Pumpkin Pickin'

Nothing too exciting has been happening around the Folger house recently, hence the lack of blogging.

This past weekend was somewhat uneventful but I'll fill you in on all the fun stuff anyhow. Friday morning we had our flu shots. By 4 pm I had a small fever, the chills and all sorts of achyness. Damn that shot! I was in bed by 9 pm that night.  Saturday was much of the same. Thomas took Declan to the gym and on some errands while I laid in bed and watched "What Not to Wear" re-runs and contemplated what Stacy & Clinton would have to say about some of the clothing hanging in my closet. Later that afternoon I managed a trip to the outlet malls but unfortunately no bargains were to be found.

Sunday we met up with our friends Matt, Tanya and their 2 year old Alyssa. We headed to Monument for a pumpkin patch which unbeknownst to me (the pumpkin patch planner) was closed on Sundays.   Who closes a pumpkin patch on the Sunday BEFORE Halloween? Mormons. That's who. Apparently Monument is filled with Mormons and it is a very sinful thing to pick out your pumpkin on Sunday. So, we headed to the local mexican cantina and filled our bellies with beer and burritos. Afterward we headed to the playground and then headed back home where we picked out our pumpkins from a little farmer stand and later carved them.

So that was our exciting weekend. Here's what else has been going on:

Declan is starting  to put together sentences. So far we have "Me Nuk" and "Hep Bease" (help please for those of you who don't speak toddlerese).

I've started taking yoga classes. I am hooked! I can't even describe how good it makes your whole body feel. I come out of class feeling both relaxed and energized. My muscles don't feel so tight anymore and I am feeling so much stronger! I highly recommend it.

Gas is down to $2.43/gal here. This means that not only can the Folger's now afford pizza on the weekend but that now we can get Papa John's rather than Papa Murphy's. It's really the small things in life that count....

I'm so excited for election day. If only because it will mean that my phone will stop ringing off the hook from McCain's robocalls and that supporters from the various amendments on this year's ballot will stop ringing the doorbell. It's a bitch living in a battleground state. And then there is all the commercials.......

Long time no post

I have been seriously slacking on the blogging lately. My plan was to post some pics from the trip back home but I have been having trouble getting them to upload. Hopefully that will get sorted out this weekend.

September was a blur. We spent 10 days back in MN (and WI!). It was a fabulous vacation. My parents rented a beautiful home called the Lady Slipper Lodge in northern MN.  We had so much fun that we've already booked it for next fall! We spent 5 days relaxing, drinking, eating and fishing! The leaves were beginning to fall and it was absolutely beautiful.  I got to celebrate my birthday with all of my friends and family. You can't ask for anything better than that!

We spent exactly one day back in Bloomington before it was off to Appleton, Wisconsin for a weekend of child free debauchery. It was Thomas, myself and four of my best girls (husbands too!). We spent a day on the Richter boat, enjoyed Anthony's amazing food fest and the next day headed for the Appleton Oktoberfest. I am pretty sure that WI Oktoberfest's rival the MN State Fair in people watching.  

We are finally back in Colorado and I've spent the last 10 days drying out and detoxing my liver. Last weekend we hit up the Castle Rock Oktoberfest, which was much tamer than Appleton's as it was geared towards families with small children. Declan dug the polka band and danced his little booty off.  

I am so happy it is finally fall. I am loving this cool weather. However, I hear snow is in the forecast for this weekend which is not what I was looking forward to.

Check back. Hopefully I'll have those pics up soon!

Satan's Spawn

Yesterday was my first experience with "one of those moms". You know the type. Their kids can do no wrong and would NEVER EVER misbehave and your kid must certainly be the heathen child sent directly from Satan to bring great harm to their precious baby.

So here is how it went down. Declan was working his charms on a sweet little girl over at the slide at our local playground. Overprotective Mom of Perfect Child (From here forward we shall refer to her as OMPC) was regaling all of the playground moms with stories about how perfectly cute her child was and she just says the darndest things (don't ALL kids say cute things??? Do we really care strange OMPC lady? NO! STFU!). All of a sudden her perfect child lets out a cry, OMPC runs over to perfect child and discovers that my Satan Spawn has done something that could have brought death & destruction to the playground and to her perfect, cute little girl.

OMPC grabs her perfect child, turns to me and yells "HE THREW ROCKS AT HER!". Then she takes off to the other side of the playground to get as far away from us as she can and spends the rest of the morning giving us dirty looks.

Now one would have thought that Declan picked up a boulder and chucked it at her head the way OMPC was reacting. But we all know that 20 month old children probably can't lift a rock big enough to do great harm. Technically, he wasn't throwing rocks. Rather, he scooped up a handful of those little pebbles they use at playgrounds to cushion the blow when your kid falls off the monkey bars. But boy was this woman PISSED. I mean, how dare my 20 month old do something that could bring such harm to her perfect child who's probably never acted up in her short. perfect little life? And what a horrible mother I must be to allow such perverse acts at the playground. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I certainly don't condone the throwing of any objects at other children. Like any mom, I see this as an opportunity to explain to my kid why we don't throw rocks at other people (even though I kinda wanted to chuck a rock at this woman's head myself). Little kids are learning how to be social creatures. And sometimes they are naughty. It happens. Declan himself has been pushed, slapped and bit by other kids. It's one of the many ways they learn to navigate through this complicated life. I'm sure he picked up those "rocks" and threw them in the air because it's just fun to throw things. Fact is, he is still a baby and just doesn't know better. I couldn't have stopped it if I tried. I'm not going to follow my kid around the playground like a shadow because how else will he learn to be an independent child? I stay close enough to catch him if he happens to get to close to the edge and to be there at the bottom of the slide, but I refuse to be overprotective of him. 

Declan and the perfect child were having a perfectly good time up until Declan tried to bash in her head. And had OMPC not flown off the handle, they probably would have continued to have a good time together because kids usually get over these things faster than their parents do. I would have welcomed the chance to right the wrong my child did and apologize as well as explain to Declan why we don't throw rocks. 

I was upset about this all day yesterday. I am over it now. Now that I have some perspective of the issue anyway. What have I learned from this? I've learned that some people are just assholes and that I don't think I'll be hanging out at that playground any longer.