The Great Pumpkin

Apparently, the only thing more interminable than the baseball regular season is the baseball playoffs. This year, for the first time in history, the four major sports will all play on November 1st. That is, if you count hockey as a major sport.

But since I've got a day with no baseball and therefore some free time, I thought you'd enjoy a picture of Finn directly after he face-planted into a mud puddle while picking pumpkins on Saturday. Not pictured: the 400,000 other parents pointing at him (and us) and laughing.

As you can see, he's really broken up about it.

We read about a sick pumpkin patch and corn maze in Kent, about a half hour away, and decided to head out first thing on Saturday morning. As is typical these days, we didn't make it out as early as we wanted and hit the road at the crack of 9:30. We still figured that we were early enough to beat the rush - and we may have been, had I bothered to figure out where exactly we were going. One wrong turn, one stop at Taco Bell and one quick side-trip into Emerald Downs to bet the ponies (turns out it's right across the street) and we arrived right along with the rest of the Puget Sound parenting community.

• Fun fact #1: Finn doesn't care if you just spent $14 on a corn maze. He's not interested in walking around in the mud trying to solve a puzzle. He'd rather just pull down the safety tape and pick the weeds between the corn rows.

• Fun fact #2: They give you a map for a reason. Assuming you can just "feel" your way out of a maze of ten foot tall corn stalks is probably not a good idea. Particularly when you've got a toddler that regularly decides that walking is for suckers.

It had been pouring rain, but luckily the weather held out while we were there and aside from the aforementioned mud puddle incident, it was a great day. And even the mud puddle made for a good laugh - after about five minutes. It definitely made for good pictures.

Behold the Marcus Schenkenberg of the pumpkin patch. This kid could sell some serious pumpkins. And laundry detergent.

Pinch hitting

Seeing as all of my energy, emotions and creative swear words are still tied up in the baseball playoffs, we'll have a pinch hitter here today.

Check out these videos that Jena shot of Finn at daycare.

There are two:

1. Watch as Finn exercises his Johnny Damon-like throwing arm, while also displaying selective hearing - very important when opposing fans are taunting you and/or Carrie is asking you pick up the cow you just threw.
2. Watch as Finn races the basepaths with Brett Gardner-like speed. Minus the constantly getting thrown out part.

Go Yanks!

The Best of Box

All parents have a story about the time they bought their kid a fancy present and the kid ended up just playing in the box. We decided to short-cut the expensive present part and just gave Finn the box his last shipment of diapers came in.

His reaction proved that we are in fact geniuses. I present a short film that I'm sure you'll be hearing about at Sundance next year, assuming Sundance is ready to buzz about a 4 1/2 minute clip shot on a crappy camera that chronicles nothing more than a cute kid crawling around in a box.

You have no idea how hard it is not to overdub each and every one of these little videos with Joe Cocker's "With a Little Help from My Friends." Curse you, Kevin Arnold. And you too Winnie Cooper.

Not you Paul Pfeiffer. You're cool.

Mr. October, Jr.

'Tis the season once again. The season in which Kitty loses a husband and as a result, the blog posts dry up and the dishes pile up in the sink. I'm speaking, of course, of baseball playoff season.

More important than the Yankees being back in the mix, after the painful existential crisis that is a single missed playoff season in NY, is the fact that this is Finn's first playoffs. Given that he's shown little to no interest in the television, I was worried that this would hurt my ability to watch the playoffs too.

And by "hurt my ability," I mean result in me getting regularly yelled at by Kitty for shirking my parental responsibility to pace in the basement screaming expletives at the TBS announcers.

Turns out I needn't have worried. Finn has taken to baseball faster than stink to a diaper. He's now watched a portion of two of the Yankees ALDS games with the Twins and can (kind of) clearly say "baseball."

OK, it's more "bah-bah," but we all know what he's saying.

In fact, he picked up a David Wright baseball card the other day, held it up and proclaimed "bah-bah!" To which I excitedly responded, "Why do we have a David Wright baseball card?"

And when the Yankees won game 2 on Tex's walk-off home run while Kitty was putting Finn to bed, he apparently reacted to my whooping from the basement with his own little party in his crib that went a little something like this:

"Yay! Bah-bah! Dah-eeeee!"

I can only assume that he was smiling the winning smile seen in the pic above. If he keeps this up, I'll happily overlook him wearing his headband upside down.

We still have to work on his slipping me the tongue when he kisses me goodnight, but we can focus on that after the playoffs.

What a gyp!

As an anniversary gift and yet another show of my awesomeness, I sent Kitty to the spa for the day on Saturday. That meant that it was just me and Finny for the day, and with the brains of the operation out of the house, I was forced to come up with the day's agenda on my own. Unfortunately, when he got up it was too early in the day for pizza, which left me completely out of ideas.

In a panic, I ran to my best friend for help - good ol' Mr. TV. Finn has yet to show more than a passing interest in anything on the tube, which makes me cry inside, but I figured we couldn't go wrong with Saturday morning cartoons.... could we?

Turns out, we could. Mostly because there doesn't seem to be a thing called "Saturday morning cartoons" any more. At least no cartoons that I recognized. Where are the Gummi Bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere? Where are the Smurfs, smurfing it up all over Smurfdom? Heck, I'd even take the Snorks with their stupid brain snorkels!

What has the world come to when you can't even find Bugs Bunny on a Saturday morning? I had to settle for Bob the Builder - which I have to admit sucked me in, though Finn couldn't have cared less. He just continued demolishing the basement while I laughed along with Scrambler and his hijinks.

Here's a quick iPhone video of Finn demonstrating what children did before the advent of cartoons.

That's right, they rolled around on the floor like adorable little bears who like to say "no." Who needs the Snorks?