At the patch - 2010 edition

Once we got home from Sandusky, and Liam rejoined the Land of the Living, we finally made it out to the pumpkin patch to get our gourds for the year. Though who am I kidding - we don't go to a 'patch', we go to a farmer's market where the pumpkins are already picked and piled and we just mosey around until we find the right ones.

Still, it's festive. And well decked-out with assorted Halloweeny decorations, most of which are those big tacky inflatables. The kids love 'em.

Perhaps, had we not gone just an hour before we had to get Liam over to the arena for hockey practice, he would have been wearing something a little nicer than his sweats. Oh well. There was all this talk about a pumpkin shortage this year, and I heard that canned pumpkin was really hard to come by a few weeks ago. Well, pumpkins in our neck of the woods are selling dirt cheap right now. If you ask me, there is more of a pumpkin surplus than a shortage. We got in on the 5/$10 special so I let each kid pick out two pumpkins and then chose one myself. For Liam, the pumpkin picking is all about bigger=better. He will try his best to hoist his pumpkins into the wagon but is even more pleased with himself when he cannot manage it. For Mallory, it is all about the 'twirly stem'. She found a few pumpkins with more than their fair share of tendrils dangling and thought they were awesome, despite their diminutive stature. This year, in addition to all the decor, the market we were at also had somebody dressed up in a costume, trying to wave people in off the street and get the cars to honk their horns. He was dressed in a black cape and had an orange pumpkin head and long orange fingers. He scared the crap right out of Mallory. She took one look at him and burst into tears and clung to me for dear life. Luckily, we had already gathered our pumpkins by then and were just checking out the rest of the market. Liam was not scared by him but did not turn his back on him, either. He was constantly monitoring where Pumpkin Man was and what he was doing, and reporting back to us. By the time we got back into the car, Mallory had calmed down a bit about Pumpkin Man. As we drove away I was explaining to the kids that the guy in the costume was probably just a high school student trying to make some money on the weekends. We went home, picked up Chad and Liam's hockey gear, and turned around to head to the arena. On the way we drove past the market again, and this time Mallory was laughing and telling Chad to watch for the funny guy out front in the costume. I think the layers of glass and steel that separated her from Pumpkin Man were a big confidence booster.