The Pumpkin Patch That Kicked My…
Normally, I love the Pumpkin Patch. But this year the phrase “pumpkin patch” should have been accompanied by a warning sticker…or at least background music that went “dum dum dummmm!” In years past, our beloved trip to the patch was at this lovely little working farm. We were the only school there, there was a worm barrel, a few animals to look at, and small little pumpkins to pick. It was, well like I said above… lovely. So, when our beloved farm closed its door to school pumpkin patch visits, our school was forced switched to another venue. A venue known as THE FARM — que music… “dum dum dummmmm…”.
With my previous paradigm in place of the lovely local patch, I decided that taking Emme (age 19 months) on Ty’s kindergarten field trip to THE FARM… dum dum dummm… was going to be just fine. It became immediately apparent after our 30 minute drive on fog infested country roads that this was not a farm. This was an amusement park. Designed by Stephen King. Luring peace and pumpkin loving parents to their doom.
The rundown looks like this. First of all, we were there with about 20 other preschools and kindergartens — so about two billion children under the age of 5. Making it a chaotic melee of children moving from station to station on THE FARM…dum dum dumm… while being shouted at by the “farmers” to keep moving, folks. The hayride scared Emme. While all the kindergarten girls picked out cute little purse pumkins, Ty picked out what felt like the world’s largest pumpkin. So I had to enlist our neighbor to carry it because with 28 pound Emme on one hip, the 30+ pound pumpkin was too freakin heavy and it didn’t fit in the grocery bag the school provided. Some may say, why did you let Ty get such a big pumpkin. I DON’T KNOW is the answer. It make sense in the intial nano-second and then I was committed. The picture doesn’t do it justice.
After the hayride and pumpkin search, there was a hay maze which ended in a slide from the top of the barn. The attendant asked for two parents to “man the slide.” After the first kids went down the slide, it became obvious that “manning the slide” was code for “try not to let any kids kill themselves while shooting off the end of the world’s fastest slide into a pile of hay.” These kids were like wellie-clad bullets coming off that thing. Ty stood at the top of the slide for quite some time before risking his life to exit the hay maze.
I can now feel my sanity exiting THE FARM.. dum dum dummmm… along with my sense of humor and the spring in my step.
We then went to the animal area. Emme loved the giant pig. Ty loved to climb on the tractor –which resulted in a perilous fall where it appeared that he cracked his head on the cement. After barking clone-trooper-esque orders at our neighbor to GRAB EMME, I ran to Ty’s rescue — all the while going over the signs of concussions in my head and calculating how far we were from the nearest ER. As it turns out he miracously didn’t hit his head, only his elbow … and his bum. But his bum was okay, he said, because he was “wearing really tough pants.”
We finally get to the picnic area where Ty is enjoying a POPSICLE of all things. I din’t even care that now we were injecting the kids with sugar, I was just relieved we had made it to a chair. It is at this point that my friend Kristi considers texting our friend Kim (who will be attending the afternoon session at THE FARM..dum dum dummm…) that THE FARM is almost as bad as Chuck E. Cheese. Now, I have a deal with my husband about Chuck E. Cheese. I will carry the children in my uterus for 9 months, undergo surgery to bring them into the world, and then nourish them off of my breast. But HE HAS TO GO TO CHUCK E CHEESE. And from now on he is on THE FARM.. dum dum dummm.. duty as well.
It is at this moment that some yells, “Hey come watch the PIG SHOW!”
Enough said.
It has been a while since I have posted a book review on this blog. But I thought some of you our there might need a scary read for right before Halloween. This book should suffice.
