Punkins, Separate Events, & Bills for Dummies

This blog never really follows a pattern, but this post is especially random. You’ve been warned.

Punkin Patchin‘

One thing I love about having a kid is that I can use him as an excuse to do childish things. You better believe I will be at every new Disney/Pixar movie that comes out, whether he is old enough to watch movies or not. (2 month olds enjoy a good flick every now and then, right?) Also, don’t think I didn’t consider taking him trick-or-treating so I could eat all the loot.

That said…I wanted to go to a pumpkin patch really bad this year. Taylor hated the idea, and rightly so. We weren’t carving pumpkins. Beckett wouldn’t enjoy it. It was mostly for me. And I loved it.

We went with our friends, the Morris family. For the record, Taylor ended up having a great time.

Beckett didn’t.

Yet I forced our immobile child to stay long enough for me to see and eat all I wanted to.

There was even a petting zoo. That term might be used loosely. There was a ghetto, handwritten cardboard sign that said “FARM ANIMALS” with an arrow pointing to a few caged goats and pigs. I have no idea if they were supposed to be pet (petted? pat?) or not.

In typical boy fashion, Enrique and Taylor just kept checking on the gender situation of the animals…

And in typical girl fashion, Lizeth and I kept demanding they photograph us. It was a win-win.

Separate Events

I’ve only been a parent for 71 days (hopefully it lasts longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage, a whopping 72 days) so I’m constantly learning what all this new gig entails.

On Sunday night, Team Brooks attended a tailgating/cookout/competition/fundraiser deal at our church. We got roped into entering the “competition” with our friends, the Ice family. So we went to the store to buy goodies, loaded up the grill, and set up shop in the parking lot at church….

That’s the extent of my knowledge about the tailgating festivities.

Why? Because I attended a separate event than everyone else.

I was stuck in some sub-world where there is no time for trying all the food because of the endless changing of diapers, avoiding direct sunlight, and keeping Beckett from bratwurst-greased stranger hands.

When we got back to the house, I told Whitney I felt like I had attended a whole separate event than everyone else.

I then realized this event is called parenthood.

It’s a very hungry, stressful event, but I’ll take it in a heartbeat.

Superheroes

Now that I’m a mom to a boy, I’m always keeping my eye out for boy-ish things, which is why I’m already saving all the bugs I find in mason jars. Just kidding. Or am I?

When I stumbled upon this Spiderman getup at Old Navy for $.47, I knew Beckett would be ecstatic.  

I was correct. 

I’m not a crazy coupon lady, but I do love a good deal. I would classify $.47 as a good deal. 

So good a deal, in fact, you may start to wonder why it’s so inexpensive.

Maybe because someone at Old Navy lost the pants that went with the shirt.

Even Beckett realizes a problem at this point. Oh well. Superheroes don’t have to have pants. I’d imagine they enjoy being pantless as much as the next guy.

Bills for Dummies

Going through the filing cabinet this week, I found this:

It’s an explanation from Cook Children’s about what our hospital bill would look like.

Does anything seem out of place to you? Like, maybe, the artwork?

It may help if I told you the accompanying NICU bill was around $20,000. The artwork is hilariously offensive in that perspective.

“You probably can’t understand the number 2 with four zeros behind it, so I’ll draw you a sad face to make it simple.”

The only reasoning I came up with for this is an attempt to distract us from the total amount we’re about to be charged by drawing the neonatalogist as stick figure with a pocket protector. It makes him seem a lot less expensive that way.

Funny stuff.

And fail, marketing department. Fail.