Fall Festivities

This year we went to Mortimer Farms for some fall fun. Conner loved it! They had tractors come along and pick us up from the parking area and take us to the entrance. It was totally walkable, but we knew Conner would love it so we waited for the tractor. They had a really good variety of activities for different ages so that was really nice. My only complaint was the price. Probably most places are expensive but I definitely thought it was a rip off.

Just sitting on a tractor

At the entrance to the farm

He loved doing the bean bag toss, even though he mostly set them in the holes rather than tossing them.

 

We didn't do this but it sure looked fun.



 

Digging through corn to find hidden treasures.

 

This was his favorite activity, riding the train. He had a fit when it was over.

 

 

He also loves horses so we paid $5 to have him ride around a tiny circle 5 times.

 

Conner with his first jack-o-lantern.

 

 

Neither Cade nor I care about Halloween so we never think about costumes until the last minute. I also hate spending much money on costumes. I got lucky last year because as I was trying to throw together a costume an hour before the trunk or treat Conner fell asleep and we missed the whole thing so I never finished his costume. This year, a few days before Halloween I decided to put something together, one of his favorite things. I really wasn't sure he would wear it and after I finished it he would only put it on for about 20 seconds at a time. I decided if he would just wear it for the first few minutes of the trunk or treat I would be happy. But once we were there and he saw all the other kids he happily put his costume on and didn't try to take it off once.

Here's our little firetruck.

By  the end he started saying some version of trunk or treat. We tried to carry his bucket once it got heavy but he got mad and insisted on carrying it himself.



An update on Conner's sleeping without a pacifier: We finally have complete success. Now we read a couple of books before his nap and bedtime and then he lays right down and goes to sleep. It only took a month and a half but things are finally good again. He even often takes naps for 3 hours or longer again!



We Did It! ...... But We Wouldn't Do It Again.

I knew from the moment we started pushing a pacifier on Conner that the day would come when we would have to take it away. I didn't care at all. I figured, hey a week of crying and torture is nothing compared to the months of better sleeping because of it. He always seemed to sleep better with a pacifier, but that dang kid could not figure out how to keep it in his mouth. He was seven months (7 months old!) before he was able to suck on a pacifier and keep it in his mouth. He was a decent sleeper before that, but a PERFECT sleeper after.

Now since he had lived 7 happy months without having a pacifier much during the day, we were pretty good about not letting him have it all the time. It was reserved for times when he was being loud and needed to be quiet, like at church, and for when he was cranky. And then once he was happy again we took that pacifier right out of his mouth. So when we no longer allowed Conner to have a pacifier when he was awake, at 13 months old, it was no big deal. He got upset a little during sacrament meeting the first two Sundays, but other than that he didn't care.

I read somewhere that between 20-22 months old is a good time to take away the pacifier completely and I heard a couple of people say that their pacifier-loving kids were totally fine with it being taken away around that age. So that's what I was aiming for. A couple of months ago Cade and I began getting stricter with the pacifier. For example, Conner usually wakes up before we want to so then we bring him into our bed hoping he will go back to sleep. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't, but we stopped letting him bring the pacifier with him. It became something that he could only use in his own crib.

Let me back up and tell you about Conner's sleeping habits. We usually put him to bed about 8:30 with no routine at all. If it was bath night he got a bath to be clean, but other than that it was just get in your pjs and brush your teeth and good night. He was totally fine with it. He practically jumped into bed so he could have his pacifier and never cried when we put him down. Naps were the same way. He didn't have a specific nap time, it just happened when he was acting tired. Sometimes we would be gone till later in the day so his nap would be late, or I had to do something later so his nap would be early. He didn't care. As long as he had his pacifier he just laid down and went to sleep, for about 3 hours. I figured once we took away the pacifier it would be hard for him to take a nap and they may even be shorter. Boy was that an underestimation.

As Conner approached 20 months I began taking away his pacifier after he fell asleep at night so he could practice not having it all night. For a whole week he never woke up once and the only thing left was to take it away completely. So that next Sunday Conner fell asleep on the way home from church. Since he went to sleep without it we kept it out of his crib so he wouldn't have it at all. After about 45 minutes he woke up screaming. I figured we needed to practice not giving it to him so that he goes back to sleep without it, so I wouldn't let him have it. He screamed and screamed and screamed, for about an hour. He wouldn't lay down, he wouldn't play, eat, anything. Nothing calmed him down until he just got over it. Then Cade said that since we had just gone through that we should just take away the pacifier for good that day. So we did. That night, just before bed we cut his pacifier and showed him that it was broken. He had a sad face but bravely went and threw it away. He went to sleep very well that first night. He needed some extra lovin, but didn't cry much. I couldn't believe it, it was so easy.

The next day he refused to take a nap, not surprising. He eventually crashed out for about a half hour on a walk or something. But at bedtime he still did pretty good. Then the next day he again wouldn't take a nap and by this point he was exhausted and at bedtime was having a fit. And so the week went on, getting worse and worse, due to the extreme exhaustion. There was absolutely no nap taking unless he fell asleep in the car or stroller (or the one time Cade climbed INTO the crib with him and pretended he was asleep until Conner gave up and went to sleep himself) and even then he would wake up waaaayyyyyy too soon and just be screaming. At night he was very angry about going to bed and cried a lot. I don't like to let him scream on his own for more than 20 minutes if he is showing no signs of calming down. So we tried to read to him to put him to sleep or at least get him tired but it didn't help much. Then we would be going in there a few times to comfort him after he screamed for so long and eventually he would fall asleep in our arms. And you know, that is mostly what I had expected so I was doing ok with it. But once a week came and went I was getting a little tired of it.

This is from that week. He was eating raisins and was getting down from the chair when he just couldn't go on. Of course he woke up soon after that and wouldn't sleep again that day.

Week 2 is when we were in Atlanta so it was just like any trip, not much of a nap, staying up too late. But I figured at least he was getting good practice of not using the pacifier still even if the schedule was way off. And unfortunately once we got home I had to work for 3 weeks straight so Conner was going to his babysitter at various times and still not getting a chance to get on a good nap schedule.

By the middle of the third week Conner had made small improvements with going to bed at night. I spent a lot of time reading to him while he laid in his crib and then left once he was just about asleep. He still hadn't taken a nap over 2 hours and most of them weren't even 1 hour. (Remember this is a kid who was just taking 3 hour naps just about everyday.) By this point he was really getting on my nerves. He was obviously more cranky than ever before but no longer acted tired by rubbing his eyes or leading me to his crib like the good old days and I was losing patience. We decided that if by the end of the third week things hadn't improved then we were giving him back that freaking pacifier. I'm very against giving things back like that and I didn't want to do it after 3 whole weeks, but I seriously wasn't liking this kid much anymore.

After the third week nothing really changed but we never bothered giving the pacifier back either. He started to make SMALL improvements day by day. Now we are at day 30 post pacifier, just over 4 weeks. The nights are good again. I spend about 10 minutes reading to him and then leave. He has been crying for about 1 minute after I leave, except tonight he didn't cry at all!! But we STILL have a long way to go with naps. The babysitter reports that he has led her to where he sleeps at her house and volunteered to get in bed one time. And sometimes he falls asleep with her daughter while they watch a movie or something. But for us he only falls asleep in the car or the stroller. Part of the problem is I haven't been home enough to really work on it, so I have hope that maybe one day he will take a nap like normal, but for now I'm thankful that there is at least one way for him to fall asleep and that he sometimes will sleep for 2 hours. The longest nap he has taken was 2 hours and 15 minutes.

First try at painting. This is before taking away the pacifier, to remind myself of better days.

Looking back, I would say that Conner was not ready for the pacifier to be taken away. He barely even cared that it was gone, as in he only asked about it a couple of times and after we reminded him that it broke he didn't care. But clearly it was the key to his sleep and maybe if we had waited a few more months he could have managed better. Maybe not, there's no way to know. I've never heard anyone say that it took their kid this long to get over it. I expected a week, I had no idea that a whole month later we would still be working on this. So just in case you are wondering, if I could go back in time, I would still push that pacifier on Conner at 7 months because it made the next 14 months wonderful, but I would not have taken it away yet. 

These are actually before taking away the pacifier. He decided the only way to ride in the stroller was in the basket. We got a few strange looks walking down the road.

He's so comfortable he just fell asleep in there. Sometimes I think he still misses the womb.

Atlanta 2012

This year Cade's work conference was in Atlanta, Georgia. As our final trip before Conner turns 2 and is no longer free to fly, we decided to tag along. Even though we were told many times that the flight was completely full, it wasn't and we got a row to ourselves. Conner did well on the over 3 hour flight, he slept some, played with toys, ate, and watched part of a movie. He also really liked looking out the window this time. Did you guys know that the Atlanta airport is the busiest in the world? I don't really understand why, and it didn't seem too busy, but we did have to take a tram to get to the different terminals. Once we got our luggage we were able to hop right on the MARTA system that took us right to our hotel. I LOVE cities that have a rail system, its so much easier and cheaper than dealing with renting a car. Plus, for some reason I love that kind of public transportation, like you have something in common with all these people. I don't know what it is, but I rode the train everyday in Philly for 3 months and I never got tired of it and still miss it.

Once we got settled in the hotel it was about 9 pm on Sunday. Turns out things close down early on Sunday there. We unknowingly went the opposite direction of the more touristy area looking for a specific restaurant. There was pretty much no one left on the streets except for a security guard who asked why our child was out so late and dozens of homeless men. As we got close to our restaurant one of  those men told us it was closed and suggested another place we could go. Cade asked if it was any good and the guy said that since he was living on the streets he hadn't had the opportunity to try it out. As soon as we walked in we could tell it was kind of a dump and the food wasn't great, but it got the job done. As we walked back to the hotel it started to sprinkle and some really nice guy pulled over and asked us to take his umbrella. We didn't take it since we were almost there and it was only sprinkling so we weren't getting very wet anyway.

The hotel was pretty cool. It was a square with the inside empty (hard to explain). So when you walk in there is the lobby, bar, restaurant on the first floor and then you can see all the way up to the 22nd floor. It was a little nerve racking though because lots of areas just had metal bars as the edge and there were spaced far enough apart that small children could fit through and fall to their death. Luckily Conner was only interested in going up and down on the glass elevators and the escalators. We spent lots of time going up and down and up and down.

Here is a view from our floor, looking down.

The next day we slept in until the housekeeper came knocking on our door about 10:30. By the time we were ready for the day it was about noon and we went to eat at the food court that was connected to our hotel. It was PACKED! There were hundreds of business people having lunch. We went to a place that served breakfast all day and tried some grits. It was disgusting. I thought I was eating a bowl of shortening, it was way worse than Carol Ann's special diet peanut butter that also tastes like shortening. But Ashley informs me that it wasn't made correctly and can taste much better.

Then we were off to the Coca-cola factory. They build up this thing about telling you the secret to the taste and it turns out the secret is basically the happiness it brings to the world. It was pretty ridiculous actually how they acted like coke brings world peace or something, but whatever. There was a 4D moving where the seats moved in a jerking fashion and it scared the crap out of Conner. We had to take turns standing up to hold him and he still didn't like it when he would hear the seats moving. But it wasn't surprising, his only fear in life is loud noises and even without moving seats, the volume of the movie would have been enough to bother him. At the end of the tour you can try over 60 of their products from around the world. That was fun, but after a few taste tests we were quickly feeling sick from all the carbonation. And some of them were purely disgusting.

Cade and Conner standing in front of bottles they have representing different countries. The coke factory and most of the other activities are near Olympic Park from the 1996 Olympics so I think these bottles were created for that.

Here are the boys on a screen showing pictures with fizz bubbles.

Here is the vault that supposedly holds the recipe.

When we first passed the line to meet the coca cola bear I didn't think Conner would like him so we skipped over that. But later he saw the bear and really wanted to go see him.

After the factory we headed across the street to a really nice park. Conner loved it and we went there everyday. Check out the cool swings they have.

They don't go that high but its so nice that the little kids can lean back and be comfy without having to worry about falling out.

After a long time at the park, we walked across the lawn to the Olympic Ring fountain show. It has definitely seen better days. Some of the fountains weren't working, but its still nice for playing in. There was this couple who were in their 50s and they just ran through that thing for at least a half hour. But I guess I lied before because I just remembered Conner's other fear in life: being splashed. He does not like splash pads and wouldn't get close to touching the fountain. Its pretty weird since he loves water and must touch any water that he sees, but don't even think of letting the water touch him first.

After that we walked over the Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles restaurant. There wasn't much that sounded great but what we got was good. Except the peach cobbler. I love cobbler and was excited to have some good southern peach cobbler. But it turned out to be peach pie just smushed into a bowl. I don't like peach pie. Thankfully though, on the walk over Conner fell asleep until dessert so we were able to enjoy a relaxing dinner.

Cade tried to get into some big football game, but he only had $35 cash and even at half time the scalpers were selling the tickets for $75. He was disappointed. In the meantime Conner had fun making faces at himself in the big mirror. We decided it would be easiest to keep Conner on Arizona time rather than try to move his sleeping up 3 hours and then back 3 hours just a few days later. So we spent some late nights hanging out in the room.

The next day we went to the Georgia Aquarium, which is the biggest in the world. Conner really liked most of it. He touched the starfish and looked at lots of the fish. There was a dolphin show that Conner did NOT like. Its actually more of a musical production and when the music started (which was very loud) Conner started whining and we were telling him how it wasn't going to be scary and he would like seeing the dolphins. Right then there was all this thunder and lightening and that was it for him. We again took turns holding him in the back of the auditorium so he wasn't disturbing everyone and he just about fell asleep but then the show ended. He did fall asleep later for about 45 minutes so Cade and I took turns going to see this 4D movie so we could watch it in peace.

He wanted to touch the stingray but it was just too far for him to reach.

Walking through the tunnel to see the penguins.

You can stand up in the tunnel at eye level with the penguins.

Playing in the play area.

The shark and fish swimming above our heads.

Us looking at that shark and fish.

Check out that monster fish.

You can see the huge frog under that curvy branch.

These frogs were awesome, look how colorful they are. They were all bright neon colors in yellow, blue, and green.

After the museum it was more time at the park. Then we walked over to The Varsity. Its just a hamburger joint but it was built in the 20's and on game days they serve over 30,000 people. Most of the food wasn't that great but the onion rings were delicious!

By the next day Conner was really behind on sleep and Cade had to go to his conference so Conner and I mostly hung out in the hotel so he could get some sleep. I noticed that there were news crews at the hotel across the street so we took a walk around and found a small group of protestors against Mitt Romney. He was doing a fundraiser across the street at the Marriott that day. On our way back to our hotel we saw this guy wearing a BYU shirt and I thought it was funny to run into some Mormons on the street in Atlanta, but then I saw he was smoking, so I guess not.

For dinner we went tried another southern place, Pitty Pat's place or something like that. This food was really good. Corn bread and muffins, fried chicken, collard greens, pecan pie.....mmmmmmm. (Ok so the collard greens weren't great and I was too afraid to try the pickled watermelon rind, yuck) I really wanted to come back the next day for the peach cobbler but we just couldn't make it. 

Ha ha...check out this mount that was on the wall, complete with his hooves and the gun that shot him.

While Cade was at his conference again the next day I took Conner to the Atlanta Children's Museum. It said it was best for 2-8 year olds so I wasn't sure how much he would like it but he LOVED it. We were there for about 3 and a half hours, and would have stayed longer but they closed at 4. The things that were there really weren't that special but Conner thought it was great.

Here he is at the fishing pond, we spent a lot of time here.

We also spent a lot of time at the train tables. Conner loves trains right now and makes the cutest "chuga chuga" sounds. 

There was also a grocery store and farmer's market to shop at, a ball jungle gym thing that was too advanced for Conner, multiple block areas with various sizes of blocks/legos, a painting area that Conner wasn't allowed to use because he refused to wear an apron, and a few other areas. After the museum we went back to our favorite park until Cade met up with us an hour and a half later. (See how great this park was that the wanted to spend so much time there.) Conner is pretty good at making friends, he just finds some kids and starts following them around and doing whatever they do and laughs and laughs.

 Here is one of his friends. This nice kid kept rocking the "boat" for Conner.

After Cade met up with us, we headed over to the CNN center. We wanted to take a tour, but they had stopped for the night. But it wouldn't have worked anyway because Conner was crashed out in the stroller and the sign said the tour had to walk down 8 flights of stairs.

But Cade did take a picture out front.

For our final night we took a carriage ride around the city. The driver has been doing it over 30 years! It was fun and interesting, although we don't totally believe everything he said. Sometimes it sounded like he was just making things up as we went, but who knows. Conner loved every minute of it and he didn't want the ride to end.

The next morning the housekeeper woke me up again and opened the door before I could there, we're talking like 5 seconds. She was really starting to get on my nerves. I'm not even sure it was 10 yet and she should really give people a chance to at least answer the door before she opens it. After that I packed us up, checked out, and Conner and I just wondered around the block and in the elevators until Cade left his meetings at 1:45 and we headed for the airport. Conner fell asleep for like 1 minute while waiting to board the plane and then we woke him up hoping he would go to sleep when we got on, instead of waking up. Well he didn't go back to sleep for half the flight. It was a little rough but luckily the guy who sat with us said Conner was better than his kids would have been. Its probably not true, but at least he was nice. It was obvious from his conversation that he was LDS and Cade never mentioned that he was too and you could tell that the guy wasn't sure how to explain some things about his job (he works for the church) and Cade kept asking questions about it. I asked Cade why he didn't just tell the guy so he would know that we understood what he was talking about, but Cade says he was testing the guy to see how good of a missionary he was! Um hello, he already said he was LDS Cade, what about you?!

Overall we had a fun trip. It was great how Atlanta has so many things to do all in one spot and within walking distance of the downtown hotels. It was a great place to tag along on a business trip. And the people were really nice. Multiple times on the street people asked us if we needed help finding anything.