Everything is Unfinished

Hey AW grads, guess where I went on Sunday? That’s right, the Woollybear Parade! My parents met Jack and me in Vermilion and it was a beautiful day for a fall festival, sunny and blue skies and just a bit chilly. The AW band wasn’t in it this year, but we did get to see Vermilion (obviously) and Edison and a couple other “real” bands (meaning: NOT corps bands) like Green High School. Jack wasn’t at all interested in the parade, and didn’t even flinch when firetrucks and police cars drove past with their sirens blaring. He did, of course, look very cute though.

The Woollybear parade is one of the longest parades I’ve ever been to. This one lasted almost 2 1/2 hours. Dad didn’t last that long.

We did get quite the surprise at the festival. As we were getting out of our cars in the parking lot, a couple got out of the car next to mine. They recognized my parents right about the time Mom and Dad recognized them: it was Ken and Sue Dean, Herb’s parents! They told us that Herb, his wife and their girls would be there as well. Later in the day as we were trying to decide which incredibly greasy fried foods to eat we ran into the Dean clan and chatted for a bit. The girls are all so cute! Hopefully we can meet up for dinner or a playdate or something since we live pretty close now.

Seeing the parade has made me nostalgic. I miss my band days sometimes. So imagine my delight when I saw that this Saturday there’s a band festival at Rittman High School, which is just a few miles from here. Unfortunately, I can’t find any info online as to what bands will be there, and it’s also at the same time as game 1 of the World Series which my Tigers will be winning. Decisions, decision.

Before we moved to Wooster 2 months ago, I was pretty apprehensive. Having lived in Columbus for 7 years I was used to having pretty much anything I needed within 15 minutes of home, and plenty of entertainment options. We were moving to the middle of nowhere! Once we moved here though, I very quickly adapted. There’s really more here than you realize at first glance, and having a 6 month old means you don’t really *need* a whole lot of entertainment options outside of the home. But while I’ve become accustomed to living here, two recent incidents reminded me that Wooster is, ahem, rural enough:

1. When we took Jack in for his 6 month doctor appointment, we were given a prescription for a multivitamin plus fluoride for him. Why fluoride? Because it’s not in the water here. It’s been on the ballot 3 times in the last 10 years and was voted down each time. Nevermind that fluoridating water is one of the biggest contributions to public health in the last century. I guess conspiracy theories trump science.

2. Today I was behind a pick up truck with a bumper sticker that said “Criminals Love Gun Control”. I rolled my eyes and drove on. Then later, I passed a house with a huge homemade sign in their front yard that read:
   Dear Washington,
   Thank you for taking guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. It makes our job so much easier.
   - The Criminals

If not for the College being here, I think this whole county would be Red.

I have to say that this has been one nice Autumn so far. At the beginning of September, our horribly hot and humid Summer gave way to cooler temperatures and much less humidity. Oh sure, there were a few days last month that got up into the 80’s but overall it’s been my favorite kind of weather: 60’s, sunny, bright blue sky, light breeze. I’m glad we had so much of it and I enjoyed it because this week starts the slide into the cold temps. Thursday night it may even snow! I guess we better get our pumpkins carved before they freeze.

If you read Johnny’s Blog you already know that we went to Ramseyer Farms on Saturday to pick said pumpkins as well as take a hayride, go through a corn maze, slingshot potatoes, and slide down the corn chute. Ok, I don’t know if that’s actually the name of it, but it was a big piece of plastic tubing that you slid down into a pit of corn kernels. At the end of the pit were strips of heavy plastic hanging down that you had to go through to get out. I thought I’d be cute and get a picture of Woody coming down the slide, so I stuck my head inside the plastic and readied the camera. Here’s the last thing I saw before corn hit my teeth:

I guess that plastic was there for a reason. See all the pics including this awesome one of Jack on Johnny’s Flickr page!

So while my mom appreciated the picture I posted the other day, she informed me that what she actually wanted updated was Jack’s Photo Gallery. Well, in this case it’s actually not my laziness. I’ve been having problems getting photos uploaded to it so I gave up for a while. And then just now I realized that Johnny already uploads all of our pictures to his Flickr Page, so there’s really no reason for us BOTH to have everything online. I’m going to let him be the keeper of that responsibility from here on out. That’s because, with Flickr, you can download the picture in its original size (suitable for printing) or you can order prints directly from the page! You can then have your prints mailed to you, or you can pick them up at your local Target store. Now THAT is cool. So I’ve changed the link over there on the left, and also did some other tidying up.

Another thing I was told by Mom was that the sailor outfits we all wore that one Easter were made by her. She keeps making subtle (and not-so-subtle) hints to me that I need to bust out my sewing machine and start making Jack clothes. And it’s true, I really do need to start sewing again. I found several half-done projects when we were packing last month, and I know I could make some really cute baby things. And there’s so much adorable fabric out there, it would be so much fun to start collecting it like I do with scrapbook paper!

And speaking again of the sailor outfits, next time I’m at my parents’ house I’ll be finding that picture and posting it here, just for you Myke.

Well ok, I’m not going to post all 6 months of pictures that I’ve taken of Jack here. This post would be a mile long! Instead, I’ll post this collage of the pictures I’ve taken each month of Jack with his monkey friend. Click on it to see a larger version.

Well I don’t know how it happened, but Jack celebrated his 6 month birthday on Wednesday! I can’t even believe how fast the time has gone by. He’s doing so great - eating baby food, holding his own bottle, rolling himself over, ALMOST crawling, and just generally being the happiest baby around. He’s even got a tooth already, with another one very close to popping through. He’s had some fussy times due to that, but overall he’s just so…easy. Here’s a picture of the big boy:

For the past few days I’ve been at my parents’ house, fulfilling my duty to allow Jack’s grandparents to spoil him. It’s funny - you’d never think that a child with me and Johnny as parents would like attention so much. Anyway, at some point my mom told me that I don’t update my blog enough, and I certainly don’t post enough pictures of Jack. All right, I’ll admit it: sometimes, nay, a lot of the time, I’m lazy. I get online, go to my usual sites, check my email, occasionally go on a Wikipedia binge, maybe pay some bills, then put the computer away. Even though I seem to be constantly composing blog posts in my head, I rarely type them out. I’m not really sure why. But now I’ve been challenged. And it should be REALLY easy to meet this challenge, considering we take an average of 452 pictures of Jack per week. Here’s one of my current favorites:

There’s some backstory to the outfit. See, my mom loves sailor suits and dresses. My brothers and I all had them when we were kids, and in fact one Easter we all wore them and Mom wore her sailor dress too. I’d actually be willing to bet that she’s got a sailor dress of her own somewhere in the house right now. So of course she bought this outfit for Jack in a size 3-6 months. Last time we visited I brought it with me so we could take pictures of him in it, and even though he was only 5 months old it was too small! But she made it work, as you can see. So today we tried to return the outfit but Babies R Us has some sort of 90-day return policy. We were ONLY 4 months past that, but they wouldn’t give us full price back so we kept it. I’m going to try to squeeze him back into it for more pics, then I’ll save it for any possible future little brothers. And next summer we’ll just have to find Jack a bigger one.