She's a Sunflower, She's my one flower

🎶 She's a sunflower, she's my one flower,
She's the flower of my heart.🎶

Frank Sinatra - Sunflower 🌻

Living in Central Illinois can mean a lot of things: there isn’t a true distinction as to whether it’s “soda” or “pop” (FYI, it’s soda 🤣), you can never fully put away any season of clothing, because you might ACTUALLY need that Sherpa sweater in July, and chances are high that there is a corn maze within 50 miles of your location wherever you are! 🌽

I don’t really know what age a corn maze is fun. Maybe from 7-8 years old only? 🤣 It’s hot, there’s bugs, and it’s always easier to just go back!

Surprisingly, there’s a beautiful sunflower maze in Paris, Illinois that was calling our name during my "officially titled, “Mama & Way’s Staycation” adventures. Copyright. TM. All that jazz. It was quite a drive and yes, it was hot and there were lots of bees. But, man! Sunflowers are gorgeous!

Before we went to the maze, I stopped at a fast food restaurant to fuel up on french fries. 🍟 Following that statement, I have to admit that I never thought I would be a mom that fed her kid french fries…just like when I never thought I would be a mom that uses formula, a pacifier, and doesn’t co-sleep! 🤣 * shrugs *

Waylin wore this gorgeous “Wizard of Oz/Dorothy” dress that I ordered a couple months ago. I thought it would be the perfect dress for sunflower pictures! She LOVED it! I asked her if she kept her red shoes at home so she doesn’t blow away, and she nodded her head. Oh, Way. I can’t wait for the day you get to watch that movie with me!

SPEAKING OF, I tried out for the Wizard of Oz musical in 5th grade. I got this idea in my head that I wanted to be the Wicked Witch. At the time, I had really long scraggly, uncut-since-birth, long hair. I remember going to the bathroom before my tryout and I wet my hair and pulled it over my face like some emo kid.

I was soooo nervous, but I thought I played the part well. I memorized all the lines, spoke in a witch-y voice and cackled my little heart out. Come to find out, I didn’t get cast as the witch…in fact, I didn’t get cast for any major part except “Tornado Girl #6”….YES….* blank stare * NUMBER SIX! Hmmph!

We filled out our waiver that states we won’t sue if we find out we are allergic to bees while we are there! 🐝 Way has never been stung, but I think if you just leave the bees alone, they don’t bother you much.

You had two options: walk to the maze yourself or hop on the tractor ride. The burning hot sun told us we should take the tractor. One of the family members ran the tractor and we happen to pull up as the last people to fit on. I was a little unsure about how to get on the tractor because I brought our huge jogging stroller knowing we were going to an outdoor maze…see, there are times when I even impress myself! 😁

The man said, “If you don’t mind keeping her in there, I’ll help you pull her up there so you don’t have to undo the stroller.” This nice man helped pick up my stroller with Waylin still in it and placed it inside the trailer and even put the brakes on the stroller for me. When we arrived at the maze, he helped get us down the same way she went up! Being that it was just me and Way, I was really thankful for the help he provided.

WE LOVED IT! There were so many fields of sunflowers! Did you know that sunflowers move to face the direction of the sun? 🌻 They are like Mother Nature’s solar panels!

We had so much fun exploring the maze. I let Waylin decide which direction we went, and I’m preeeetty sure if I didn’t keep an eye on the entrance, we probably would have been lost. We mainly looked around at all the sunflowers and took pictures together. Waylin liked pointing out where all the bugs had eaten the leaves…oh yeah, and the bees!

We sent Ben some silly pictures of us having fun. I’m sure they made him sad because he was stuck at work while we were off exploring places on our staycation. Later that night, I actually noticed he made this picture his background on his phone! ❤

We caught the tractor back to the parking lot/entrance and decided to have a snack in the little park area.

Isn’t this dress just adorable? I love the back cut-out! As we sat on the picnic table enjoying some muffins and milk, I couldn’t help but get up and snap some pictures of her sitting there. She is perfection. There is no doubt about it!

It was REALLY hard to convince her it was time to leave! She didn’t want to go! Sometimes, you gotta let ‘em have 10 more minutes. Not because you give up on them listening and following your direction, but because she is living in a really happy moment with you and she doesn’t want it to end. I think Waylin was also having one of those “best days evers” and she knew it!

We chased each other around in this grassy area near the parking lot. She thought it was hilarious to chase and then be chased. I could see the smirks on other parents’ faces thinking, “Good luck getting her in the car!” But, really…I wasn’t ready to leave either! :)