Adventures in Parenting #32: The Pumpkin Patch

Okay, so the event that is about to be described happened a while ago. How long ago, you ask? I don't even remember. It might as well have been three years before Cooper was even born. I haven't posted it up here because A.) Work, familial illness, and general fatigue have taken away my free time and I haven't been able to write as much and B.) I don't really have any funny stories to go with this post, only pictures. I know you jokers are only here to see pictures of my adorable King Baby and could care less what I have to say but I like telling stories and I'm mostly only here to entertain myself. Regardless, here is the account of our trip to the Pumpkin Patch you've all been waiting for. I cannot recall having ever visited a pumpkin patch as a child. At the very least, it was not a family tradition as it apparently is for many families. As such, I had given absolutely no thought to the idea of when we would be heading to Cooper's first pumpkin patch extravaganza. According to all of you people, however, I should have. When fall began to slowly roll in, people kept asking me when we were taking Cooper to the pumpkin patch. Like, a LOT of people. Like, random strangers in Applebee's asked me when we were headed to the pumpkin patch. Apparently this is some rite of passage I had no knowledge of and to avoid the pumpkin patch with such a cute baby would be tantamount to sacrilege. I began to feel like I should just announce to any room I walked into that we hadn't taken Cooper to a pumpkin patch yet and then wait patiently for my stoning. You people are serious about pumpkin patches.

Luckily our friends Jeff and Carrie were on top of things and invited us to join them as they took their daughter to a local pumpkin patch. This was great news because I really couldn't take many more stonings. We headed out to Colleyville on a Friday afternoon (again, this could have been in 2007 for all I know; it feels like an age ago and Cooper looks COMPLETELY different now) and took in the sights and smells of a down-on-the-farm pumpkin patch. And the smells. Oh the smells!

Best of all, Cooper was in a really good mood and put on his happy face for most of the afternoon's events. He posed with his mom, paying no attention to the chicken behind him that had just pecked the fire out of another boy's hand:

Then he sat down on the world's tiniest bench and took hold of a pair of pumpkins:

Just seconds after that photo he tried to put one of the pumpkins in his mouth. Not, like, the pumpkin stem, mind you. I mean the whole pumpkin. He dreams big. Next, Cooper and Emma took up their obligatory positions behind the plywood cowboy and cowgirl. Neither of them really knew what to do with this:

We then took some time for a father and son photo. If only the rest of these jokers would have gotten out of shot. Just because this is a public place doesn't mean you can jump in our pictures, bro!

We stopped down for a quick round of Sky Baby, Cooper's second favorite game behind "Farting":

And finally, the three of us sat down for the rare family photo, which Cooper CLEARLY cared about greatly:

So there you have it. Cooper's first trip to the vaunted pumpkin patch. Now please, stop throwing rocks at me.

White pumpkins weird me out, Brian