Today we went to the
Silverbow Farm pumpkin patch with our MOPS group. I really wanted to stay home, but I pulled myself up by my bootstraps (or Birkenstocks I should say) and got us there.
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| Ready for Action |
Note Lula's outfit. No boots. No jeans. No jacket. No arguments.
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| Heidi's First Retrieval |
I automatically bring Genevieve wherever I go now. She is the only one fast enough to keep up with Heidi (Ian and Shane are good too, but you won't catch them at a MOPS gathering!)
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| First Stop: Visit the Pigs |
Daniel fed the big pigs figs (after the electric fence was turned off). He loved hearing people say that phrase. Heidi had a first while looking at the pigs. She has been saying cute little sentences like, "Where's Kai?" or "Want binkie." Today, for the first time, she vocalized an observation about her surroundings. "Ew! The pig pooped!"
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| We don't call her retrEVIE for nothing. Get it? |
Each kid got to pick out a pumpkin, of course.
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| This one is Lula's, but someone else took it home-I got her a new one |
I couldn't help propping Jason up by a pumpkin:
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| ...but what I didn't realize was that I dropped my lens cover here. Evie retrieved it for me. |
Lula walking through the wet clover in her tights and new sparkly tennis shoes:
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| You'll see why this is relevant later... |
After we picked out our pumpkins, we walked up the road to the horse barn for snacks and climbing on tractors and old wagons.
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| It was a long walk. Too long for moms with babies and toddlers. |
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| But if you are Evie and there are horses, then the walk is no big deal |
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| Climbing Fun |
This is an awesome, yet dirty area where there were a lot of running, excited, wearing out toddlers/preschoolers/babies. I'm not used to being around other people's screamers, so when I heard one start in, I would jump and look around. It wasn't long before the MOPS coordinator called for snack time.
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| FOOD! |
Now do you see why the wet clover picture was relevant? Yep, wet clover plus dirty wagon climbing equals ruined tights and shoes. But no arguments. And at this point of our trip, I was able to separate myself from moms with not enough exit strategy experience. There comes a point when a toddler snaps during a fun playtime and you have to drag them kicking and screaming from the fun. I knew already that I was 1) Far away from my van and 2) Needed Evie to carry Heidi and 3) Had an unpredictable Lula. I saw my "Five Minutes to Snap" trigger and decided that even though there were 15 other vehicles trapping me in the parking lot, I was going to the safety of my van. And all my children, besides Jason, ran all the way back to the van on their own. Even Heidi used her own two feet. My trick? I wouldn't let them have apple juice at the snack table and I had juice boxes in the van. They were thirsty. And then we sat and waited for 15 or 20 minutes. I knew the rest of the moms were near when I could hear the screaming and crying coming closer and closer. Another 20 minutes and we were clear for exit without a single tear shed. And that was one fourth of our activities for the day...
