Punkins for the Punkins (part 4)

We’ve been running through the standard fall activities this year. And with a baby, it really is running. When a baby wakes up, it’s like turning over the hourglass and you’ve got to get through your day in the short spurts when the sand pours. When it stops, everyone stops. Even though I’m not working this semester (why, why, WHY can’t I just stay home until they go to school?!), it’s still been difficult to get through the various festivities. I remember when Amelia was a baby, it was kind of like going through the motions that first year as well. We are doing our best at hitting the important things, but not feeling very um, festive about it. It’s all just tiring. This fall has been particularly exhausting because my brother got married on the 22nd. Holy crap that added a ton of events into an already eventful month (pics from that to come soon). Not to mention that a little SOMEbody was in the wedding as the flower girl, which created about 6 months of mama stress leading up to the big day. Oof.

Anyway, we did the major October events—plus some.

On the Monday after the Wedding Extravaganza, Amelia’s school went to the Pumpkin Patch for a field trip. And guess who drove/chaperoned? Moi! Despite the fact that I wanted to crawl into a hole and sleep for a month (oh, did I mention how Annie stopped sleeping almost completely for two weeks before the wedding?), I loaded my car with kidlets and headed to the Patch! Now I don’t typically post photos of other peoples’ children without their permission, but just this once. . .

This is what my car looked like—plus a teacher as passenger. Could they be any cuter? I mean seriously. Now this might sound weird, but this scene found me very emotional that day. I always wanted to be the kid whose mom drove to the field trips and visited class on party days and now I am that mom. I felt fortunate that despite how disillusioned I am with work right now (as in looking for another job kind of disillusionment), but it does allow me an alternative schedule to be available for things like this. And I feel grateful that we have a vehicle that allows for so many people. When we bought the Pilot, we envisioned it full of children on the way to fun times like this. I can’t believe how quickly it’s begun—and that I have a life that allows it. It made me tear up like an exhausted and emotional mommy! Amelia was so excited that I was there and proud that her mama was with her school. And it just about melted my heart into a puddle when I was holding two little hands that were holding the hands of other little people. Adorable.

I was dreading the chaos of herding a bunch of preschoolers through a pumpkin patch, but it was surprisingly easy, organized, and quick.

 

Looky my pumpkin! Amelia picked the smallest one she could find and adopted it. While everyone else put their bigger pumpkins on the cart, she carried hers all the way to the car.

And since she got to go to the Patch with her school, we planned on just skipping the hectic family trip this year. And then we felt guilty because Amelia went to the PP as a baby and we should at least get a bigger pumpkin for the porch (because we MAY actually carve one this year) and because Annie deserved her own first Patch experience. . . blah blah. The second kid thing is tough like that. So we actually went to another Pumpkin Patch only 2 days before Halloween. Seems like too strong a tradition not to I guess. I mean, we have pictures of us all going since Amelia was 5 months old. 

We went to a small place in our new town. It was okay, but my favorite is still Fog Willow near our old house. I’m pretty sure that the man driving us on the hay ride at this new place was drunk. Seriously. Anyway, it still had the usual suspects—pumpkins, slides, hay ride, and bouncy house. Wait, bouncy house? What the . . .? Seriously, when did bouncy houses become mandatory at every kid function?? It was pretty small though and all the pumpkins were bunched together. I prefer it when you can walk all around and look for the perfect punkin. Like looking for the Christmas tree. And the funny thing is that though we were really there out of guilt for the second baby, it was still Amelia’s fun. It’s always like that.

 

 

No sleep for two weeks doesn’t photograph so well . . . but I figure may as well document the exhaustion.

 

When we went to the community Harvest Festival here in town a couple weeks before this, Amelia bought tickets to go into the big bouncy obstacle course thing. She got halfway through, then stuck, and then took that crawl of shame back to the front. Then she wanted to go on the big bouncy slide, got two steps up the ladder and right back down. She is a very fearful kid, low on the courage side and high on the careful side. We always call her our little Hall Monitor because she plays by the rules and insists that everyone else does too. With exception to the hardship in getting her to do something new (ahem, like swim lessons), I’m mostly pretty cool with the carefulness. Perfect for the older sibling, no? And of my blood for sure.

In any case, we thought we were destined for tears and doom when we saw this monstrosity.

She wants to go on these things so badly. And then she feels just terrible when she can’t convince herself to try. It’s a serious battle and after the Harvest Fest incidents, she put her head down and pouted till we got home. So sad. But here were were and she said she wanted to go down the slide. Great. So after some serious pep talking on our part, she headed up. . . and right back down.

     

Sigh. What are parents supposed to do in this situation? You don’t want to force them and make them miserable, but then you know that if they’d just try, they’d love it. ACK! Well this time, we were not having it. No. Our kid was not going to miss out on the goddamn bouncy dragon slide thing. So . . .

And once he got her up the ladder, all she had to do

Now this slide had some real speed and she had her worried face on the whole way down. It went so fast that she tumbled to the end. Promptly stood up, smiled, and up she went again. On her own. Again. And Again. And Again. She even lost the worried face after the first um, ten times and got crazy with her approach.  Stupid, bouncy slide ladder terror? Done.

And of course, there were punkins too.

Oh and Annie was there too. lol In her Halloween shirt that was too hot to wear until the weekend before Halloween. I hereby declare NOT to buy long sleeved Halloween shirts again. It’s always too hot to wear them more than once if at all. So annoying. On another, far more important note, do you see those thighs? I cut off her head just to get those chunks o’ meat in the picture. I just want to bite them! I can’t stand it.

And just for kicks, here’s Amelia on her first trip to the Patch, five months.