Fun With Pumpkins

It is day two of my business trip, and it feels like one hundred. The boys are keeping busy, and doing lots of fun things with Grandma Sue. Jack will talk to me on the phone, but Luke will not. I tell myself it is a self-preservation thing.

The boys carved pumpkins while I was gone. Of course, I missed the one craft that they can really get into. Knives! Slimy, gooey, innards! Fire! What’s not to like? I can’t wait to see the results. My husband has done some pretty creative carvings, including a Rastafarian and a crocodile. Here's one I did last year:

We bought the pumpkins on Saturday before I went out of town. When I was a kid, a pumpkin patch was a pumpkin patch. There were rows and rows of pumpkins, and if you were lucky, a hay bale or two piled up for climbing. Now, there are elaborate corn mazes, hay and wood forts, petting zoos, playgrounds, bounce houses, crafts, and all kinds of other fun activities that cost $3.00 a pop. We did all of these things at the pumpkin patch, and spent about $50 in the 15 minutes that we were there.

One of the activities was a large bounce house/obstacle course with a big slide at the end. The kids lined up to wait their turn, and the workers let them enter in manageable groups. What is the size of a manageable group when the kids are hopped up on adrenaline and kettle corn, and teenage girls are in charge of the festivities? Apparently a manageable group is a lot less than what was occurring at that place. The recitation of rules went on and on before we were allowed to enter. I got a picture in my mind of the way the development of the rules progressed throughout the day, as I watched the young girl’s mind churn through the events of the day and spit the rules out of her mouth as her eyes glazed over.

1. No running. Have Fun.
2. No running. No pushing. Have fun.
3. No running. No pushing. No sliding head first. Have fun.
4. No running. No pushing. No sliding head first. No biting. No hair pulling. Have fun.
5. No running. No pushing. No sliding head first. No biting. No hair pulling. Only one kid on the slide at a time. Have fun. (This is where we came in).
6. No running. No pushing. No sliding head first. No biting. No hair pulling. Only one kid on the slide at a time. No dragging someone else down the slide. Have fun.
7. No running. No pushing. No sliding head first. No biting. No hair pulling. Only one kid on the slide at a time. No dragging someone else down the slide. No throwing items down or off of the slide. Have fun.
8. No running. No pushing. No sliding head first. No biting. No hair pulling. Only one kid on the slide at a time. No dragging someone else down the slide. No throwing items down or off of the slide. No trapping someone in the obstacle course. Have fun.
9. Do whatever you want. I quit.

Even with all of the rules, the boys had a great time. I don’t know how they got in and out of the obstacle course. It looked like it was giving birth to fully-grown children.