Plan B

This was a difficult week in our house. On Tuesday, I was at a work-related lunch at one of my favorite, trendy, downtown restaurants. As I looked at the menu and listened to what the others were ordering, my stomach started to do somersaults. I ordered soup but didn't eat more than two spoonfuls when I needed to excuse myself. Although I got up for work on Wednesday morning, I knew right away I wasn't going to make it and by that night I needed to call Kyle to take care of Grace because I couldn't. By Thursday night, Grace started showing signs of discomfort - although, luckily not the stomach flu I had - and she didn't sleep more than 40 minutes at a time. I kept her home from daycare on Friday, hoping we could avoid a full out cold, but no such luck. She has all the "kid crud" a boy at daycare had last week. It is hard to believe someone's nose can run that much! She is pretty miserable and neither of us has slept much in the last few days, so it is not a pretty picture around here.

So, to Plan B....I had planned this cool train ride through the Cuyahoga Valley for last night. The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad train (www.cvsr.com) was to leave from downtown Akron and go to a farm in the valley where they had fall family events planned - campfire, hayrides, pumpkins, apple cider. We were all looking forward to it and it was the perfect crisp, fall evening for it. I bundled Grace up and had her winter coat, hat, and gloves all ready to go. But the poor baby felt awful and I felt bad forcing her to go when I knew it was probably more for me than for her. So, we skipped it. It is too bad, too. From what I hear those tickets are hard to come by (they weren't for me for some reason) and the fall train events sell out fast. But, we decided that it would not be good if we got to the farm and Grace needed to leave. Since we wouldn't have our car, we would be stranded until the train came back. So, we came up with Plan B.

We went to pick pumpkins!

It was just a neighborhood place and they were closed so we didn't buy any, but it worked out. We all got out in the fresh air for a little while and Grace got to touch as many pumpkins, gourds, and corn as she wanted!