending playlist. I started to resent the huge stash of water bottles at my feet, and Jack woke up hungry.




While I fed Jack, Ben and Harry played with this odd roadside attraction.


We're booooooored.

Yep. That's a fistful of my hair

About 4 hours in, Jack had enough of the ride

Even silly sunglasses didn't cheer him up

Here's Jack meeting his great grandparents for the first time.












Could he look anymore like his daddy?


Jack actually scooted all the way off this blanket


Hanging out and looking at grandma's New York pics. Harry is obsessed with the Statue of Liberty-- he points her out every time we pass a U-Haul-- and really, I never noticed that she's even ON a U-Haul.



Looking lovely in Bomma's glasses


Chaos, I tell you-- that's what the kid does-- he creates chaos then collapses.

We decided that we had trashed Bomma and Jack's house enough, so we went over to Leslie and Molly's to demolish it, too. They had tons of Molly's old toys for Harry to play with, and he had the best time ever. Here he is playing a game he invented, which consisted of him brandishing these golf clubs menacingly and screaming "Ho!" at the top of his lungs. When he hoed you, you were supposed to scream and double over as if in pain. His favorite target was Molly, the lucky girl.




Molly was so awesome with Harry, who was increasingly less fun to hang out with as the evening progressed. He did look up from his pizza to say (with his mouth full) "Mmmmm, I love it." Good old Little Bear helped him settle down, so that we could head to the hotel, where he watched more cartoons, only it was so late that Cartoon Network was featuring its Adult Swim programming-- we didn't know this until we noticed that the cartoon animals were smoking and drinking beer. Cool. Luckily, HBO was showing the Simpson's Movie.

Moments after this picture was taken, Jack and I moved to the pull out bed because I was sure he would suffocate on the pillow-top mattress.


We woke up to Harry's demands of "Bomma's house" at 6 am and tried to explain to him that it was too early to go to someone's house, so we went to breakfast instead.

Oops. Forget the pillow top mattress, he's gonna suffocate getting dressed. We noticed he sounded muffled but he was like that for a few minutes...

My, what big feet you have.


I spent most of our time at Perkins letting Harry trace my hand and trying to take a picture of the short black hairs trapped under the menu's plastic cover, but I kept getting a glare. Yum.



Check out the bacon clutched in his fist

Moments after I took this picture, shortly after feeding Jack and while remarking, "He never spits up," Jack barfed all over the couch. Of course he did.

And then Molly was all "Really? You want me to hold this gross squishy thing?" At one point, Leslie changed Jack's diaper and she invited Molly along to learn the ropes. Molly said "I'm sure I can take a class at school or something, Mom." Which? A really good idea-- for boys and girls, don't you think?

Harry enjoyed some bike riding


Apparently, Jack had a lot on his mind

Jack continued to excel a tummy time

A careful hand off, which had to be a nice change for Jack, whose parents usually just flop him around

Jack as so content whenever Bomma held him-- pretty adorable, isn't he?

Clearly, this is Harry's cowboy outfit

See?

And yes, his Bomma and grandma (and we're working on having him call my mom Bubbe) got him a more traditional cowboy hat-- they went all over West Des Moines actually and finally found one at a theater shop because apparently, kids don't pretend to be cowboys anymore. Which is weird because Harry does. Oooh! And he got a black hat, which means he is totally a bad guy. Too bad his IKEA stick horse doesn't look tougher-- it looks like a pony, or at least something on its way to the glue factory.
And he capped the afternoon with a little guitar-- just like a cowboy

Harry was so tired that he took the most adorable shirtless nap with his Living History train-- anybody want to bet that the caboose ISN'T painted with lead because that's what I'm hoping for



He woke up, asked for an Oreo, and GOT one-- in BED. Hotels are awesome

and the cookie party continued all the long way home. Our fuses were a little shorter on the drive back because instead of houses full of relatives, all that awaited us were suitcases full of laundry.

Tom Tom got a little snippy, too, because he didn't know that we had reached our destination and were on our way home. Instead, he was pleading with us to TURN AROUND! IN 300 YARDS, TURN RIGHT, THEN TURN RIGHT AGAIN! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PEOPLE, YOU ARE GOING THE WRONG WAY! I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING?? DID YOU HEAR ME?? I DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING! THIS IS CHAOS! CHAOS! AUGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!