The not-so-fun field trip

October 13, 2009 - Cameron's preschool class had their first field trip to the Venetucci Farm Pumpkin Patch. I have to tell you this day goes down in my book as one of those horrible days that you have to keep telling yourself, "this will be a really funny story later"! It started out okay - the kids were really excited at first, but we stood around for 30 minutes waiting for our tour to begin, so I had 2 grumpy kids on my hands pretty quick. Cam, of course has to eat on a regular basis because of the insulin in his system, so as we're waiting and waiting and waiting, and Reese is whining and whining and whining and pulling on my arm, saying "let's go Mom, let's go!", I had to kneel down in the dirt to check his insulin levels, while Reese is pushing Cameron and saying "hold me Mom, hold me!" By the time we are allowed to look around they are both so grumpy that they refuse to look at the animals. Cameron started it. He would hide behind me and make angry, whiny noises if I tried to make him look at the animals. Then Reese thought that looked like a good idea so she wouldn't look at them either. They both got mad if I tried to take pictures, so I had to catch them by surprise.

Here they are NOT looking at the horses.


Grumpily eating their peanut butter sandwiches as we walked



Some chickens that all the other kids were looking at

So we finally made it past all the dumb animals to the pumpkin patch and Cameron got excited again to hunt for a pumpkin. So Reese did too. The outing started to look up with his new-found enthusiasm. He was really a trooper hiking through all the weeds and plants and uneven ground. Pretty soon we began to notice that all the pumpkins were either half-eaten by animals or very squishy and gross. I started to get grumpy again, but Cameron persisted, he knew he could find a good one. Reese, by this time had decided that the vines on the ground were snakes and would not let me put her down. Why, oh why did I have to try and be prepared for any eventuality and be carrying a heavy backpack too! After about 45 minutes of searching, I was about to give up and go buy a stinking pumpkin when Cameron found a small, green, slightly squishy pumpkin that he thought was perfect. So that was good enough for me. He put it in his bag and we started our long walk back to the car (with Reese still on my hip, and my heavy backpack still on my back). I was exhaused, my back hurt, and we were covered in some kind of prickly stickers when we finally made it back to the car. Cameron handed me his bag and I gasped so loudly it was almost a scream. The bag was empty!!!!! After all that miserable time searching and hiking and carrying and just AAAAAHHHHH!!!! The pumpkin was not there! Cameron decided right then and there that I was freaked out enough for the both of us and wasn't even upset. In fact I think my little break-down scared him a little, because he immediately started apologizing, which made me feel even worse! So, needless to say, I don't have any pictures of Cam with his pumpkin! And I still am not quite able to laugh about all of that yet. Maybe I just need some time.