Fall Fun, Part 2

There are some years that seasons or holidays pass us by before we get a chance to revel in all of the traditions, or we do them last minute, like we drag out the decorations and the family recipes and the lists on that last weekend, trying to condense the fun into one big, fat festive day.

This year, however, I feel like I am getting the full fall experience. Last week, Violet and I took a second trip to the pumpkin patch, this time as part of a field trip with her new school. (I still need to get the photos up from her first day of school, and I will, but let me just summarize that post by saying this: Violet started school. Yay!)

It was my first time going on a field trip with special-needs kids, so I have to admit, I was a little anxious. For a lot of reasons, I guess. How do you maneuver a bunch of kids, many of whom don't walk (or don't walk well), through bumpy farmland and corn mazes and patches of pumpkins? Will people stare? Will I give them the evil eye right back? Will folks be nicer or meaner or just shocked by us in general?

In reality, these are all things I am learning to deal with on a daily basis anyway. At least this time, I had a sort of posse there to back me up.

I didn't have too much time to worry anyway. As soon as we got there, I was distracted by the fact that the place was a zoo. And I don't just mean the petting-zoo part. Seriously, this is the quaint, country road into Sharp's Farm in Brookeville:

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The great thing is that once we were in and I was reminded of how difficult it is to shepherd any group of preschoolers, whether they have special needs or not, I felt a little more relaxed. Like when I saw teachers trying to guide their students around piles of cow poop, or instructing them not to eat the corn off the ground. Or the dad trying to convince his young daughter not to throw her pumpkin at one very friendly goat. Field trips aren't easy for anyone, at least not the adults.

And then, my posse showed up:

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The other part of our group was delayed in the traffic, so we started right in, admiring the animals:

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The pigs had their own sort of alternative communication device that I hadn't seen before:

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Later, there was something I like to call the Hayride from Hell. Twenty minutes spent sitting on a hay bale with a few dozen kids, holding Violet, while we bumped along muddy roads and through a few feet of water. Actually, it was kinda fun, in a scary sort of way. If I hadn't been worried that we might lose a bag or a camera or (much worse) a kid over the side, I would have really enjoyed it. And most of the kids really did.

Like this little cutie, who also goes to Violet's school, and spent the ride laughing and smiling on her mom's lap:

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I was telling a friend that I should just start going everywhere with an entourage of special ed teachers and therapists, because they are endlessly patient and helpful and really know how to speak up when you need a little help lifting a kid or two onto a hayride, or a special place to park your stroller, or to just generally make way for some kids that need a little extra room or space. They know how to make things happen for some complicated little people.

So they were always offering to help hold Violet or push the stroller or carry my purse or take a picture. And they are so sweet with my V.

Here's Violet with her new teacher:

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And with one of her aides:

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Feeling corn in the corn maze:

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Violet picks her pumpkin:

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And this is what constitutes handicapped parking at a farm. Actually, this was a sweet spot, because most of the buses were sent to the back of field used as a parking lot. It's hard to tell from this picture, but we were right up front by the little shop that sold apples and jams and flavored honey. And check out the pastoral view behind! A little bit of peace, a little bit of proximity. What more can you ask for?

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Pumpkin Pickin'

We had planned to spend a leisurely sunny Sunday at some local fall festival this weekend. But Noah got called in to work (yuck), so we had to alter our plans a bit, moving it up to the morning and condensing the half-day-long outing to 90 minutes.

We went to Homestead Farm, mainly because it's the closest and fairly small, so we could get the full fall experience in less square footage. The parking lot was already filling up when we got there, so we headed straight to the booth to buy our tickets for the hayride. Needless to say, it's pretty difficult to rush when you're on a hayride, so we got to just sit back and enjoy the ride:



It was very sunny that morning:



Our driver remained plugged in to the modern world at all times though:



(Can you see the cell phone in this picture? I think he was phoning the barn to tell them about the giant pond we had to drive through to get to the pumpkin patch. We were one of the first hayrides out that morning, and the tractor almost got stuck in the mud. So I think the driver used his cell to call the other drivers and tell them to use a different route, just like they did in the old days.)

Searching for just the right one:



A pair of Converse meets a pair of pumpkins:



Time for a couple of poses on pumpkins, of course. Again, the sun made this tricky (and Violet hates the sun in her eyes), so we had to try a couple of different angles:





When I was a kid, we used to go this farm to get pumpkins and then trees at Christmas time, and they always had flavored sticks for the kids at the end. I don't know, maybe every pumpkin/tree farm has these. But the memories were too good, so I couldn't resist when I saw they had this for Calvin. So here he is with his "mystery"-flavored one:



On the way to checkout, our wagon got a flat:



But we carried on and headed back to the car. Notice the stream of people going in? So many that they were out of carts by the time we left, and some guy followed us out to get ours, even with the flat. We were glad we went when we did.

Swinging and Spooky Stuff

October has been a busy month for us, which I guess is why I haven't been on the blog much. We are having a more mellow weekend though, so maybe there is hope I will catch up?

In the meantime, we've had some down time for stuff like swinging! Violet got a new swing for her third birthday (more on that later) and she loves it. Here she is swinging with her big brother:



Calvin has recently learned to pump his legs while he swings and that he can get pretty high that way on his own, so he no longer begs us to constantly push him. Hooray! He also makes the funniest, super-intense faces while he swings. They are hard to capture on camera, but here is a sampling:







Also, there was no school on Friday, which I kind of look forward to now because it is so hectic to get two kids up and ready in the mornings and to two different schools that are in two very different directions (more on this later, too). But I was a little worried because I really had nothing planned for us to do. Luckily, Calvin had picked out this decorative Halloween kit for a spooky mansion a few days before. I thought it was a little expensive at the time, but I caved. On Friday, he spent at least half the day working on it, painstakingly punching out and then taping the ghosts and spiders and pumpkins all over. He even thought to use some twisty-ties to add a hanging witch and spider, and transformed some of the cotton packing material into cobwebs. He worked so hard. And in the end, I thought it was a fine scary masterpiece. And so worth the $22.