Ahhh, Fall. The leaves are turning, the crock-pot is humming, and I can finally break out my gargantuan collection of tights and stop blinding everyone with my pasty bare legs (you are welcome.)
Parenting means one other Fall tradition as well:
The annual pilgrimage to the pumpkin patch.
I don’t remember this being a thing when I was growing up – but now it is a “where and when” not an “if” conversation among fellow parents. You don’t question, you just GO.
In the city, Pumpkin Patch Day meant a visit to the grounds of the church where Jr. went to daycare as an infant. They trucked in MASSIVE amounts of pumpkins, set up hay bales and corn stalks and photo areas, and BOOM, insta-urban pumpkin patch. “Pumpkins for Jesus,” as The Mr. and I affectionately called it, was Jr’s first pumpkin patch. It was laid back, not too crowded, and provided ample opportunity to wander through the rows of pumpkins with a cup of cider, take plenty of pictures, and pick out a pumpkin or two. No muss, no fuss.
Pumpkin Patch Day in the suburbs? It is no undertaking for amateurs, sucker. No, no, no, it is serious advanced family fun business.
First you have to pick your patch –and there is dizzying selection available in the farm areas that stretch out just beyond the suburban sprawl. More important than which farm you visit is WHEN you go, as we learned after a last minute impulse decision to “just go check it out” sent us into the battle zone at peak crowd time last year. (Gigglesnort. We were such rookies.)
Plotting your actual route to the farm carefully is imperative as well. These things create their own traffic jams the way large forest fires create their own weather patterns. Approaching from the wrong side could add to the in-car wait time as you inch along in a marching-ant-like line toward your destination. This seriously increases the chance that your adorable child will already be in melt-down mode before you even plant his tiny feet in that muddy field.
Speaking of the field, jockeying for the good gourd and charming pictures of the offspring tromping through the rows of pumpkins is hard as hell when you are surrounded by every person who lives in the damn county.
But it isn’t just a pumpkin patch. OH NO!! We can’t forget the Family Fun Area!
Farm animals, corn mazes, hay rides, pumpkin bouncy houses, face painting, and loads of caramel apples to assure that it all sticks to your kid real good. Oh Yeah.
Some kiddos are THRILLED to be there. So thrilled, in fact, that extracting them leads to screaming tantrums a billion times more scary than any haunted fun house. Other munchkins are less excited, yelling through the staged family photo op, crying down the giant inflatable slide, and recoiling in horror from the Shetland ponies in the petting zoo. Either way, it’s a lot of screaming.
It’s kind of Halloween Hell.
Except that it’s not.
It’s holding Jr’s hand while he runs on top of a track made out of hay bales and squeals with unmatched Toddler glee.
It’s watching him and The Mr. carefully comparing contenders to find *the* perfect pumpkin to cut off the vine.
It’s this picture.
It’s kind of pretty great.
Oh –and it’s also NOT being rookies anymore and being smart enough to go at 9am on Sunday morning during prime church-going time. A plan that would have totally screwed us back at Pumpkins For Jesus, BTW.
Filed under musing
I keep making wrong turns.
I am not talking about metaphorical “woe-is-reluctantly-suburban-me”, “how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-here” wrong turns.
I mean really, I keep turning in the wrong places.
In the town where I grew up, where I could probably have driven blindfolded 15 years ago. But that blind familiarity is kind of the root of my wrong way issues.
Last Friday on my way to the local craft brewery (which we did NOT have when I was younger – cheers to progress, Colorado style,) I was mentally checking off the running “to do” list for upcoming weekend plans and piloting the Keri-mobile along my merry way.
Until I put ‘er in park, grabbed my purse, put hand on door handle and stopped short.
I was in the high school parking lot.
THE HIGH SCHOOL PARKING LOT, FFS.
I always know where I am going, but, on certain roads, there are destinations so deeply engrained in who I am, that I just end up there without meaning to.
It happened A LOT with the house where I grew up in the first months after we moved here; I even ended up IN the driveway (my traditional high school parking spot,) one time. Can you imagine looking out the window of your home as some random lady pulled her ride up under your basketball hoop like she owned the joint? (Don’t worry – it is just that for so long, I kind of did. But maybe lock your doors so I don’t absentmindedly end up in my old garden level bedroom before I come to my senses next time.)
The old rec center, the Mexican restaurant where I worked, even the building where my bank was – I’ve ended up at all of them. It’s an internal autopilot I seem powerless to overcome.
Honestly, even if I am actively aware of where I am going, chances are still good that I won’t end up where I mean to in an efficient manner. Our little town is, frankly, not-at-all little anymore. That means roads. Lots and lots of new roads. “Take the second left past the park” is sort of how I get from A to B. That used to get me to the grocery store. But 3 new roads later, it got me into a hospital construction site. Every time I leave the house, I should probably pack a snack (well, there are the floor goldfish,) because who knows when I will find my way to where I am actually supposed to be!?
Evidently, I am on the road to 1993 in my mind. (Come to think of it, KBCO is still playing the same music, maybe I am being hypnotized by the Gin Blossoms.)
Pardon the doddering old lady in the parking lot, students of BHS.
Filed under musing
Reluctantly Suburban 