Last Friday, while I was out at the plant, Lyle dropped Keegan off at daycare. Lyle went to put Keegan's bottles in the fridge only to turn around and find that Keegan had crawled over to one of the highchairs, pulled himself up on it, and had proceeded to grab the tray and start swinging from the highchair tray. Lyle was amazed. Keegan's teacher turned around and sighed saying "Yep, he does that all the time." I guess I didn't realized swinging from things was a skill that babies learned before proficient walking.
Speaking of walking...Keegan can stand up by himself and take a couple of steps before falling down. Oh yeah and he tried to climb the bookcase again. He's just very....active....either that or he's part monkey. People keep telling it's great that his is so active, curious, and persistent. I agree but coming home at night is like having a second job; a fun job but a job nonetheless.
I get developmental news letters from Healthy Start for each month of Keegan's age. Reading through the last one there were a couple study results and interesting recommendations. First thing that I hadn't though of; they were recommending to not tell your baby "no" for everything but to explain to them why they shouldn't do that thing. You're supposed to save no for really important live-threatening things. Unfortunately I am trained to say "no" because that's what the dog and cats understand. So we have been trying this out. For instance when Keegan tries to tip the pets' water bowel over I say "That will make you wet and cold, you don't want to do that" instead of "no". Then I relocate him to a different part of the house. So far it hasn't been very effective; he really likes the water bowl. He likes to splash in it and lift it up and tip it over himself.
The other thing we have been having an issue with is that Keegan would rather play with anything other than his toys. The newsletter suggested hiding toys places to interest babies in them. So I started doing this with some of his toys. I don't hide them really well, but I'll stick one in a drawer in the kitchen and one sticking out between the couch cushions and maybe one between some books. This has worked like a charm. Keegan gets *so* excited to find the toys and then he will sit and play with the toy for a few minutes. Only thing I don't like about it is that there are toys all over the house. That and I bet we will open a drawer 5 years down the road and find a baby toy in there :-)
As I mentioned in the last post Keegan gained some new skills while I was at the plant. In addition to those, my mom has been teaching him to give high 5's. Keegan is very proficient at waving, he can kind of clap, and now he has added high 5's to his repertoire of gestures. This weekend he said his first word, and it was "dada". Actually it was more like "dadadadadadada". Whenever he says it now I tell Lyle "Oh, I think Keegan wants daddy" I don't actually think that Keegan associates dada with daddy but it's fun to think he does.
Just a couple more things to write about. Last night we took the cats (Loki and Jubei) to the vet for their yearly physical. Of course Keegan came along. Keegan loved being at the vet. I tried to hold with some standard of cleanliness and make him stay in his stroller but then finally gave up. Keegan and Jubei had a great time crawling around the exam room (Jubei walked though). Loki did his normal routine of sitting on the exam table and shaking in terror while trying to hide his head under my arm. Dr. Bear, our vet, and the vet tech had a lot of fun with Jubei, like normal. They also enjoyed meeting Keegan and watching Keegan and Jubei "play" together. Keegan was crazy happy the whole time we were there. Dr. Bear made a comment about how active Keegan was and how crazy our house must be with the 3 cats, Ruby, and Keegan. It's crazy but it's a good crazy...most of the time.
So today is Keegan's first Halloween. We got him all dressed in his lion costume this morning. I was going to go in as a pirate but was up really late last night ordering baby snow boots online (long story there) so when I woke up this morning getting all my pirate gear on looked like too much work. Instead I put on a black skirt, Halloween shirt, and my orange and black striped knee high socks. I think I look suitably Halloweeny. I stopped by Cub on my way into work to grab some Halloween cupcakes for my coworkers. Can you believe there is a line at Cub Foods at 6am for Halloween cupcakes? Ridiculous.
Anyway, at work there is a witch, an evil jester, and a Halloweeny me. I talked to Lyle and the little lion got to daycare just fine. Keegan seems perfectly thrilled to be crawling around in his Lion pants (they took the lion jacket and hood off until the Halloween parade). Tonight Keegan will be Tigger; unfortunately the Tigger costume isn't the easiest to change diapers in so he didn't wear it to daycare. I know, I know the kid's got two costumes for Halloween. What can I do, baby costumes are *so* awesome I just couldn't resist.
Tonight we are going to change costumes. Go over and hit Lyle's parents, maybe come back to our house and hit the neighbors, and then we will go and eat dinner at my parents house. It will be a busy night. I really shouldn't have stayed up so late last night but, what can I say, sometimes I get distracted online.
I should probably do some amount of work today. So off I go to work, work, work. Hope everyone had/has a Happy Halloween. I think Halloween is in a tie with Xmas for my favorite holiday. I am so excited to have a kid so we can celebrate with enthusiasm and not get too many weird looks.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
At the Plant Again
So after spending a week at home after our South Dakota trip I got to leave on a trip for work on Tuesday. I am back out in Oregon at the plant again.
Things are just as slow and frustrating as ever. On my 12 hour shift yesterday we had the coating web break (2 hrs downtime), unwrap table break (2 hrs downtime), an accumulater break (1 hr downtime). In the 12 hrs I was here we got three coatings done; our goal was to do one coating an hour. Then when I came back in 12 hrs later they had made wonderful progress and we were back on schedule. That is until the RTO broke; I have no idea what the RTO does, only that we've been waiting 3 hrs for it to be fixed.
I am on a strange shift this time, noon - midnight. Better than doing the night shift but a weird one. I get confused about what day it is and I am not sure when I am eating lunch, dinner, or breakfast. I will be here until midnight tonight and then I will catch the 5am flight back to Minneapolis tomorrow morning. Somehow this flight doesn't get into Minneapolis until 2pm. It's going to be a long 24 hrs.
All that being said, Keegan has been changing so fast that it is hard to be away from him and Lyle. In the three days I have been gone Keegan has said "bye bye" (although it was hard to hear bcs he had his nook in his mouth) and he has also learned how to give high 5's. Keegan is learning hand gestures very quickly now. He knows how to wave bye bye and will wave bye bye when ever you say bye bye to him. He also knows how to clap and now, how to give high 5's.
It sucks to miss all of these little things but I try to remember that being away from Keegan and Lyle always let's me appreciate being back with them even more. Still, it sucks. Especially since we have been on so many vacations lately and now our Halloween party is coming up. It just seems like I haven't been home at all lately and there is so much to do.
Anyway, I suppose I should get back to waiting. Supposidly the coater should be up in another hour or so. If I am lucky Brian will decide to come in a bit early and I can leave around 11pm and get a few hrs of sleep before catching my plane home.
Things are just as slow and frustrating as ever. On my 12 hour shift yesterday we had the coating web break (2 hrs downtime), unwrap table break (2 hrs downtime), an accumulater break (1 hr downtime). In the 12 hrs I was here we got three coatings done; our goal was to do one coating an hour. Then when I came back in 12 hrs later they had made wonderful progress and we were back on schedule. That is until the RTO broke; I have no idea what the RTO does, only that we've been waiting 3 hrs for it to be fixed.
I am on a strange shift this time, noon - midnight. Better than doing the night shift but a weird one. I get confused about what day it is and I am not sure when I am eating lunch, dinner, or breakfast. I will be here until midnight tonight and then I will catch the 5am flight back to Minneapolis tomorrow morning. Somehow this flight doesn't get into Minneapolis until 2pm. It's going to be a long 24 hrs.
All that being said, Keegan has been changing so fast that it is hard to be away from him and Lyle. In the three days I have been gone Keegan has said "bye bye" (although it was hard to hear bcs he had his nook in his mouth) and he has also learned how to give high 5's. Keegan is learning hand gestures very quickly now. He knows how to wave bye bye and will wave bye bye when ever you say bye bye to him. He also knows how to clap and now, how to give high 5's.
It sucks to miss all of these little things but I try to remember that being away from Keegan and Lyle always let's me appreciate being back with them even more. Still, it sucks. Especially since we have been on so many vacations lately and now our Halloween party is coming up. It just seems like I haven't been home at all lately and there is so much to do.
Anyway, I suppose I should get back to waiting. Supposidly the coater should be up in another hour or so. If I am lucky Brian will decide to come in a bit early and I can leave around 11pm and get a few hrs of sleep before catching my plane home.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Road Trip to South Dakota - Day 4 (and the trip home)
So Keegan followed his new found tradition of waking up at 1am to be fed and then waking up again at 6am to eat. Keegan went back to sleep right away after eating and Lyle and I were grateful. Everyone was kind of dragging a little bit this morning. Apparently we had tried to do a bit too much the previous 3 days and we were ready to take a break.
Lyle, Cate, Chris, and I were all up around 9am and then Keegan woke up around 9:30am. I fed Keegan and we all piled into the car. It was nasty outside. Probably around 50 degrees, windy, and drizzling. We had lucked out so far; all of the previous days had been absolutely beautiful. Now we were paying for it. The plan for today was to go to Wind Cave and then maybe think of something to do after that.
We stopped at a different coffee shop in Hill City. This was a very nice coffee shop, very similar to what you would find in the Twin Cities. Chris, Cate, and I went in while Lyle stayed in the car with an already sleeping Keegan. Lyle was starting to feel a bit under the weather with a cold, and I was still fighting my lovely cold. Anyway, I got a Cafe Mocha and a hot chocolate for Lyle. I also got a white chocolate raspberry scone for breakfast (yummy!). We all got back into the car with our drinks and drove to Wind Cave. We were trying to make it to the 11:30am cave tour.
We got there a little after 11am. It was a Saturday so there were quit a few more people waiting for the tour. Keegan got to crawl around the carpet for awhile and we looked at some rock samples from the cave. We toured the gift shop and found a cute kids book on how caves are formed along with a map of Wind Cave. Lyle and I decided to buy those on the way out.
When it was time to go to the cave we all piled outside and stood under a shelter to avoid the rain. It was blustery and damp and we were all kind of huddled there waiting for the guide. Finally the state park guide arrived and took us to the natural entrance of the cave, which was outside. The natural entrance was a hole about 6.5" in diameter. Wind cave gets its name from the hurricane force winds that can sometimes be found going in and out of the natural entrance. One of the little boys on the tour thought we were going down that hole and got really scared. We didn't have to shimmy down there though; good thing too the backpack would have never fit...much less my butt.
Anyway the entrance we used was an entrance that was made for excavation and tours a long time ago. They have a revolving door installed at the entrance now; after you pass through that you go past a thick wood door with iron bars in it. This used to be the old door. Apparently this old door modified climate in the cave enough that it caused a collapse in the 1950's or 60's (I can't remember exactly). Anyway they put in the revolving door to help with this.
The tour guide on this tour was awesome. He explained that they have some experiments going on with different types of lights in the cave. Apparently normal incandescent lights encourage algae growth which they don't want in the cave; they are looking at going to LEDs since they are cooler and cheaper to run.
Wind Caves was much more enclosed than Jewel Caves. You walked on the ground for the majority of the tour; which I liked. What I didn't like is that some passages are very low and enclosed...normally not a problem. Of course if you have a baby in a backpack, like Lyle did, that means you almost have to get down on your knees and crawl through some spots. I was Lyle's spotter and I stayed behind him to let him know how deep he had to duck. It's a bit of a trick to watch your own footing and try not to bump your own head while telling Lyle "okay, now down a couple inches more..."
They had told us when we bought the tickets that some of the passages were low and we would need to duck some. Unfortunately I think Lyle had to squat or crawl for 70% of the tour. Lyle definitely worked up a sweat by the end of the tour. Oddly enough Keegan slept for probably an hour of the tour. This ended up being a good thing since the passages were also very narrow. You are never supposed to touch the walls of a cave because this can damage the natural growth of a cave; it's the number one cave tour rule. Well try telling this to a 8 month old baby who keeps stretching to reach the walls from the backpack. We did pretty good in preventing Keegan from doing cave touching but he got a couple fingerprints in here and there.
It was a good tour. Wind Cave is the third largest cave in the nation. The second is Jewel Cave and the first is Mammoth Cave. Both Wind Cave and Jewel Cave, despite their enormous size, are thought to only have 5-10% of the total underground cave area mapped and excavated. After the tour we went to the gift shop to make some purchases and then got back in the car.
We didn't really have any solid plans on what to do next; so we decided to go to Rapid City for lunch and then maybe stop by the Reptile Gardens on the way back to the lodge.
We ate at a late lunch at a pretty good Mexican restaurant in Rapid City, I can't remember the name of it. Then we started talking about finding a book store. We had been joking earlier on the way from Hill City to Hot Springs that wouldn't it be awesome if all the sudden in the middle of the Black Hills there was a Barnes and Noble? Anyway, Lyle did a search on his cell phone and found out there were 3 Borders Books in the Rapid City area. We decided to forsake the rural roads and visit some good old surburbaness. We drove to the Borders and went in to peruse the books. The Borders was insanely busy and it was right next to a Best Buy.
We were having trouble downloading the pictures from the camera to the laptop. Lyle wanted to get a USB SD card reader so that we could read the SD card from the camera. So next we went to Best Buy. Cate found a CD that she had wanted and we found our USB SD card reader.
We all got back into the car. It was still miserable out and it was around 4-5pm. We decided to forgo Reptile Gardens and just go back to the lodge.
When we got back to the lodge I fed Keegan and then we let him roam around for awhile. We all started getting our stuff packed up. I was standing in the living room when a mouse ran out from under the couch to under the fridge. It startled me, Lyle and Chris who had seen it. We thought something had nibbled on the bread we had left out from the night before but couldn't decide if someone had eaten some of the bread or if something had nibbled it. Well, now we knew! Cate and I were both unhappy with this new development...we had all really liked this lodge. Chris and Lyle didn't think it was that big of a deal...after all we were in the country and this was a field mouse. Well life went on. We put Keegan to bed and resumed packing.
With almost everything packed we ate a dinner of snacks again and then went to bed.
Keegan woke up at 11pm wanting a bottle so we complied. Then we all got up at 5am and, after final packing and loading, we left by 6am.
Keegan was very crabby for the first 2 hours of the drive. He didn't want to eat, didn't want to play with any toys, he just wanted to be out of his carseat and I couldn't really blame him. Lyle and I listened to our audio book some more. We stopped at a gas station for snacks and a potty break. Keegan got to eat his solids then and when we got back into the car he was happier and fell asleep. There were a couple more pit stops on the way home but all in all Keegan was good for the remainder of the trip. It was rainy and cold the whole drive home. We finally got home around 5:30pm; Lyle and I were tired and Keegan wanted to play, play, play.
It had been a good trip overall. Although we learned that traveling with a baby is a lot of work! I was very impressed with how good Keegan was the whole time. Of course, there were times when having him there made me a bit of a nervous wreck...I was worried about his being too cold in the caves, I was worried about him not eating because he was tired and cranky, I was worried about him being too noisy at night and waking Cate and Chris up, there was just so much to worry about :-) Despite all of my worries we had fun. Though I am having second thoughts about traveling internationally with him; at least until he is off formula and baby food!
Lyle, Cate, Chris, and I were all up around 9am and then Keegan woke up around 9:30am. I fed Keegan and we all piled into the car. It was nasty outside. Probably around 50 degrees, windy, and drizzling. We had lucked out so far; all of the previous days had been absolutely beautiful. Now we were paying for it. The plan for today was to go to Wind Cave and then maybe think of something to do after that.
We stopped at a different coffee shop in Hill City. This was a very nice coffee shop, very similar to what you would find in the Twin Cities. Chris, Cate, and I went in while Lyle stayed in the car with an already sleeping Keegan. Lyle was starting to feel a bit under the weather with a cold, and I was still fighting my lovely cold. Anyway, I got a Cafe Mocha and a hot chocolate for Lyle. I also got a white chocolate raspberry scone for breakfast (yummy!). We all got back into the car with our drinks and drove to Wind Cave. We were trying to make it to the 11:30am cave tour.
We got there a little after 11am. It was a Saturday so there were quit a few more people waiting for the tour. Keegan got to crawl around the carpet for awhile and we looked at some rock samples from the cave. We toured the gift shop and found a cute kids book on how caves are formed along with a map of Wind Cave. Lyle and I decided to buy those on the way out.
When it was time to go to the cave we all piled outside and stood under a shelter to avoid the rain. It was blustery and damp and we were all kind of huddled there waiting for the guide. Finally the state park guide arrived and took us to the natural entrance of the cave, which was outside. The natural entrance was a hole about 6.5" in diameter. Wind cave gets its name from the hurricane force winds that can sometimes be found going in and out of the natural entrance. One of the little boys on the tour thought we were going down that hole and got really scared. We didn't have to shimmy down there though; good thing too the backpack would have never fit...much less my butt.
Anyway the entrance we used was an entrance that was made for excavation and tours a long time ago. They have a revolving door installed at the entrance now; after you pass through that you go past a thick wood door with iron bars in it. This used to be the old door. Apparently this old door modified climate in the cave enough that it caused a collapse in the 1950's or 60's (I can't remember exactly). Anyway they put in the revolving door to help with this.
The tour guide on this tour was awesome. He explained that they have some experiments going on with different types of lights in the cave. Apparently normal incandescent lights encourage algae growth which they don't want in the cave; they are looking at going to LEDs since they are cooler and cheaper to run.
Wind Caves was much more enclosed than Jewel Caves. You walked on the ground for the majority of the tour; which I liked. What I didn't like is that some passages are very low and enclosed...normally not a problem. Of course if you have a baby in a backpack, like Lyle did, that means you almost have to get down on your knees and crawl through some spots. I was Lyle's spotter and I stayed behind him to let him know how deep he had to duck. It's a bit of a trick to watch your own footing and try not to bump your own head while telling Lyle "okay, now down a couple inches more..."
They had told us when we bought the tickets that some of the passages were low and we would need to duck some. Unfortunately I think Lyle had to squat or crawl for 70% of the tour. Lyle definitely worked up a sweat by the end of the tour. Oddly enough Keegan slept for probably an hour of the tour. This ended up being a good thing since the passages were also very narrow. You are never supposed to touch the walls of a cave because this can damage the natural growth of a cave; it's the number one cave tour rule. Well try telling this to a 8 month old baby who keeps stretching to reach the walls from the backpack. We did pretty good in preventing Keegan from doing cave touching but he got a couple fingerprints in here and there.
It was a good tour. Wind Cave is the third largest cave in the nation. The second is Jewel Cave and the first is Mammoth Cave. Both Wind Cave and Jewel Cave, despite their enormous size, are thought to only have 5-10% of the total underground cave area mapped and excavated. After the tour we went to the gift shop to make some purchases and then got back in the car.
We didn't really have any solid plans on what to do next; so we decided to go to Rapid City for lunch and then maybe stop by the Reptile Gardens on the way back to the lodge.
We ate at a late lunch at a pretty good Mexican restaurant in Rapid City, I can't remember the name of it. Then we started talking about finding a book store. We had been joking earlier on the way from Hill City to Hot Springs that wouldn't it be awesome if all the sudden in the middle of the Black Hills there was a Barnes and Noble? Anyway, Lyle did a search on his cell phone and found out there were 3 Borders Books in the Rapid City area. We decided to forsake the rural roads and visit some good old surburbaness. We drove to the Borders and went in to peruse the books. The Borders was insanely busy and it was right next to a Best Buy.
We were having trouble downloading the pictures from the camera to the laptop. Lyle wanted to get a USB SD card reader so that we could read the SD card from the camera. So next we went to Best Buy. Cate found a CD that she had wanted and we found our USB SD card reader.
We all got back into the car. It was still miserable out and it was around 4-5pm. We decided to forgo Reptile Gardens and just go back to the lodge.
When we got back to the lodge I fed Keegan and then we let him roam around for awhile. We all started getting our stuff packed up. I was standing in the living room when a mouse ran out from under the couch to under the fridge. It startled me, Lyle and Chris who had seen it. We thought something had nibbled on the bread we had left out from the night before but couldn't decide if someone had eaten some of the bread or if something had nibbled it. Well, now we knew! Cate and I were both unhappy with this new development...we had all really liked this lodge. Chris and Lyle didn't think it was that big of a deal...after all we were in the country and this was a field mouse. Well life went on. We put Keegan to bed and resumed packing.
With almost everything packed we ate a dinner of snacks again and then went to bed.
Keegan woke up at 11pm wanting a bottle so we complied. Then we all got up at 5am and, after final packing and loading, we left by 6am.
Keegan was very crabby for the first 2 hours of the drive. He didn't want to eat, didn't want to play with any toys, he just wanted to be out of his carseat and I couldn't really blame him. Lyle and I listened to our audio book some more. We stopped at a gas station for snacks and a potty break. Keegan got to eat his solids then and when we got back into the car he was happier and fell asleep. There were a couple more pit stops on the way home but all in all Keegan was good for the remainder of the trip. It was rainy and cold the whole drive home. We finally got home around 5:30pm; Lyle and I were tired and Keegan wanted to play, play, play.
It had been a good trip overall. Although we learned that traveling with a baby is a lot of work! I was very impressed with how good Keegan was the whole time. Of course, there were times when having him there made me a bit of a nervous wreck...I was worried about his being too cold in the caves, I was worried about him not eating because he was tired and cranky, I was worried about him being too noisy at night and waking Cate and Chris up, there was just so much to worry about :-) Despite all of my worries we had fun. Though I am having second thoughts about traveling internationally with him; at least until he is off formula and baby food!
Friday, October 19, 2007
Road Trip to South Dakota - Day 3
Keegan woke us up at 6 am again to eat. After a quick feeding he went back to sleep. Lyle and I got up around 8:30am. While I got dressed and ready; Lyle started making french toast for all of us. Cate, Chris, Lyle, and I ate french toast together. Shortly after Keegan woke up and I fed him. We all discussed what we were going to do today. It was decided that since it was supposed to rain the next day that we would save taking the Wind Cave tour for tomorrow. Tops for the agenda today was seeing Mount Rushmore. Second most important was going to Hot Spring to see the Mammoth site.
We all got into the car to go to Mount Rushmore. When we got there Keegan was strapped in his backpack and hoisted onto Lyle's back. Mount Rushmore was very nice; it was very impressive after the disappointment of Crazy Horse. It's a very beautiful site. As we walked down the promenade bordered by flags of the various states; we heard that a tour would be starting in 5 minutes. So we decided to join the tour. The tour went along presidents trail snaking around the amphitheater and beneath the carving. Mount Rushmore was different than all of us expected. The carving was higher up and further away than any of us thought it was going to be; it also looked smaller.
As we had found was the trend; Keegan got very restless when we stopped moving to listen about the history behind Mount Rushmore. Between bouts of blowing my horribly stuffy nose, I whispered to Lyle that if he put the backpack down I would take Keegan out and let him play a little. The tour moved very slowly; so Keegan and I "walked" behind the group. Occasionally I let him crawl along the paved trail. He was having a blast and keep giving people these huge grins. He made quit a few friends during the tour.
We all enjoyed the walk and the tour. The tour took a very reasonable 30 minutes and afterwards we wandered around the gift shop. I was hungry and convinced everyone we should check out the cafeteria. The general consensus was pizza for lunch would be nummy. After a quick perusal of the cafeteria and a potty stop we decided to get lunch in Keystone. Keegan needed a quick diaper change in the car before we were off.
Lyle had seen a pizza place across from the Keystone Mall. I think calling it a mall was a bit of a stretch. It was maybe seven or eight touristy type shops in a row with a somewhat western theme to the building architecture. We found out shortly after parking, that most of these shops were closed for the season. So we ended up at a different pizza shop in the Mall. Oddly enough the pizza place was run by a middle eastern family; it was odd because so far this part of South Dakota had been predominately non-ethnic. The pizza was nothing special but it was pizza. Keegan ate a bottle with some prodding and we paid. Then back into the car and off to Hot Springs.
We found the Mammoth Site without much trouble. On the way to Hot Springs Keegan and I both fell asleep in the car. Cate and Chris sat in the back looking over maps and information on the area. Once at Mammoth Site Lyle went to purchase tickets for us all and I perused the shop. I bought Keegan a small stuffed mammoth that he liked a lot and a small t-shirt that said something mammothly funny on it. We went in to watch the pre-tour video. Keegan was in his stroller and decided that he didn't really want to be in his stroller. He was getting tired and crabby. So him and I left the video and went to walk around some. When the tour started we fell in with the rest of the group. Shortly after we entered the mammoth site Lyle and I realized there was going to be a lot of standing and not much moving; not an ideal situation with Keegan.
Lyle took Keegan out of the stroller and put Keegan on his shoulders. This had Keegan giggling gleefully and loudly. The tour guide had us listen to her through phones that were propped over the railing that was around the mammoth site. It was cool to see all of the mammoth bones. The tour guide was unimpressive though; she was maybe 15 and kept describing the mammoths as "like, really cool" not the kind of tour I was expecting. Maybe I am just getting old. But hearing about how mammoths thought the water hole was "like just awesome" was just weird. Needless to say Lyle and I stopped listening to her and tried to keep Keegan busy. After Keegan got bored of riding on Lyle's shoulders Lyle let him down to hang onto the chain link that enclosed the area. Keegan happily stood there holding onto the chain link and rattling it back and forth with a huge smile on his face; he though he was *so* cool :-)
After the tour we went to the exhibition area which was really lame. It had a replica of the columbia mammoth and some cases exhibited replicas of animal bones etc. We then took the elevator down to the research lab area. Down there there were a couple small windows looking into the lab and a sheet of paper taped to the wall that said "go ahead and ask question, we can hear you!". Except there wasn't a single person in the lab that we could see; so we went back upstairs and got into the car and left. All in all a somewhat disappointing stop; although seeing the mammoths was neat. We debated going to find a bookstore in Hot Springs but we were all sick of driving around so we decided to go back to the lodge. On the way we though we would go through Custer Park and drive the wild life loop.
It was getting late, probably around 4pm, when we got to Custer Park. The wildlife loop was awesome. On the way there Lyle pulled over because Chris and I wanted to take pictures of the prairie dogs. Lyle, being a Nebraska native, kept mumbling about why in the world would we want pictures of the annoying vermin he used to throw rocks at. Chris and I tried running down the prairie dogs to get pictures of them and, when they proved too fast for us, we resorted to stalking them. Well that didn't work very well either; we got a lot of pictures of empty holes in the ground though. Keegan had been sleeping and, upon the stopping of the car, had started to wake up. Apparently he got upset when he woke up and Lyle honked the horn on the car yelling that Keegan was getting upset and that we probably had enough rodent pictures. Chris and I returned to the car.
Upon entering the wildlife loop we saw a ton of elk, antelope, wild turkeys, prairie dogs and even a coyote. Finally we saw the motherload of all creatures; a Bison sitting quietly in a field. We were so excited; I especially could hardly contain myself this was *so* much more exciting than a prairie dog. As the bison slept in the field I thought about all the road signs we saw that said "Buffalo are dangerous, admire them from your car"; he didn't look that dangerous. Shortly after we saw a whole herd of buffalo in the road in front of us. The small amount of traffic going through the park came to a stop as we tried to weave our way through all of the buffalo. I opened up my window to get good pictures. That seemed to make Lyle kind of nervous; he was like "you can shut your window any time now".
The most exciting part of the ride was over after the buffalo. We realized we were only about 1/3 the way through the wild life loop and it had been some 45 minutes since we started. I was getting particularly grumpy being hungry, carsick, and tired. Keegan had woken up and Cate and Chris were trying to amuse him as he crabbed in the back. Finally we gave up on trying to get to the lodge before Keegan's feeding time and pulled the car over. Lyle fed Keegan in the back of the car while Cate and Chris wandered around looking for neat rocks. I tried to figure out how long it was going to take us to get back to the lodge. Realizing how far we still had to go; I recommended driving by Mt. Rushmore in the dark since it was already getting dark.
I was extremely car sick and asked Lyle if I could drive for a bit since that always makes me feel better. We all got back into the car when Keegan was done eating and had been changed. Shortly after I started driving we ran into the infamous burros. The walked right up to the car and stared in the windows; we stopped to take pictures. I have got to say the drive was probably one of the funnest ones I've ever done. With a spd limit of 30 mph and all the twisting and turning and the one way tunnels it was a bit of an adventure and was a fun, if long, drive. After we left the park we stopped to take some pictures of Mt. Rushmore all lit up.
After 3 hours in Custer State Park (who knew the drive would take that long) we ended up back at the lodge around 7pm. It was bedtime for Keegan and he was crabby and wouldn't eat. Keegan went down to bed. The rest of us were strangely exhausted despite having spent the majority of the day in the car. Cate and I went to go take naps. Lyle and Chris ran out to the gas station to get gas and pop. When I woke up I had another excellent dinner of popcorn and ice cream cake. We watched "America's Most Smartest Model" on TV and then went to bed. Everyone was probably in bed by 9pm. Keegan woke up around 10:30 pm hungry, so we fed him and then went back to bed. Trying to rest up for our last day in South Dakota.
We all got into the car to go to Mount Rushmore. When we got there Keegan was strapped in his backpack and hoisted onto Lyle's back. Mount Rushmore was very nice; it was very impressive after the disappointment of Crazy Horse. It's a very beautiful site. As we walked down the promenade bordered by flags of the various states; we heard that a tour would be starting in 5 minutes. So we decided to join the tour. The tour went along presidents trail snaking around the amphitheater and beneath the carving. Mount Rushmore was different than all of us expected. The carving was higher up and further away than any of us thought it was going to be; it also looked smaller.
As we had found was the trend; Keegan got very restless when we stopped moving to listen about the history behind Mount Rushmore. Between bouts of blowing my horribly stuffy nose, I whispered to Lyle that if he put the backpack down I would take Keegan out and let him play a little. The tour moved very slowly; so Keegan and I "walked" behind the group. Occasionally I let him crawl along the paved trail. He was having a blast and keep giving people these huge grins. He made quit a few friends during the tour.
We all enjoyed the walk and the tour. The tour took a very reasonable 30 minutes and afterwards we wandered around the gift shop. I was hungry and convinced everyone we should check out the cafeteria. The general consensus was pizza for lunch would be nummy. After a quick perusal of the cafeteria and a potty stop we decided to get lunch in Keystone. Keegan needed a quick diaper change in the car before we were off.
Lyle had seen a pizza place across from the Keystone Mall. I think calling it a mall was a bit of a stretch. It was maybe seven or eight touristy type shops in a row with a somewhat western theme to the building architecture. We found out shortly after parking, that most of these shops were closed for the season. So we ended up at a different pizza shop in the Mall. Oddly enough the pizza place was run by a middle eastern family; it was odd because so far this part of South Dakota had been predominately non-ethnic. The pizza was nothing special but it was pizza. Keegan ate a bottle with some prodding and we paid. Then back into the car and off to Hot Springs.
We found the Mammoth Site without much trouble. On the way to Hot Springs Keegan and I both fell asleep in the car. Cate and Chris sat in the back looking over maps and information on the area. Once at Mammoth Site Lyle went to purchase tickets for us all and I perused the shop. I bought Keegan a small stuffed mammoth that he liked a lot and a small t-shirt that said something mammothly funny on it. We went in to watch the pre-tour video. Keegan was in his stroller and decided that he didn't really want to be in his stroller. He was getting tired and crabby. So him and I left the video and went to walk around some. When the tour started we fell in with the rest of the group. Shortly after we entered the mammoth site Lyle and I realized there was going to be a lot of standing and not much moving; not an ideal situation with Keegan.
Lyle took Keegan out of the stroller and put Keegan on his shoulders. This had Keegan giggling gleefully and loudly. The tour guide had us listen to her through phones that were propped over the railing that was around the mammoth site. It was cool to see all of the mammoth bones. The tour guide was unimpressive though; she was maybe 15 and kept describing the mammoths as "like, really cool" not the kind of tour I was expecting. Maybe I am just getting old. But hearing about how mammoths thought the water hole was "like just awesome" was just weird. Needless to say Lyle and I stopped listening to her and tried to keep Keegan busy. After Keegan got bored of riding on Lyle's shoulders Lyle let him down to hang onto the chain link that enclosed the area. Keegan happily stood there holding onto the chain link and rattling it back and forth with a huge smile on his face; he though he was *so* cool :-)
After the tour we went to the exhibition area which was really lame. It had a replica of the columbia mammoth and some cases exhibited replicas of animal bones etc. We then took the elevator down to the research lab area. Down there there were a couple small windows looking into the lab and a sheet of paper taped to the wall that said "go ahead and ask question, we can hear you!". Except there wasn't a single person in the lab that we could see; so we went back upstairs and got into the car and left. All in all a somewhat disappointing stop; although seeing the mammoths was neat. We debated going to find a bookstore in Hot Springs but we were all sick of driving around so we decided to go back to the lodge. On the way we though we would go through Custer Park and drive the wild life loop.
It was getting late, probably around 4pm, when we got to Custer Park. The wildlife loop was awesome. On the way there Lyle pulled over because Chris and I wanted to take pictures of the prairie dogs. Lyle, being a Nebraska native, kept mumbling about why in the world would we want pictures of the annoying vermin he used to throw rocks at. Chris and I tried running down the prairie dogs to get pictures of them and, when they proved too fast for us, we resorted to stalking them. Well that didn't work very well either; we got a lot of pictures of empty holes in the ground though. Keegan had been sleeping and, upon the stopping of the car, had started to wake up. Apparently he got upset when he woke up and Lyle honked the horn on the car yelling that Keegan was getting upset and that we probably had enough rodent pictures. Chris and I returned to the car.
Upon entering the wildlife loop we saw a ton of elk, antelope, wild turkeys, prairie dogs and even a coyote. Finally we saw the motherload of all creatures; a Bison sitting quietly in a field. We were so excited; I especially could hardly contain myself this was *so* much more exciting than a prairie dog. As the bison slept in the field I thought about all the road signs we saw that said "Buffalo are dangerous, admire them from your car"; he didn't look that dangerous. Shortly after we saw a whole herd of buffalo in the road in front of us. The small amount of traffic going through the park came to a stop as we tried to weave our way through all of the buffalo. I opened up my window to get good pictures. That seemed to make Lyle kind of nervous; he was like "you can shut your window any time now".
The most exciting part of the ride was over after the buffalo. We realized we were only about 1/3 the way through the wild life loop and it had been some 45 minutes since we started. I was getting particularly grumpy being hungry, carsick, and tired. Keegan had woken up and Cate and Chris were trying to amuse him as he crabbed in the back. Finally we gave up on trying to get to the lodge before Keegan's feeding time and pulled the car over. Lyle fed Keegan in the back of the car while Cate and Chris wandered around looking for neat rocks. I tried to figure out how long it was going to take us to get back to the lodge. Realizing how far we still had to go; I recommended driving by Mt. Rushmore in the dark since it was already getting dark.
I was extremely car sick and asked Lyle if I could drive for a bit since that always makes me feel better. We all got back into the car when Keegan was done eating and had been changed. Shortly after I started driving we ran into the infamous burros. The walked right up to the car and stared in the windows; we stopped to take pictures. I have got to say the drive was probably one of the funnest ones I've ever done. With a spd limit of 30 mph and all the twisting and turning and the one way tunnels it was a bit of an adventure and was a fun, if long, drive. After we left the park we stopped to take some pictures of Mt. Rushmore all lit up.
After 3 hours in Custer State Park (who knew the drive would take that long) we ended up back at the lodge around 7pm. It was bedtime for Keegan and he was crabby and wouldn't eat. Keegan went down to bed. The rest of us were strangely exhausted despite having spent the majority of the day in the car. Cate and I went to go take naps. Lyle and Chris ran out to the gas station to get gas and pop. When I woke up I had another excellent dinner of popcorn and ice cream cake. We watched "America's Most Smartest Model" on TV and then went to bed. Everyone was probably in bed by 9pm. Keegan woke up around 10:30 pm hungry, so we fed him and then went back to bed. Trying to rest up for our last day in South Dakota.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Road Trip to South Dakota - Day 2
So on to Day 2 of our trip. Keegan woke up at 6am hungry so we gave him a bottle. We convinced him to go back to sleep. Lyle and I got up around 8:30am; Cate and Chris got up around the same time. Lyle and I spent a little time playing the Wii while we waited for Keegan to wake up. By 9am Keegan was awake again. We all piled into the car and headed into Hill City to get something for breakfast. We found a coffee shop in Hill City; thank goodness for small blessings. Keegan was strapped into his stroller and we went over to get breakfast. The coffee shop was also the town's office supply store, copy center, book store, and Harry Potter merchandise store. It was interesting, I guess you need to have your fingers in a lot of pies to make it as a business in such a small town. I got a Cafe Mocha Latte and a bagel with cream cheese. We sat outside the shop in the sun and ate breakfast; while plotting out the events we would undertake for the day. Keegan was content in his stroller for a few minutes and then I had to get up and walk him in circles to keep him happy.
Cate and I poured over the map and it was decided that we were closest to the Crazy Horse memorial so we would go there first. Crazy Horse was on the way to Jewel Caves so we would go there second. Then we planned on driving through Custer State Park on our way out to Mount Rushmore. The drive to Crazy Horse was nice; the black hills are very pretty. We had all heard that paying to get into the Crazy Horse monument was silly so we were looking for a place to see it from the road. Fat chance of that; we ended up down a one way road at a ticket booth and payed $25 for the car to get into the memorial area. Keegan had fallen asleep on the way there; and being we were going through the caves next Lyle and I were reluctant to wake him. We took pictures of the memorial from the car and then I offered to stay in the car with Keegan while the others went into the Crazy Horse Museum.
I wasn't feeling great; I still had a cold from earlier in the week and was more than happy to sit out in the car and wait. Lyle, Cate, and Chris came back from the museum maybe 10 minutes after they had gone in. There was a lot of mumbling about how I really hadn't missed much and how lame it was to have paid anything to see that. For an additional $4 a person we could have taken a bus up to the memorial but that seemed really lame considering we had paid $25 to get in there in the first place. Grumbling about what a lame stop this was we got back into the car and took off for Jewel Caves.
Of course Keegan woke up as soon as we left the Crazy Horse memorial parking lot. Then as we started moving again he promptly went back to sleep. On the way to Jewel Caves we passed a lot of forest where the pine trees had no needles and were just dark sticks of wood sticking up from the ground. We found out later that a fire had gone through the area in 2004 destroying much of the forest in that region.
We got to Jewel Caves 30 minutes before the next tour. So Lyle and I brought in Keegan's bottle and we tried to get him to eat some formula. There was a little room where we could watch a video. Cate and I sat down to watch the video while I fed Keegan. Lyle and Chris disappeared; a short time later they reappeared with pictures of themselves trying to get through the example 7.5 inch crawl space that you needed to be able to make it through to take the spelunking cave tour. After Keegan was done eating he crawled around under the chairs in front of the video screen. There was really no one there and the floor looked reasonably clean; since he was going to be strapped in his backpack for the next hour and a half I figured there was no harm in him getting rid of all that energy.
We had to run back to the car to divest ourselves of all bags and other items. We were only allowed to bring in cameras and the baby backpack. The cave tour started with a long elevator ride down. Keegan enjoyed this immensely and kept shouting out and giggling with joy. Jewel caves was immense; bigger than any caves I had been in before. There were over 700 steps we had to take up and down. All of the steps were made of aluminum that was kind of slippery in the dampness of the cave; the rails were also aluminum and were wet to the touch. The steepness of the stairs made me nervous. I was trying to make sure and let Lyle know when he needed to duck so he wouldn't whack Keegan's head on the cave ceiling. All of the catwalks and steep staircases went over very deep crevices and chasms in the cave. I do not like heights. I was also on cold medicine and that was making me a little dizzy. I fought vertigo the whole time we were in that cave. The openess of the cave and the height of the stairs were horrible. I was constantly scared that Lyle would slip (which of course he didn't). And everytime Lyle turned to talk to me with Keegan and the backpack hanging out over the rail over a chasm I almost had a stroke. I know Keegan was strapped into the backpack but I keep having this vision of him falling down, down, down....
I figured I was the only neurotic one of the group. Thankfully I wasn't. As we crossed one particularly long catwalk over a particularly deep chasm, Cate murmured something to the effect of; wow wasn't this just great taking this little aluminum catwalk over a large height, she didn't like heights and she also didn't find the wet slippery handrails particularly reassuring. It made me happy that I wasn't the only one finding this cave walk a little intimidating. By the end of it all I was just happy to get out of there. Keegan was very good throughout the tour. He would start "talking" whenever we stopped moving though. Lyle had to keep walking in circles to keep Keegan calm. Keegan wasn't upset he was just excited. At one point the tour guide asked if we had any questions and Keegan said "Booo GGaaa Gaaa Maaa" really loud. Everyone got a laugh out of that.
Well now it was almost 2pm and we still hadn't eaten lunch. We drove into the town of Custer and ate at a small restaurant there. The food was nothing special but it was good enough. I felt kind of bad that we left a ton of cheerios under the high chair. I think Keegan dropped 10x as many cheerios as he actually ate. Custer had a candy shop in it. We went to the candy shop and got some dark chocolate covered caramels and some truffles. Keegan walked around the shop with some assistance and then snuck some hard candy sticks out of a bin and tried to chew on them. I put them back and let him know he's not big enough for that yet. The owner of the shop said "well you could buy some for him to eat later"... Luckily she was just kidding and we left the shop planning to go to Custer State Park.
When we got to Custer State Park the park ranger at the entrance asked us if we had ever been there. We were like "No". So she highlighted a couple of the roads on the Custer State Park map and recommended taking the Needles Hwy Drive or the Wildlife Loop. Although she said that they had just round up the Bison on the Wildlife loop so it might be better to do that a different day. She mentioned that the Needles Hwy Drive was very nice and would take an hour or so to get through. We discussed it and looking at the map decided the lady was exaggerating and there was no way that Needles Hwy drive could take that long. So we opted to do that; we figured we could still get to Mount Rushmore.
Half an hour later we still weren't to the start of the Needles Hwy drive and we began to wonder about timing. Keegan fell asleep in the back and fitfully snored through the whole discussion. The Needles Hwy Drive was awesome but it was also very slow. With the winding road, 30 mph speed limit, and the one-way tunnels it took us much longer to progress down the road than we had initially thought. There were a couple highlights on the drive. The biggest one was the cathedral spires formation. This appeared through the trees as we crested a hill. Excitedly Chris and I told Lyle to pull over so we could take pictures. Lyle pulled off of the road and him and Chris noticed that there were some rocks you could climb up on the opposite side of the road. Him and Chris took off up the road. I started to go after them and remembered Keegan was sleeping in the back of the car. Cate saw me hesitate and told me to go on, she didn't want to climb up there and would stay with Keegan. So we climbed up the rocks it was a beautiful view. We took lots of pictures and then climbed back down.
The rock formations on needles hwy were really cool. That is until Lyle started comparing them with various parts of the male anatomy. The next highlight was Sylvan Lake. This is a beautiful Lake in the middle of all of this rock. It reminded me a lot of Lake Loise in Banff National Park. We wound around and around and finally got out of Custer State Park. It was after 5pm by the time we escaped Needles Hwy and Mount Rushmore was closed. We decided to go back to the lodge.
We stopped by the market in Hill City and got some stuff to make on the grill. Upon getting back to the lodge no one was really hungry. While I fed Keegan, Cate and Chris went out to get everyone ice cream. It was decided since no one was hungry we'd have ice cream for dinner. After Keegan was fed I gave him to Lyle to put to bed. Keegan fell asleep easily, exhausted. Cate and Chris came back without the desired ice cream because all the Dairy Queens closed at 7pm; but they managed to find an ice cream pie at the market. We sat around eating chips and ice cream pie. Then Lyle was determined to fire up the hot tub outside. We all piled into the hot tub and watched the deer grazing out in the forested area behind the lodge. Then it was time for bed.
Keegan woke us at 1am hungry again and had to eat. I struggled with a stuffy nose and cough all night. Other than those things the day had gone great and we were looking forward to the next day.
Cate and I poured over the map and it was decided that we were closest to the Crazy Horse memorial so we would go there first. Crazy Horse was on the way to Jewel Caves so we would go there second. Then we planned on driving through Custer State Park on our way out to Mount Rushmore. The drive to Crazy Horse was nice; the black hills are very pretty. We had all heard that paying to get into the Crazy Horse monument was silly so we were looking for a place to see it from the road. Fat chance of that; we ended up down a one way road at a ticket booth and payed $25 for the car to get into the memorial area. Keegan had fallen asleep on the way there; and being we were going through the caves next Lyle and I were reluctant to wake him. We took pictures of the memorial from the car and then I offered to stay in the car with Keegan while the others went into the Crazy Horse Museum.
I wasn't feeling great; I still had a cold from earlier in the week and was more than happy to sit out in the car and wait. Lyle, Cate, and Chris came back from the museum maybe 10 minutes after they had gone in. There was a lot of mumbling about how I really hadn't missed much and how lame it was to have paid anything to see that. For an additional $4 a person we could have taken a bus up to the memorial but that seemed really lame considering we had paid $25 to get in there in the first place. Grumbling about what a lame stop this was we got back into the car and took off for Jewel Caves.
Of course Keegan woke up as soon as we left the Crazy Horse memorial parking lot. Then as we started moving again he promptly went back to sleep. On the way to Jewel Caves we passed a lot of forest where the pine trees had no needles and were just dark sticks of wood sticking up from the ground. We found out later that a fire had gone through the area in 2004 destroying much of the forest in that region.
We got to Jewel Caves 30 minutes before the next tour. So Lyle and I brought in Keegan's bottle and we tried to get him to eat some formula. There was a little room where we could watch a video. Cate and I sat down to watch the video while I fed Keegan. Lyle and Chris disappeared; a short time later they reappeared with pictures of themselves trying to get through the example 7.5 inch crawl space that you needed to be able to make it through to take the spelunking cave tour. After Keegan was done eating he crawled around under the chairs in front of the video screen. There was really no one there and the floor looked reasonably clean; since he was going to be strapped in his backpack for the next hour and a half I figured there was no harm in him getting rid of all that energy.
We had to run back to the car to divest ourselves of all bags and other items. We were only allowed to bring in cameras and the baby backpack. The cave tour started with a long elevator ride down. Keegan enjoyed this immensely and kept shouting out and giggling with joy. Jewel caves was immense; bigger than any caves I had been in before. There were over 700 steps we had to take up and down. All of the steps were made of aluminum that was kind of slippery in the dampness of the cave; the rails were also aluminum and were wet to the touch. The steepness of the stairs made me nervous. I was trying to make sure and let Lyle know when he needed to duck so he wouldn't whack Keegan's head on the cave ceiling. All of the catwalks and steep staircases went over very deep crevices and chasms in the cave. I do not like heights. I was also on cold medicine and that was making me a little dizzy. I fought vertigo the whole time we were in that cave. The openess of the cave and the height of the stairs were horrible. I was constantly scared that Lyle would slip (which of course he didn't). And everytime Lyle turned to talk to me with Keegan and the backpack hanging out over the rail over a chasm I almost had a stroke. I know Keegan was strapped into the backpack but I keep having this vision of him falling down, down, down....
I figured I was the only neurotic one of the group. Thankfully I wasn't. As we crossed one particularly long catwalk over a particularly deep chasm, Cate murmured something to the effect of; wow wasn't this just great taking this little aluminum catwalk over a large height, she didn't like heights and she also didn't find the wet slippery handrails particularly reassuring. It made me happy that I wasn't the only one finding this cave walk a little intimidating. By the end of it all I was just happy to get out of there. Keegan was very good throughout the tour. He would start "talking" whenever we stopped moving though. Lyle had to keep walking in circles to keep Keegan calm. Keegan wasn't upset he was just excited. At one point the tour guide asked if we had any questions and Keegan said "Booo GGaaa Gaaa Maaa" really loud. Everyone got a laugh out of that.
Well now it was almost 2pm and we still hadn't eaten lunch. We drove into the town of Custer and ate at a small restaurant there. The food was nothing special but it was good enough. I felt kind of bad that we left a ton of cheerios under the high chair. I think Keegan dropped 10x as many cheerios as he actually ate. Custer had a candy shop in it. We went to the candy shop and got some dark chocolate covered caramels and some truffles. Keegan walked around the shop with some assistance and then snuck some hard candy sticks out of a bin and tried to chew on them. I put them back and let him know he's not big enough for that yet. The owner of the shop said "well you could buy some for him to eat later"... Luckily she was just kidding and we left the shop planning to go to Custer State Park.
When we got to Custer State Park the park ranger at the entrance asked us if we had ever been there. We were like "No". So she highlighted a couple of the roads on the Custer State Park map and recommended taking the Needles Hwy Drive or the Wildlife Loop. Although she said that they had just round up the Bison on the Wildlife loop so it might be better to do that a different day. She mentioned that the Needles Hwy Drive was very nice and would take an hour or so to get through. We discussed it and looking at the map decided the lady was exaggerating and there was no way that Needles Hwy drive could take that long. So we opted to do that; we figured we could still get to Mount Rushmore.
Half an hour later we still weren't to the start of the Needles Hwy drive and we began to wonder about timing. Keegan fell asleep in the back and fitfully snored through the whole discussion. The Needles Hwy Drive was awesome but it was also very slow. With the winding road, 30 mph speed limit, and the one-way tunnels it took us much longer to progress down the road than we had initially thought. There were a couple highlights on the drive. The biggest one was the cathedral spires formation. This appeared through the trees as we crested a hill. Excitedly Chris and I told Lyle to pull over so we could take pictures. Lyle pulled off of the road and him and Chris noticed that there were some rocks you could climb up on the opposite side of the road. Him and Chris took off up the road. I started to go after them and remembered Keegan was sleeping in the back of the car. Cate saw me hesitate and told me to go on, she didn't want to climb up there and would stay with Keegan. So we climbed up the rocks it was a beautiful view. We took lots of pictures and then climbed back down.
The rock formations on needles hwy were really cool. That is until Lyle started comparing them with various parts of the male anatomy. The next highlight was Sylvan Lake. This is a beautiful Lake in the middle of all of this rock. It reminded me a lot of Lake Loise in Banff National Park. We wound around and around and finally got out of Custer State Park. It was after 5pm by the time we escaped Needles Hwy and Mount Rushmore was closed. We decided to go back to the lodge.
We stopped by the market in Hill City and got some stuff to make on the grill. Upon getting back to the lodge no one was really hungry. While I fed Keegan, Cate and Chris went out to get everyone ice cream. It was decided since no one was hungry we'd have ice cream for dinner. After Keegan was fed I gave him to Lyle to put to bed. Keegan fell asleep easily, exhausted. Cate and Chris came back without the desired ice cream because all the Dairy Queens closed at 7pm; but they managed to find an ice cream pie at the market. We sat around eating chips and ice cream pie. Then Lyle was determined to fire up the hot tub outside. We all piled into the hot tub and watched the deer grazing out in the forested area behind the lodge. Then it was time for bed.
Keegan woke us at 1am hungry again and had to eat. I struggled with a stuffy nose and cough all night. Other than those things the day had gone great and we were looking forward to the next day.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Road Trip to South Dakota - Day 1
So last week on Wednesday we left for our trip to South Dakota. Cate, Chris, Lyle, Keegan, and I met at the Panera in Burnsville at 7am for breakfast before setting off. Cate and Chris drove separately, since there was no way they would fit in the car with me, Lyle, Keegan and all of our (mostly Keegan's) stuff. At Panera Keegan was his usual excitable self. He sat in his highchair and, having eaten breakfast before we left, ate some of those Gerber cheesy corn snack things. I am not a morning person and just the smell of those cheesy snacks made me nauseous. I also felt a bit guilty at giving my baby the healthy equivalent of Cheetos at 7am. But Keegan loved them. We "walked" around Panera some and then I gave up on the cleanliness efforts and let Keegan crawl around on the carpet some. We gave Cate and Chris a walkie talkie, which we had borrowed from my parents. We thought that would be a nice way to communicate since cell phone reception is iffy throughout the more rural areas of South Dakota. Around 7:30am we left and started the long trek to Hill City, South Dakota.
Keegan complained initially when we strapped him into his carseat; which he always does. Then he promptly feel asleep. Lyle and I turned on the audio book we started listening to on our vacation up north "Undead and Unwed" and took off. All was well until around 10:30am when Keegan decided he had had enough of this and was hungry. We stopped to feed Keegan a bottle. The rest stop we stopped at didn't have any nice inside seating area. It was freezing outside so Lyle sat on the floor in the rest stop and fed Keegan while I distracted Keegan with a number of toys. Lately Keegan gets bored eating and won't finish his bottle unless he has something to play with. I took Keegan in to the bathroom afterward and changed his diaper. The rest stop didn't really have a changing table but there was a tiled ledge in there that was maybe 6 inches wide. I used it to change his diaper; although it made me nervous cause I kept thinking he was going to fall off. We walked around some more to get out some of that Keegan energy. Then back into the cars and we were off again. Keegan sat quietly playing with some toys.
Around 12:30pm it was time to stop again. Keegan was crabby and everyone was hungry. We stopped at a Burger King. They had nice rolling high chairs there and Keegan got a crown to wear. Cate adjusted the crown to fit Keegan's head and put it on him; Keegan promptly pulled off the crown, looked at it, and threw it on the ground. This Burger King had a TCBY in it; so Lyle and I shared some chocolate frozen yogurt. We all gassed up our cars and Keegan and I wandered around between the Burger King and the gas station and then we were off.
I think it was some where between 1:30 and 2:30 when we crossed the border into South Dakota. Keegan had slept most of the way. Cate and Chris wanted to get a map of the area. So we stopped, the adults took bathroom breaks, Keegan ate some bottle and we took off again. I believe this is the rest stop where Keegan had an encounter with a minn pin. The minn pin was an old girl and thought Keegan was really neat; Keegan thought she was just awesome and giggled at her for a while. Anyway back into the car. Sometime in here Lyle and I finished our audio book and started another one called "Poison Study".
Last stop was at, you guessed it, Wall Drug. We were getting slow close to our intended destination and we decided not to stop at Wall Drug. Unfortunately Keegan decided that he needed to eat dinner *now*. So we got off at the next exit to feed him, which was Wall Drug. That's an interesting place. They had a cafe there with a very limited selection of foods. We decided to eat dinner there. The cafe was full of all of these stain glass lights and Keegan thought they were really, really neat. We walked around a bit after eating. In the Wall Drug courtyard Keegan, Lyle, and Cate sat on the Jackalope and Keegan petted a stuffed Bison. Then Keegan crawled around the courtyard some. While Cate and I looked at rocks in the rock shop, Keegan went for a ride on Lyle's shoulders and they and Chris went down to activate the giant dinosaur at the end of the hall. Dinosaur??!! you say. Well, I guess Wall Drug was beyond explanation, it was interesting but not necessarily worth a planned stop.
Back in the car again. Keegan was restless and didn't want to go back in his carseat. He had made a huge mess out of himself eating dinner and we had changed him into his jammies. We got into Rapid City around 5pm (mountain time). We were going to stop and get gas but decided we couldn't be that far away from the lodge since it was between Rapid City and Hill City. Around here Keegan woke up. He got angry, it was almost bed time and time for his last bottle. Lyle and I called to him that we were almost there; Keegan didn't care he cried and he cried. We drove and we drove. We drove up a hill and down a hill and back up again. The needle on the gas gauge teetered on E; then went below E. Finally we drove past the lodge, then turned around and pulled into the gravel driveway. The lodge was really nice Cate and Chris took the upstairs master suite and Lyle and I used the downstairs one. I wanted to be by the kitchen so we wouldn't have to come downstairs to make up bottles and wake Cate and Chris at 5am (Keegan's usually eating time).
We all unpacked and prepared for the night. Keegan refused his bottle; which is always an ominous sign for the night to come. He woke up at midnight doing his "I am really hungry" cry. After eating his bottle he went back to sleep. I sighed a heave of relief that we had made it here without an major incidence and that the lodge was as nice, if not nicer, than we had expected.
Keegan complained initially when we strapped him into his carseat; which he always does. Then he promptly feel asleep. Lyle and I turned on the audio book we started listening to on our vacation up north "Undead and Unwed" and took off. All was well until around 10:30am when Keegan decided he had had enough of this and was hungry. We stopped to feed Keegan a bottle. The rest stop we stopped at didn't have any nice inside seating area. It was freezing outside so Lyle sat on the floor in the rest stop and fed Keegan while I distracted Keegan with a number of toys. Lately Keegan gets bored eating and won't finish his bottle unless he has something to play with. I took Keegan in to the bathroom afterward and changed his diaper. The rest stop didn't really have a changing table but there was a tiled ledge in there that was maybe 6 inches wide. I used it to change his diaper; although it made me nervous cause I kept thinking he was going to fall off. We walked around some more to get out some of that Keegan energy. Then back into the cars and we were off again. Keegan sat quietly playing with some toys.
Around 12:30pm it was time to stop again. Keegan was crabby and everyone was hungry. We stopped at a Burger King. They had nice rolling high chairs there and Keegan got a crown to wear. Cate adjusted the crown to fit Keegan's head and put it on him; Keegan promptly pulled off the crown, looked at it, and threw it on the ground. This Burger King had a TCBY in it; so Lyle and I shared some chocolate frozen yogurt. We all gassed up our cars and Keegan and I wandered around between the Burger King and the gas station and then we were off.
I think it was some where between 1:30 and 2:30 when we crossed the border into South Dakota. Keegan had slept most of the way. Cate and Chris wanted to get a map of the area. So we stopped, the adults took bathroom breaks, Keegan ate some bottle and we took off again. I believe this is the rest stop where Keegan had an encounter with a minn pin. The minn pin was an old girl and thought Keegan was really neat; Keegan thought she was just awesome and giggled at her for a while. Anyway back into the car. Sometime in here Lyle and I finished our audio book and started another one called "Poison Study".
Last stop was at, you guessed it, Wall Drug. We were getting slow close to our intended destination and we decided not to stop at Wall Drug. Unfortunately Keegan decided that he needed to eat dinner *now*. So we got off at the next exit to feed him, which was Wall Drug. That's an interesting place. They had a cafe there with a very limited selection of foods. We decided to eat dinner there. The cafe was full of all of these stain glass lights and Keegan thought they were really, really neat. We walked around a bit after eating. In the Wall Drug courtyard Keegan, Lyle, and Cate sat on the Jackalope and Keegan petted a stuffed Bison. Then Keegan crawled around the courtyard some. While Cate and I looked at rocks in the rock shop, Keegan went for a ride on Lyle's shoulders and they and Chris went down to activate the giant dinosaur at the end of the hall. Dinosaur??!! you say. Well, I guess Wall Drug was beyond explanation, it was interesting but not necessarily worth a planned stop.
Back in the car again. Keegan was restless and didn't want to go back in his carseat. He had made a huge mess out of himself eating dinner and we had changed him into his jammies. We got into Rapid City around 5pm (mountain time). We were going to stop and get gas but decided we couldn't be that far away from the lodge since it was between Rapid City and Hill City. Around here Keegan woke up. He got angry, it was almost bed time and time for his last bottle. Lyle and I called to him that we were almost there; Keegan didn't care he cried and he cried. We drove and we drove. We drove up a hill and down a hill and back up again. The needle on the gas gauge teetered on E; then went below E. Finally we drove past the lodge, then turned around and pulled into the gravel driveway. The lodge was really nice Cate and Chris took the upstairs master suite and Lyle and I used the downstairs one. I wanted to be by the kitchen so we wouldn't have to come downstairs to make up bottles and wake Cate and Chris at 5am (Keegan's usually eating time).
We all unpacked and prepared for the night. Keegan refused his bottle; which is always an ominous sign for the night to come. He woke up at midnight doing his "I am really hungry" cry. After eating his bottle he went back to sleep. I sighed a heave of relief that we had made it here without an major incidence and that the lodge was as nice, if not nicer, than we had expected.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Uh Oh...Baby on the Move and an Eye Test
So this Saturday we played Dungeons and Dragons over at Julie and Tony's. Michelle and Aaron brought Corinne along of course. Keegan and Corinne had a pretty good time playing together. I noticed that Keegan was on his hands and knees, very avidly watching Corinne (who is a couple month older than him) crawl around. Keegan has been able to crawl a little bit but always seemed to prefer pulling himself up and trying to walk. Well something clicked in Keegan's head on Saturday because on Sunday he started crawling everywhere. Let me tell you he can crawl fast.
This morning I left him walking along the couch in our sunroom while I ran into the bathroom to grab my badge for work. Well when I came back out he was under the kitchen table booking over to the kitchen area. I was like, hey, how did you get all the way over here? He's really cute when he crawls because for some reason he feels like he needs to lift his hands *way* up in the air as he crawls. Looks like he is taking giant baby arm steps or something.
Keegan and I did something interesting yesterday. Keegan's doctor recommended that we take him to Blaine Eye Center for a free eye exam. Blaine Eye Center does free eye exams for babies less than one year in age. Part of me was curious about how you do an eye exam with a baby. So yesterday Keegan and I stopped in for his eye appointment. I brought him in his stroller since at the last doctor's appt I struggled with juggling Keegan, my purse, and the paperwork. Of course since I brought the stroller in he didn't want to sit in it. So I ended up carrying Keegan, my purse, the umbrella stroller, and paperwork around. Besides that everyone there was really nice.
The eye doctor came in and measured Keegan's eyesight by holding up two paddles in front of him. One of the paddles was painted a rather boring gray, the other was painted with thick black and white strips. The doctor explained to me that Keegan should always look at the one with the strips. The doctor repeated this with the paddle on opposite sides and then went to another paddle that also had black and white strips; but the strips on this paddle were much smaller. So you begin to get the picture. The doctor repeated this test with paddles with smaller and smaller strips on them until Keegan didn't show a preference between the grey paddle and the paddle with really small strips on it. Keegan did pretty good; he got down to the second to last smallest strips. This translates into 20/60 vision; which is about where he should be for his age. Apparently kids don't have 20/20 vision until around 2 yrs old. So I guess it's something to keep in mind. I hope that he can see Mount Rushmore okay when we go there!
For the next test they needed to dilate Keegan's eyes. I was a bit reluctant to have them do this because I don't really like my eyes dilated. The doctor and nurse both assured me separately that the babies don't really mind it; they seem to take it in stride. So I finally agreed. They dilated his eyes with a spray that they sprayed at his face. Keegan was startled but thought it was kind of funny to get sprayed in the face; that's my boy, taking everything in stride. Then the doctor said we had to wait 30 minutes for his eyes to dilate. Oh, crap, I forgot about that part. Luckily I had brought a bottle in for Keegan and he was hungry. So we ate for 15 minutes and then explored the room. I tell you that kid has a knack for finding everything he shouldn't get into. Keegan found wires he shouldn't pull and rolling chairs that I wouldn't let him play with. I finally relented and gave him my sunglasses and cell phone. Two things he never gets to play with and, as such, they are his favorite toys. I still can't see through all of the fingerprints on my sunglasses.
Finally they came to get us; me and "big-eyes" Keegan when back into the exam room. The doctor looking at Keegan's optic nerves and other parts of Keegan's eyes. He said everything looked normal. Keegan helped as he normally does. He tried to grab the eye scope and eat it. He tried to pull the doctor's hair; you know all the normal Keegan stuff. Anyway it was nice to know Keegan is "normal". I guess a lot of eye things (like lazy eye) can be corrected very easily on babies but are much harder to correct on older children; so it's not a bad idea to take the baby in for an eye exam. Now he is good to go until he is 3. Anyway, it was very interesting and Keegan did pretty good with the whole thing.
This morning I left him walking along the couch in our sunroom while I ran into the bathroom to grab my badge for work. Well when I came back out he was under the kitchen table booking over to the kitchen area. I was like, hey, how did you get all the way over here? He's really cute when he crawls because for some reason he feels like he needs to lift his hands *way* up in the air as he crawls. Looks like he is taking giant baby arm steps or something.
Keegan and I did something interesting yesterday. Keegan's doctor recommended that we take him to Blaine Eye Center for a free eye exam. Blaine Eye Center does free eye exams for babies less than one year in age. Part of me was curious about how you do an eye exam with a baby. So yesterday Keegan and I stopped in for his eye appointment. I brought him in his stroller since at the last doctor's appt I struggled with juggling Keegan, my purse, and the paperwork. Of course since I brought the stroller in he didn't want to sit in it. So I ended up carrying Keegan, my purse, the umbrella stroller, and paperwork around. Besides that everyone there was really nice.
The eye doctor came in and measured Keegan's eyesight by holding up two paddles in front of him. One of the paddles was painted a rather boring gray, the other was painted with thick black and white strips. The doctor explained to me that Keegan should always look at the one with the strips. The doctor repeated this with the paddle on opposite sides and then went to another paddle that also had black and white strips; but the strips on this paddle were much smaller. So you begin to get the picture. The doctor repeated this test with paddles with smaller and smaller strips on them until Keegan didn't show a preference between the grey paddle and the paddle with really small strips on it. Keegan did pretty good; he got down to the second to last smallest strips. This translates into 20/60 vision; which is about where he should be for his age. Apparently kids don't have 20/20 vision until around 2 yrs old. So I guess it's something to keep in mind. I hope that he can see Mount Rushmore okay when we go there!
For the next test they needed to dilate Keegan's eyes. I was a bit reluctant to have them do this because I don't really like my eyes dilated. The doctor and nurse both assured me separately that the babies don't really mind it; they seem to take it in stride. So I finally agreed. They dilated his eyes with a spray that they sprayed at his face. Keegan was startled but thought it was kind of funny to get sprayed in the face; that's my boy, taking everything in stride. Then the doctor said we had to wait 30 minutes for his eyes to dilate. Oh, crap, I forgot about that part. Luckily I had brought a bottle in for Keegan and he was hungry. So we ate for 15 minutes and then explored the room. I tell you that kid has a knack for finding everything he shouldn't get into. Keegan found wires he shouldn't pull and rolling chairs that I wouldn't let him play with. I finally relented and gave him my sunglasses and cell phone. Two things he never gets to play with and, as such, they are his favorite toys. I still can't see through all of the fingerprints on my sunglasses.
Finally they came to get us; me and "big-eyes" Keegan when back into the exam room. The doctor looking at Keegan's optic nerves and other parts of Keegan's eyes. He said everything looked normal. Keegan helped as he normally does. He tried to grab the eye scope and eat it. He tried to pull the doctor's hair; you know all the normal Keegan stuff. Anyway it was nice to know Keegan is "normal". I guess a lot of eye things (like lazy eye) can be corrected very easily on babies but are much harder to correct on older children; so it's not a bad idea to take the baby in for an eye exam. Now he is good to go until he is 3. Anyway, it was very interesting and Keegan did pretty good with the whole thing.
Friday, October 05, 2007
The Dangers of Babies R' Us
We are leaving for our road trip to South Dakota with Keegan next week. Lately Keegan's greatest joy in the whole world has been "walking" while holding onto us. Our last trip camping this was a problem because Keegan didn't have any shoes with traction to wear. Let me rephrase that; he doesn't have any shoes that fit. A lot of people gave us really cute shoes for Keegan to wear; Keegan wore size 2 shoes a couple weeks after birth. The kid never ever fit into newborn or size 1. So I decide to stop by Babies R Us, since it is close to my work and I want to get him shoes. As usual this ends up being a horrible financial decision.
I had marked out the length of Keegan's foot on a piece of paper so that I could properly size his shoes. With this piece of paper in hand I stride confidently into the store. I glance at the carts...do I need one? Not really for a pair of shoes but my umbrella is wet and I don't want to carry it. I get a cart and stick the wet umbrella in it. This is my first mistake.
As I enter the store with cart in hands I see the bottle/feeding section. Oh, I think, I was looking for one of those on-the-go pacifier cleaners to take on our trip. We have been having a lot of problem with Keegan pulling off his pacifier holder. I go over to the feeding section and find the pacifier cleaner. Next to the pacifier cleaner are the sippy cups. Keegan doesn't really like his sippy cup. He could use a couple more and this one type of sippy cup is really cool. Okay, 3 sippy cups go into the cart. I turn around to see scented travel bags for dirty diapers. I remember that the refills we got last time we were here didn't fit our bag holder. For a mere $3 I can get a diaper bag holder that fits the refills I got at home. New dirty diaper bag holder goes into the cart.
Finally I make it over to the shoes. Checking against the size chart I find that Keegan is a size 4. Wow, he has really big feet. I go over to the soft soled shoes with traction; you know the ones for beginning walkers. These types of shoes only go up to size 3. That is unless you get Converse brand baby shoes; these are $20 and go up to size 6 with soft soles and traction. I pick up the size 4 converse shoes and put them in the cart. I walk two steps; thinking this through...I don't even have a pair of Converse shoes at home. I go put the shoes back. I get a soft-soled pair of larger looking size 3 shoes and a hard-soled pair of size 4 shoes. I am probably spending over $20 by getting two pairs of shoes. I shrug, give up, and look up to see socks.
Keegan always seems to be out of socks. I pick out 4 pairs of white socks and throw them in the cart. I realize the socks don't have traction on them. I picture Keegan in his last pair of socks without traction on them; he pulled himself up on the rails, his feet slipped, and he hit his head on the floor. I put all the socks back. There are no white socks with traction. I wander around until I finally find white socks with traction prepackaged. There are 6 pairs in the bag for $5. Sounds good to me.
I realize I am over by the winter coats. Keegan needs a winter coat. There is a great winter coat with snowpants. It's $40 but that seems somewhat reasonable based on what I've seen other places. I find it in Keegan's size and put it in the cart. I look at the coat more carefully it is a London Fog jacket. Does my baby really need a designer snowsuit set? I decide that Lyle should have some say in Keegan's winter attire. I put the coat back on the rack.
Next I see I am near the toys. I really want to get Keegan a ride-on toy. They have a cute push buggy over there that he could ride on and push. I play with it for a while. It doesn't seem that tispy. I start to put it in the cart. I look at the price it's $50. Huh, I put it back. Maybe Lyle should help me pick that out too.
Now I am in the toys. I think "wouldn't it be nice if Keegan had a couple new toys for the long car ride to South Dakota?" I pick out some fun toys for him. I see some really cool magnetic blocks; the engineer in me is delighted. We could get Keegan building engineering structures at the young age of 8 mo with these awesome magnetic blocks. They are $20; I put them back; I pick them up again. I can't resist; we need these blocks in the name of education and science. Speaking of blocks; for the car it would be nicer to have toys that can hang off of plastic loops in the car. We're out of loops. The loops and toys that hang off of them are over by the feeding section. I go over there and get some plastic loops. I get a couple cool toys that hang off of loops. Look there's a cool toy that sticks onto things with a suction cup. That would be awesome for in restaurants and at the table; I put that in the cart.
I realize I am back where I started; in the feeding section. To get to the check-out I have to walk by the baby cloths. Keegan really needs a couple more sleepers; he's outgrown all but 5 of them. I go into the cloths; I pick up sleepers and put them into the cart. I remember that Costco has the same Carter's brand sleepers for way cheaper. I put the sleepers back. I peruse through the clothing trying to find the cute knight themed clothing that I resisted buying on my last trip here. To my relief I can't find it. I look at my watch; I've been here 45 minutes. Time to leave.
I finally get to the check-out line. In my cart I have 3 sippy cups, two pairs of shoes, a pacifier cleaner, a disposible dirty diaper bag holder, a bag of socks, a bag of plastic rings, and a total of seven new toys for Keegan. As the lady rings this up she asks me if any of it is off of a gift registry. I say No; she does a double take on all the toys. I tell her we are going on a road trip and that I am doing early Xmas shopping. All of this rings up to around $100. I blink in surprise...how did this happen? I just came in here to get $20-$30 in shoes. How did seven toys get into the shopping cart? Is Keegan here somewhere, unseen, throwing stuff in for me? Maybe he *will* get some of the toys for Christmas. Not that he will know the difference; it's Christmas every week for Keegan.
As I drive over to meet my girlfriend for lunch; I realize that Babies R Us is an exceedingly dangerous place for me. Walking into that place is getting almost as bad as when I go to Super Target. Almost....but not quite. Maybe it's not really my fault; I am sure the stores are designed to torture us into buying all of these "necessary" objects. Yea, that must be it.
I had marked out the length of Keegan's foot on a piece of paper so that I could properly size his shoes. With this piece of paper in hand I stride confidently into the store. I glance at the carts...do I need one? Not really for a pair of shoes but my umbrella is wet and I don't want to carry it. I get a cart and stick the wet umbrella in it. This is my first mistake.
As I enter the store with cart in hands I see the bottle/feeding section. Oh, I think, I was looking for one of those on-the-go pacifier cleaners to take on our trip. We have been having a lot of problem with Keegan pulling off his pacifier holder. I go over to the feeding section and find the pacifier cleaner. Next to the pacifier cleaner are the sippy cups. Keegan doesn't really like his sippy cup. He could use a couple more and this one type of sippy cup is really cool. Okay, 3 sippy cups go into the cart. I turn around to see scented travel bags for dirty diapers. I remember that the refills we got last time we were here didn't fit our bag holder. For a mere $3 I can get a diaper bag holder that fits the refills I got at home. New dirty diaper bag holder goes into the cart.
Finally I make it over to the shoes. Checking against the size chart I find that Keegan is a size 4. Wow, he has really big feet. I go over to the soft soled shoes with traction; you know the ones for beginning walkers. These types of shoes only go up to size 3. That is unless you get Converse brand baby shoes; these are $20 and go up to size 6 with soft soles and traction. I pick up the size 4 converse shoes and put them in the cart. I walk two steps; thinking this through...I don't even have a pair of Converse shoes at home. I go put the shoes back. I get a soft-soled pair of larger looking size 3 shoes and a hard-soled pair of size 4 shoes. I am probably spending over $20 by getting two pairs of shoes. I shrug, give up, and look up to see socks.
Keegan always seems to be out of socks. I pick out 4 pairs of white socks and throw them in the cart. I realize the socks don't have traction on them. I picture Keegan in his last pair of socks without traction on them; he pulled himself up on the rails, his feet slipped, and he hit his head on the floor. I put all the socks back. There are no white socks with traction. I wander around until I finally find white socks with traction prepackaged. There are 6 pairs in the bag for $5. Sounds good to me.
I realize I am over by the winter coats. Keegan needs a winter coat. There is a great winter coat with snowpants. It's $40 but that seems somewhat reasonable based on what I've seen other places. I find it in Keegan's size and put it in the cart. I look at the coat more carefully it is a London Fog jacket. Does my baby really need a designer snowsuit set? I decide that Lyle should have some say in Keegan's winter attire. I put the coat back on the rack.
Next I see I am near the toys. I really want to get Keegan a ride-on toy. They have a cute push buggy over there that he could ride on and push. I play with it for a while. It doesn't seem that tispy. I start to put it in the cart. I look at the price it's $50. Huh, I put it back. Maybe Lyle should help me pick that out too.
Now I am in the toys. I think "wouldn't it be nice if Keegan had a couple new toys for the long car ride to South Dakota?" I pick out some fun toys for him. I see some really cool magnetic blocks; the engineer in me is delighted. We could get Keegan building engineering structures at the young age of 8 mo with these awesome magnetic blocks. They are $20; I put them back; I pick them up again. I can't resist; we need these blocks in the name of education and science. Speaking of blocks; for the car it would be nicer to have toys that can hang off of plastic loops in the car. We're out of loops. The loops and toys that hang off of them are over by the feeding section. I go over there and get some plastic loops. I get a couple cool toys that hang off of loops. Look there's a cool toy that sticks onto things with a suction cup. That would be awesome for in restaurants and at the table; I put that in the cart.
I realize I am back where I started; in the feeding section. To get to the check-out I have to walk by the baby cloths. Keegan really needs a couple more sleepers; he's outgrown all but 5 of them. I go into the cloths; I pick up sleepers and put them into the cart. I remember that Costco has the same Carter's brand sleepers for way cheaper. I put the sleepers back. I peruse through the clothing trying to find the cute knight themed clothing that I resisted buying on my last trip here. To my relief I can't find it. I look at my watch; I've been here 45 minutes. Time to leave.
I finally get to the check-out line. In my cart I have 3 sippy cups, two pairs of shoes, a pacifier cleaner, a disposible dirty diaper bag holder, a bag of socks, a bag of plastic rings, and a total of seven new toys for Keegan. As the lady rings this up she asks me if any of it is off of a gift registry. I say No; she does a double take on all the toys. I tell her we are going on a road trip and that I am doing early Xmas shopping. All of this rings up to around $100. I blink in surprise...how did this happen? I just came in here to get $20-$30 in shoes. How did seven toys get into the shopping cart? Is Keegan here somewhere, unseen, throwing stuff in for me? Maybe he *will* get some of the toys for Christmas. Not that he will know the difference; it's Christmas every week for Keegan.
As I drive over to meet my girlfriend for lunch; I realize that Babies R Us is an exceedingly dangerous place for me. Walking into that place is getting almost as bad as when I go to Super Target. Almost....but not quite. Maybe it's not really my fault; I am sure the stores are designed to torture us into buying all of these "necessary" objects. Yea, that must be it.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Keegan Graduated....
Okay, so, long time no blog. All I can say is that I've been really busy. We were camping with my parents the weekend of Sept. 21st. We got tons of use out of the framed Kelty Kids backpack we bought. That's a very nice backpack! The next week Lyle and I went up north on vacation, Keegan stayed with my parents. It was nice to be able to sleep in and spend some time together without the little man dictating our schedule! It was also nice to come back and see Keegan again. Although it was a little overwhelming to go from the quiet laziness of being up north to the craziness of having Keegan around again. My parents are going camping again this weekend but I think Lyle and I are going to skip out and get some stuff done around the house.
The whole family (me, Keegan, and Lyle) are going to South Dakota next week with a couple of our friends. Ruby is going to stay with my parents and the cats will defend the house in the only way they know how. So it's been busy, busy, busy! Good news is that all the trim is *finally* done in the basement! All that is left to do is put in shelving in the closet and put up drapes. I also need to order frames for some of the artwork that we got to put down there.
Well, back to the title. The Monday before we left to go up north we were informed that Keegan had graduated from Infant A to Infant B. What is the difference you ask? Well babies usually get moved into Infant B when they start to get too mobile to be with the little babies; generally somewhere between 9-12 month of age. But not our little monster; no he got moved in there at 7.5 months of age. Apparently he was pulling things over on himself. He was also being, what they called "very social" with the 3-6 month olds. This translated to the fact that he was taking the little babies' toys and relocating them to where the other little babies couldn't get them. Infant A also isn't really set up for walking. So Keegan was making his teacher a nervous wreck because he kept pulling himself up on things, letting go and trying to walk, and then falling over and hitting himself on things. So, now he is in Infant B. This is a much nicer setup for him. There are lots of neat things to crawl on and hold onto and lots of soft things to fall on.
Then there is the food. In infant A he got rice cereal, a jar of fruit or veggie baby food, and a snack (cheerios or crackers) along with his bottles. Yesterday when I picked him up it said that he had eaten "Sirloin with mashed potatoes and gravy". He had two snacks one of cheerios and one of crackers. I was like geez the kid is eating better than I am. Thus he has been started on eating meat. We tried to give him some beef with gravy last night (BB food of course) and he really hated it. He made the worst faces. So I tried some of it....I hated it too. We threw the remainder of it out. That was the nastiest stuff ever!
A couple other Keegan updates. On September 21st Keegan brought home his first art project. It was a green piece of construction paper with different colors of sparkley marker scribbled on it. Very modern art let me tell you. Of course it is up on the fridge in a place of honor :-)
Keegan also has been starting to stand without holding onto anything. He will pull himself up on something and then let go and try to walk. He can only stand like this for a few seconds and then it's plop back down on his bottom. He can get across the room but he's not really crawling yet. He kind of pushes himself around the room on his belly; I think it would be less effort to crawl but he'll figure that out eventually. It's been really neat to see how proud of himself he is when he does something new!
Anyway, there's an update for ya'll. Hope everyone is doing well!
The whole family (me, Keegan, and Lyle) are going to South Dakota next week with a couple of our friends. Ruby is going to stay with my parents and the cats will defend the house in the only way they know how. So it's been busy, busy, busy! Good news is that all the trim is *finally* done in the basement! All that is left to do is put in shelving in the closet and put up drapes. I also need to order frames for some of the artwork that we got to put down there.
Well, back to the title. The Monday before we left to go up north we were informed that Keegan had graduated from Infant A to Infant B. What is the difference you ask? Well babies usually get moved into Infant B when they start to get too mobile to be with the little babies; generally somewhere between 9-12 month of age. But not our little monster; no he got moved in there at 7.5 months of age. Apparently he was pulling things over on himself. He was also being, what they called "very social" with the 3-6 month olds. This translated to the fact that he was taking the little babies' toys and relocating them to where the other little babies couldn't get them. Infant A also isn't really set up for walking. So Keegan was making his teacher a nervous wreck because he kept pulling himself up on things, letting go and trying to walk, and then falling over and hitting himself on things. So, now he is in Infant B. This is a much nicer setup for him. There are lots of neat things to crawl on and hold onto and lots of soft things to fall on.
Then there is the food. In infant A he got rice cereal, a jar of fruit or veggie baby food, and a snack (cheerios or crackers) along with his bottles. Yesterday when I picked him up it said that he had eaten "Sirloin with mashed potatoes and gravy". He had two snacks one of cheerios and one of crackers. I was like geez the kid is eating better than I am. Thus he has been started on eating meat. We tried to give him some beef with gravy last night (BB food of course) and he really hated it. He made the worst faces. So I tried some of it....I hated it too. We threw the remainder of it out. That was the nastiest stuff ever!
A couple other Keegan updates. On September 21st Keegan brought home his first art project. It was a green piece of construction paper with different colors of sparkley marker scribbled on it. Very modern art let me tell you. Of course it is up on the fridge in a place of honor :-)
Keegan also has been starting to stand without holding onto anything. He will pull himself up on something and then let go and try to walk. He can only stand like this for a few seconds and then it's plop back down on his bottom. He can get across the room but he's not really crawling yet. He kind of pushes himself around the room on his belly; I think it would be less effort to crawl but he'll figure that out eventually. It's been really neat to see how proud of himself he is when he does something new!
Anyway, there's an update for ya'll. Hope everyone is doing well!
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