Windy City Westy's: A Day At the Pumpkin Patch

Sunday, October 28, 2007

A Day At the Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday we celebrated the beauty of fall by taking a trip to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch in Maple Park, IL (WEST... past Aurora and St. Charles) with Stephen & Alisha (and Baby Rylander growing in Alisha). Unfortunately, due to the unseasonably warm fall we've had, the u-pick portion of the orchard was already closed for the season. So we settled on filling ourselves with yummy apple donuts and cider, a photo-shoot with the pre-picked pumpkins, and filling a bag with pre-picked apples. For us city folk, this still felt like a taste of the
country.

On our trip home, we drove along the beautiful Fox River through quaint Geneva & St. Charles. We also stopped at Old Navy in Naperville to check out their maternity section for Alisha. At about 7:30pm we were thrilled with how great Elynor had done. She must have heard us talking, as around the same time we noticed a smell in the car. Since we were in our car in a parking lot of a business without a changing table (this should be outlawed), we debated if we should 'check' her diaper or if we should just try to get home (good parents, I know). Were it not for the smell, we would have hit the road, but we just couldn't take it (and also subject Stephen & Alisha). Our 'checking' showed us why God made baby poo smell... so parents like us wouldn't leave their adorable children sitting with poo up their backs for hours on end! That's right, the poo in her diaper had traveled 1/2 way up her back and all over her clothes, etc. And yes, we were stuck in the car with no handy access to a convenient changing station. It's at this point we faced a tough decision: to change in the cramped confines of our VW Jetta, to go in and use the floor or a booth in the Oberweiss Dairy, or to put the poopy baby back in her carseat and drive to another, changing-table blessed establishment. We chose option A. I won't go into detail, just use your imagination to visualize Elynor lying (and sliding around on) the backseat, car door open, Ryan & I standing in the dark, chilly outdoors, doing our best to change her while minimizing the additional spread of poo. All the while our innocent (and very patient) bystanders Stephen & Alisha wonder what lies ahead for them next spring!