And the Winner Is -- St. Louis

Today, MacTroll, X-man, Papa and I got on a bus at the Savoy Recreation Center and went to watch a Cardinals baseball game. It was X-man's first St. Louis game and second MLB game. (The four of us went to see the White Sox last year.) This was a much more exciting game as the Cardinals won their 12th in a row. They're chasing a wild card entry into the finals and the team they beat (Atlanta Braves) is also trying to earn a wild card.

I'd found a Pujols jersey on sale at Kohl's a few weeks ago, so I bought it for X-man. He was excited about going and grateful that Papa bought him a cool new Cardinals hat while we were waiting to get into the stadium. Then we all sat down for lunch.

As it turns out, the food options in Busch aren't that great. I had a pretzel and shared a diet soda with X-man for lunch before I went to scope out the "Farmer's Market" for the vegetarian and gluten-free crowd. As it turns out, the items there were -- and this is no surprise -- pretty lacking.

But since it was such a warm day today, I just kept drinking diet sodas and not worrying about food. We watched a lovely game where the Cardinals beat the Braves 6-3. And then we walked in the door at our house at 6:45 p.m. and I was starving.

I sat down with some leftovers and enjoyed them while the guys ordered pizza. It was such a fast weekend. But we're all very excited because next weekend is Orchard Days in Savoy in Dana Colbert Park which = CARNIVAL in our backyard.

If you go, I'll selling pork sandwiches with the Rotary Club from 11 a.m. to whenever on Saturday before I need to take X-man to his first Illini football game that night.

Hope to see you there!

Kings, Knights and Magicians

X-man was supposed to go to the Airshow in Charleston with MacTroll yesterday, but because he had a roll of awful behavior on Friday night he lost that privilege and spent yesterday pretty much in his room. When I came back from completing my 5k on Saturday morning, there was a letter of apology written to me on the dining room table. X-man had decided that his big kid paper didn't have enough space for everything he wanted to say, so he dictated his message to MacTroll and then MacTroll printed it out in a font that made the letters out of dots and X-man sat down and used a pencil to connect the letters and sentences.

So, when MacTroll woke up this a.m. and had issues getting off the pot, I snatched my boy up, threw him in the car and drove to Danville (which I'm sure makes SuperShanna proud). Why Danville?

Today was the second day of the Illinois Renaissance Fair. We showed up right in time for the starting ceremonies. The trick was that my child had no idea where he was going. It was a surprise. So when he pulled up and saw a knight on a horse he flipped out!

"Mom! Mom! Mom! It's a -- It's a -- What is that KNIGHT doing there?"

Then we got out of the car and ran over where a woman played a set of bag pipes and lead out the king and queen. "Are they really king and queen?"

I explained they were acting.

"Like a play? Do I get to dress up? I want to be a knight, too."

We went in and found a LOT of girls dressed up as princesses and maidens, but not a lot of complete boy dress up options. X-man skipped the wizard's hat, but what he did not miss out on was the bamboo bow and arrow set for kids. The arrow part is made of cloth and foam, so it doesn't hurt. He shot it a few times and then hung the bow around his shoulder "like Green Arrow."

Then he saw the area where they taught kids how to duel...Again with the foam swords and shields. Kids had to follow the rules of not hitting heads or groins (a word I had to explain). If you were struck in an arm, that meant you lost the arm and had to drop what was in your hand and put it behind your back. If you were struck in a leg, you had to kneel. Get two appendages cut off and you were dead. A strike in the back, chest, stomach or butt and you were dead... X-man spent an hour and fifteen minutes out of the three hours we were there either watching big kids duel or dueling himself. He had a great time dueling with a grandfather who we knew from Savoy.

It was a nice, quiet fair. It was very affordable and there was a lot of entertainment. There were about eight different stages that had something going on every 30 minutes. We watched some grown ups duel with real swords and learned about some of the dueling techniques. We watched a magic show. We saw two knights (including a female knight!) do a round of jousting. We ate a plain pretzel and shared a lemon shake up and went around finding folks with blue bows on their shirts who were carrying little prizes for the kids (pirate patches, rings, slide whistles, etc.). We listened to singers. Then, he took me to the stockade, where he gave a quarter to the woman and announced that his mom was buying 3 water balloons, but he didn't want me to throw them at the teenager for their fundraiser, he wanted me to throw them at him, because he was hot and wanted to get wet.

I soaked him using all three and then asked him if he wanted more. Because really, when does a mom get to pelt her son, who is imprisoned in the stocks, with water balloons any more?

X-man really liked the Fair, but he said he wished his Dad had come with, so they could have dueled as a team. We'll have to go back again next year. Maybe then we'll dress X-man up like a knight!

Get Out and Play

Holy cow was Sunday a nice day. We took the family to Allerton in Monticello and took a 90-minute walk through the park avoiding flood planes left and right. And isn't it nice that X-man got to spend time with people other than just me.

I love Sundays

Sundays are my favorite days because we don't have anything on the schedule, except fun stuff. Yesterday was perfect.

I picked up Quigs and we went to the CARE garden plot at 7:45 a.m. to escape one of two weather forecasts. It was either going to be really muggy and hot or it was going to dump rain on us. In about an hour and a half we got everything weeded and looking pretty. It helped that the ground was damp. When we left we were covered in mud, but weren't going to get our garden mowed under.

We have sweet corn growing on our stalks as well as an awesome cool pumpkin... and our sunflowers are finally mammoth, mini and medium. :-)

Afterward, I went to our neighbors and fed their cats. Then I went home to find X-man playing "postman" with MacTroll and Riley in the front yard. His new fascination is taking the mail out of the mailbox, putting it into the trunk of his Little Tikes car and then driving away, only to return and put it back... along with things like chalk and toys.

The rest of the day was spent playing in the backyard or napping until 3 p.m. when we headed over to the Orpheum Children's Museum. On a day when the weather is questionable, it's a good place to be. X-man ran into his friends KRUF and TEUF while we were there. But the boys were heading in two separate directions, so we didn't get to visit much. Unfortunately, as I was taking pictures of an exhibit that always makes me sad at how poorly it's been maintained, I dropped my camera -- and it broke.

Lately, I've had the brain power of a tulip. So I wasn't surprised. But it was pretty sad. 

So, MacTroll took us out to dinner at Fiesta Café. Where X-man showed us that besides super sonic urination, jaws of steel and healing hugs, he can also CRUSH small packets of sour cream with one bare hand -- and send it squirting all over the wall. We were happy we chose to eat outside, but we still left the required, "I'm so sorry we have a 2-year-old" big ass tip. 

Mostly though, it made MacTroll and I laugh uncontrollably for a good three minutes, which was nice. Then at home we got to have a neighborhood kids outing in our front lawn. Our new neighbors, the Flynns, and most of the Wright clan were out and about. So the kids played and played, and the parents did the best they could to keep them out of the street. 

Excitement for this week includes: babysitting Curious J, picking up painting the fence again, KTDID's 2-day visit and a trip to Rolla, Mo., with my mother and toddler, while MacTroll stays behind to pet sit.