Goodmorning Oliver

Please no political debates, this is simply to story of our day yesterday.

Ryan and I are both Obama supporters and, because Arkansas is a red state and northwest Arkansas is the reddest of the red on the map, we knew that we probably weren’t going to have the opportunity to see him speak in Arkansas. But we do live on the border of Missouri, a notorious swing state that both candidates have been traveling through freqently in recent weeks, and we agreed that if Senator Obama came to speak within an hour’s drive we would go. Friday morning I received an e-mail announcement of a “Change we need” Rally in Springfield, on Saturday night. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes northeast of us and a little out of the radius we had decided was do-able, but we also figured it was probably the only chance we would get to see him speak live. The biggest problem was…what about Oliver? Would he cry in the car when we had to drive home in the dark? Would he wait in line for the hours upon hours we assumed we’d be waiting? We thought it might be a good trial run for the upcoming holiday trips, driving to NM and then flying to Holland. Test the limits of his patience so to speak so we could be prepared knowing what kinds of distractions worked and which fell flat.

We left the house shortly after Jack departed to Tulsa to catch his flight back home. After gathering handfuls of random toys and snacks into the diaper bag we got into the car around 11:30 and started our little adventure. We got a little lost in Springfield but by the time we arrived at the venue at 1:30 the lines weren’t too long and we thought we had a chance to go eat some lunch before joining the line. Oliver loved his experience at Wendy’s where he got to sit in a booth with us without the highchair, he didn’t want to leave. Our lunch stop was a bit of a mistake, by the time we got back to the stadium the line was wrapped around the parking lot and had started down the street and onto a 6 foot wide  grassy area that bordered the practice field. We got in line, still in view of the stadium, next to couple of women playing scrabble. The younger woman was very excited to see us because she had a son 19 months old and she called up her husband telling him to bring the baby and bring some toys so they could play together! Oliver was the picture of patience, eating his snacks and coloring in his daddy’s sudoko book happily for hours.He played with his Halloween potato head doll and when the other little boy arrived, they played with cars. I think he was just so delighted to be spending a day outside he really didn’t care what we were doing!

From obama rally

About an hour in a woman came by offering Obama ‘08 stickers and Oliver refused to let me put on one him, but once he saw Ryan and I wearing them he decided he needed one too, and stole mine and put it on his own chest. Silly boy!

From obama rally

The doors opened to the venue at 6pm, and by then we were told that the line was over a mile long. The little white dot is where we spent most of the day!

From obama rally

Since nothing was allowed in the venue except cameras, I returned our diaper bag and baby toys to the car and by then Oliver was wanting to run around. A radio station passed out little flags which Oliver got a big kick out of.

From obama rally

From obama rally

When the line started moving they took our flags away We let Oliver run around once inside the fence, one of us with Oliver while the other kept our place in line, and then we had to pass through the metal detectors and get screened by TSA. We should have known that they were behind security when we heard the decree that food could only be brought in in clear ziplock bags. We decided that being on the field probably wasn’t a good idea with such a large crowd, so we took seats in the bleachers across from the stage. Later we saw tha there were many women with babies in carriers and strollers who gathered on the field but we didn’t know that so…oh well.  Volunteers came around passing out “approved” flags and signs so we grabbed another flag for Oliver and a woman next to us in the stands just had to take a picture of “Obama’s littlest supporter” and his flag. As it turned out we had an excellent view of the field, and of the motorcade as it arrived at the stadium.  We even got a little bit of a backstage peek as we could see the tents and walkway where the speakers waited before taking the stage. Oliver was getting tired by this point and napped in the carrier for the 2 hours it took to get everyone gathered into the stadium.

From obama rally

One of the opening speakers quoted the crowd as reaching almost 45 thousand, while the news has the crowd size as anywhere from 20-40 thousand, depending on the Source. It was a pretty massive crowd for the area, standing room only! This picture only reflects about half of the crowd on the field, not to mention that the bleachers on our side were packed and at least twice the size of the ones in the background.

From obama rally

Oliver slept through Michelle Obama’s speech and most of Senator Obama’s, waking up towards the end when we deiced to try and beat people out of the stands to our car and avoid the waves of people who would be leaving.

To be honest if we had known that the Senator wouldn’t be taking the stage until well after 9 we probably would have scrapped the whole idea and never even left the house, but the press release said the event would begin at 6, and we didn’t take into account several hours allowed to get the mile long line of people that needed to get through security. Oliver was very tired and the car+dark=crying equation only held up for 15 minutes before he gave in and slept pretty much the whole way back. We arrived home at midnight, over 12 hours after our adventure began, tired but energized and with a great experience to tell about. If you look really close you can see the whole Obama family! One of the things I regret is not taking my fancy camera to the rally but I figured it would be a bit much to handle in addition to the baby. If I had known how well behaved he would be I would have done it!

From obama rally

Senator Obama was, as many have noted, a wonderful speaker and Michelle is just as good! The crowd was amazing, so much energy and passion. Although we left a little early it was a wonderful experience and I am glad we got a chance to see Senator Obama live in person before the Election. Oliver impressed me and everyone around us with how well behaved he was how sweet and cute he was. We received many compliments on how well behaved our child was. Over all minimal fussing and a very very good boy.

This year for Halloween Oliver is going to be a penguin. I bought the costume over a month ago, but recently he has gone through a growth spurt that bumped him up into a larger clothing size. So a week or so ago we dressed him up in his costume to make sure it would fit and it did, luckily he is on the border between the two sizes still, but we also found out that he wasn’t really a fan of dressing in costume. I figured that we would cross that bridge later and maybe he just wasn’t in the mood that day. Well I was wrong! The spooktacular was at 1 in the afternoon, which is normally nap time, so we got him to nap a little earlier so he could be in a good mood to enjoy the party. As soon as he woke up we got ready to go and I put him in the costume, as the hood snapped under his chin he started crying and  continued to cry most of the way to the party until I took the hat off. Unfortunately the damage was done. Combined with the overwhelming number of kids running around at the library he was in a vulnerable sort of mood and wouldn’t let me put him down. We did spend some time at the station where the wicked witch was reading stories, and he tried his best at the ring toss but unfortunately he isn’t too good at it just yet. He had the most fun walking down the tree lined street near the parking area so we decided to just come home and play in the leaves for a bit.

This weekend is shaping up to be a busy one for us. Today we drove into Missouri with a few families in the playgroup to go to the Right Choices Pumpkin Patch.  It was a cute place with lots to do, a corn maze, cow train, hayrides, pumpkin patch, a small zoo of farm animals, potato sack slides, even a corn cannon. Oliver’s favorite was the slide. Seasonal activities are some of my favorites and it was nice that the dads got a chance to come along. I posted an over load of pictures in the the photoblog of the trip.

In other news Ryan taught Oliver a new “trick” every time he is done with something, say for example done eating dinner, he pushes his plate away and says “ta da!” I think that counts as a word,  he is now up to 8!

Come back  tomorrow evening when we will have gone to  the Bella Vista Library Halloween Spectacular. Hopefully I’ll get some good pictures

Oliver and I at a playgroup last week. Photo Courtesy of Amber

I thought the first hair cut would be difficult, maybe he wouldn’t sit still, maybe he’d try to grab the scissors from the stylist, maybe he’d fussy or cry, maybe I’d cry when they handed me that first curl to save in his baby book. I took lots of backup with me in the form of Tia Lies and Ryan but none of those things happened, although we did come close to a few of them. Still we made it through, and breathed a sigh of relief. Who knew that the second haircut would have been infinitely more traumatic, because this time he knew what was coming. The moment we walked through the door he started fussing, and the fussing reached full blown crying by the time we reached the chair. He wouldn’t sit in the chair, refused to relinquish his grip on my shoulder. Didn’t want anything to do with the cape, even when she pulled out the penguin cape! We tried all the usual distractions, the cell phone, car keys, toys, we even pulled out the snacks. Nothing worked, and the best we could do was decrease the sobbing to its aftermath of sniffle-y sighs, pouts and the occasional wail. The stylist made a bold judgment, maybe in fear of the client walking out the door without a haircut and without paying, or maybe because she was afraid the sobs would start again if she didn’t do something and fast, she would just cut his hair while he sat in my lap and work as quickly as she could around the crying boy.  Oliver buried his head in my shirt while she sprayed his hair to wet it, and then cut the back of his hair while he hid his face. He gained a little courage and pulled together enough to sit upright and poke at the spray bottle while she finished up the rest. It was probably the fastest haircut on record, well without using one of those buzzy razor things.  As soon as she was done and we were headed back to the front of the store he was on his way back to his normal self.  It was such a traumatic experience for him he fell asleep in the car and even slept in his crib when we got home, a rare occurrence indeed. And, while I love his curls, it is very nice to be able to see his eyes again.

These photos were taken at the fair by a fellow playgroup mom, Amber. It is rare to be in the pictures since I am normally the one behind the camera, Thanks Amber!

here is an alternate angle on the goat scare picture, taken at the same time!

at the petting zoo, still afraid of animals, even the tiny chicks.

This is why I am afraid of the yard and will only rarely take Oliver outside to play. This picture was taken from our porch…it makes me shudder to think about it.

Somehow I feel more secure at the playground than in my own front yard. Probably irrational but there it is. I know that transferring my own fears to my child is a bad bad thing, but there is a reason I am afraid of snakes. Did you know that there are 5 types of poisonous snakes in the US? Did you also know that all 5 of them live in Arkansas? And I couldn’t care less if this variety is the poison kind or not, I don’t want to get close enough to any of them to find out. Luckily we go to the park a few times a week with the playgroup, not to mention he can play pretty safely on the back porch. This plan will work well for a few more years, until he and Ryan start bringing them home and putting them in aquariums and feeding them crickets and things. That thought makes me shudder to, I might have to go to some kind of therapy or take some medication or something when that happens.

a penguin picture for Adrienne. He is not at all interested in having his picture taken at night. He was busy watching the “goodnight show” on PBS kids Sprout channel. I was apparently getting in his way with the camera since he kept leaning further and further over to see the tv. He doesn’t watch a lot of tv, too much else to get in to,  but in the evening when he is worn out he will watch for a little while.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning we got hit with tropical storm Ike. Although the strength was greatly diminished after the damage it did in Texas we still had some significant winds and rain, significant enough that we lost power for about 12 hours. It wasn’t all that bad, the power went out and Ryan took that as his cue to head to bed and since we were sleeping during most of the power outage it didn’t affect us too much until breakfast. Because Bella Vista doesn’t have a gas line all of our appliances are electric. No stove, no microwave, can’t open the fridge and let the cold air out, no air conditioning, no hot water to shower with, it’s amazing how much we rely on our electronic devices for day to day life. We didn’t have much to do, or much to eat, so we decided to go for a drive and find a nearby town with power to grab some breakfast. At this point I am pretty sure Oliver still hadn’t noticed that anything was different, his toys all have batteries, but we got as ready as we could and headed south.

Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea, we hit 3 restaurants and found 30-60 minute wait times.  We weren’t really in a hurry to get back to the dark and boring house and we had never really gone into Missouri further than the Walmart at the border, so we decided to head north and see what kind of diner we could find there. 30 minutes later we found ourselves at a Shoney’s in Neosho Missouri. Ryan would like me to mention that the front window of the Shoney’s was the home to one of the biggest spiders we had ever seen and its golf-ball sized egg sack. While we were waiting for the hostess to seat us Oliver found a rack of toys, and in that rack of toys was a stuffed penguin. Although I have tried Oliver has never really become attached to any kind of comfort item. He gave up the pacifier on his own at about 4 months of age, and never bonded with any blankets or stuffed animals.  As I was holding him on my hip pointing out the different animals, he reached over and grabbed the penguin and started to give it kisses. He continued to cuddle the penguin until breakfast arrived and he was distracted by a cup of milk. After breakfast daddy bought the penguin for him and we headed home. Thankfully the power was back on and we had just enough time to rush through a shower and go to a birthday party.

The penguin  has gone to bed with Oliver every night since and it gets kisses first thing in the moring when he wakes up. Oliver has made friends with a wide variety of stuffed animals, bears, monkeys, giraffes, bunnies, turtles, lions and even a javelina, but the penguin has found a special place in his heart.