I Might Still Be Tired

Friday, I spent the day at the pumpkin patch with my littlest pumpkin:

 It was his first field trip of the year, and although I have gone on a pumpkin patch field trip every year for the past five years, this one took the cake. It was the best experience for the kids I have seen yet--lots of hands on exploration. I also learned that going with my son is very different than going with my daughter. This was my group for the day:

 They are the sweetest boys, but they wore me out! We started our day with a hay ride out to the big pumpkin patch. I had thought the patch was big, but it was the pumpkins that were big! They turned us loose to explore and climb. I just tried to keep up and keep track of my crew.

Then we played on the playground and had lunch, which was easy enough. It was a great little playground, complete with plenty of balls. But the highlight was the corn maze. Before we went in, each child was given a bag to collect three ears of corn. They were also told to get one stalk of sassafras and a sunflower. I am counting it a personal victory that I didn't lose anyone in the corn. There is nothing quite so terrifying as three little boys in brown shirts setting off into the stalks in search of corn; the path is clearly there for everyone else.

In a moment that is still making me chuckle, we tried to get a picture of the class with their sunflowers in front of the sunflower field after we left the maze:

It was like a Where's Waldo of kindergartners.

Then, we got to go feed the animals all that we had gathered:

 The goats were a highlight, but we also saw cows, horses, chickens, and pigs. It was great for the kids to see how the food was grown and then actually get to feed it to the animals! Once we were out of food, we picked our own pumpkins and then headed home. In short, it was a perfect field trip...with one tiny glitch:

That is a small sample of the patch I brought back in my shoes. When we were in the big patch, we had lined the kids up on the edge of the cornfield to take a picture. All the adults went into the patch to take said picture, and once we had snapped it I was the lead duck to get out. Unfortunately, that meant I discovered this particular part of the patch was essentially quick sand. Both feet went in deep and were firmly stuck. My only option was to pull my feet out of the shoes. Thankfully, another mom helped me dig them out, and I had a water bottle in my purse to give them a quick rinse after I dumped the mud out of them. It was hysterical. The boys were just beside themselves, and Evan earned some serious cool mom points because I laughed and just walked out of the patch in my socks. In fact, his buddy loudly declared I was a cool mom because I didn't scream. I'll take it.