Keeneland & Carving

Keeneland
It was a gorgeous day to go to Keeneland so we decided to treat ourselves.  We're on the way there and Ethan tells us what horse he likes best..."the green one."  When asked what horse was Mama's horse, "the purple one"...Daddy's horse?  "the green one like me."...ok then, now we know what horses to bet.  Honest to God, betting the 5 horse, which was marked by the green blanket under the saddle, and the 10 horse, which had the purple blanket, in every race (we were there for races 4-9), we won money in every race except one and we actually came out a few dollars ahead I think.  Or I should say, Ethan did.  In the last race, we even had the win, place & show horses.  If we'd bet them to win, we'd have been a bit more ahead but we're not greedy.  Ethan, for future reference, will be choosing the color of the day before each adventure to Keeneland.  It was great. 

So the parents had fun cause we won the races.  Ethan doesn't really know much about that but he still had a ball....there were tractors on the race track and he got to pet a horse.  What more could a 3 year old boy ask for?  Alex, you may ask.  What about Alex?  Oh yeah, he had a big time....he got to walk around and try to run away and play with the rope (the rope behind the handicapped seating in the reserved section) and flirt with all kinds of people (a favorite passtime of his) and he got to eat....all day...he thanked us for this by puking down my leg, an indication he was a bit too full cause he did it while laughing and continued right on.  Oh well - they were blue jeans and I had wipes - no biggie.  He also puked on his Daddy while Mama took Ethan to the bathroom...since Daddy doesn't handle puke very well, this was fun for Mama, too.  I'm evil, I know.

Carving Pumpkins
Home from the races - time to eat dinner and carve the pumpkins the boys & I got a Walmart last night.  I had to leave them and the carving tools in the car last night to try for the "out of sight, out of mind" aspect for Ethan.  From the time we picked up the carving tools last night at the beginning of our shopping trip (a mistake I won't make again), all he wanted was to open them and dive in. 

So dinner is done and Mama has straightened the kitchen (I definitely didn't clean it - it's been a long day and Ethan can't wait another day to do the pumpkins so straightening to make space to carve, is about all we've got time for).  I tell Ethan to tell Daddy it's time to carve the pumpins.  Mr. Excited tells Daddy, "I'm gonna get my knifses and make faces on the punkins...I just gotta get my knifses...come on Daddy, we gotta get my knifses."  So now we're in the kitchen flipping through the book to see what we should carve.  Daddy is going to help Ethan and Mama will do Alex's pumpkin.  Ethan decides his pumpkin should be the ghost that says "boo"  and Alex's pumpkin should say trick or treat.  No matter how hard Mama pushed for the skull (which looked much easier), he was adament that Alex's pumpkin should be the trick or treat pumpkin.  So now to the carving...

Alex is sitting in his high chair with a couple of nilla wafers watching the action.  Ethan is content to hold the "scraper" tools while Mama & Daddy first punch holes to be able to do the connect the dots carving technique then do the actual carving because "the knifses are sharp?  I might hurt myself?"  Yes, they are dangerous.  "Daddy, those are dangous.  Caresul, you don't hurt youself."  (spelling errors on purpose for pronunciation effect).  Ethan is quite litterally running from one side of the table to the other monitoring our process.  Alex is less enthralled and, as it's now 8:00 (bedtime), less and less willing to sit patiently. 

Finally the carving portion is done and it's time to scrape the inside of the pumpkins.  This is the part Ethan has been waiting for, right?  Steve tells him to stick his hand up in there and grab that stuff out and put it in the bowl.  The look on his face was priceless....he looked at Steve like "you're kidding right?" and Steve said, go ahead, put your hand in there.  E:  "no, it's yukky"  S: "you want Daddy to do it?"  E:  "uh huh."  Mama is still carving at this point.  Steve says ok and starts to do it.  Ethan wants to get on the table (a no-no) and so Steve continues to try to tell him to get the guts out in an effort to keep him off the table.  There is now a huge pile of gunk in the container on the table.  Steve tries to show Ethan that inside the pumpkin is harmless by telling him to stick his hands in that bowl and feel it.  Ethan tries to use the scraper and dig around.  Steve tells him no, do it with his hand cause he can't feel it with the scraper.  Ethan gets this look I can only describe as a prissy little girl on the playground at school who has just been showed a really disgusting spider or lizard or possibly has just had a worm put down her shirt and does that full body shake....it was so funny we were almost in tears...he said (almost in tears himself), "it's dirty, Daddy, it's yukky"....this from the boy who has never met a mud puddle, dirt pile or anything remotely dirty outside that he didn't like and try to jump into with his whole body.  Knowing this, Steve put some of the guts of the pumpkin on Ethan's arm - you'd have thought he wiped puke on Ethan....he almost melted down...but when assured it would come off with soap, he calmed down.  Priceless. 

Alex, at this point, has given us all the patience he had in his tiny little body and is done with the "I'm almost done" promises.  He's now whining a tone that says, "I don't care if you are almost done, it is past my bedtime, I've been good all day, get up, get me a bottle and please, if you love me, put me in bed."  We didn't respond as he was hoping - Daddy did say "I'm almost there, Aggy, Daddy's going to get you a bottle."  However, Alex saw no movement on our part so the "please" left his tone entirely and the whine did, too, replaced by a demand in the form of outright crying.  Ok, we got it...Daddy was done anyway so he got up and started making the bottle.  The fact that Alex didn't have it yet, though, made the cry not stop.  I think he thought if he stopped, we wouldn't think he was serious.  I had finished carving around the time Ethan made the face that had us all in tears and had begun scraping.  Daddy is almost done with the bottle (had to find one first) and Mama is done scraping but I had to wash my hands first - Alex got louder because I had the audacity to get up and walk past him without picking him up.  I washed my hands and redeemed myself by picking him up from the highchair just as Daddy finished the bottle.  He gave me the look of "finally, it's about time and don't do this again" as I put the bottle in his mouth and rocked him a bit. 

I continued to rock Alex who was sleepily drinking his bottle as Steve found candles but....where's the aim 'n flame?  It's upstairs on the shelf in the boys' room from when candle aroma therapy became necessary after an especially explosive poopy reaction to a new medication Alex was taking.  So I take Alex up, deposit him and his bottle in the crib and get the lighter.  Back downstairs, we head outside with Ethan, both pumpkins and 2 candles.  We took some really cute pictures of Ethan sitting on the step between the 2 pumpkins saying "cheese pizza" (Happy Halloween is apparently unexceptable to him).  Pictures done, it's bedtime.

We really had a fantastic day.  No one really got in trouble - considering Ethan had no nap, he listened very well.  Don't read that as he listened all day; he didn't - but considering the lack of nap, he did really well.  The pumpkins turned out great (as usual, pictures to be posted later) and tomorrow we'll try to get some with both boys.  Though I didn't actually try, I'm pretty sure Alex would have said "absolutely not" had I tried to get him involved in that tonight.  All in all, a great day was had by all.