Highlights of a Pumpkin Trip

I drove over to stay all night with my sister in law and niece last night since they live an hour away and I didn't want to have to try to get over there this morning in the cold darkness for the field trip. My niece was super excited about this trip to the pumpkin patch. We went to her soccer game and a middle school football game and she told everyone she knew at both events that her aunt Minda was taking her to the pumpkin patch. Very heady stuff.

Highlights:

7:10am Niece wakes up and comes gliding into the living room with every hair on her blonde head sticking up. "Hey Aunt Minda, are you ready for the pumpkin patch?" she asked. I said, "Yeah, just need some clothes." She says "I gotta brush my hair."

9:00 Arrive at the school where she loudly tells her teacher "This is Aunt Minda!" Her teacher tells me that she has talked nonstop for the past week about the fact that I was coming on this trip with her. I get teary eyed.

9:15 I drive like a maniac trying to keep up with the bus because the adults were not allowed to ride it and had to follow. With no directions and no clue where we're going, I channel my inner Tony Stewart and pray to hit all the lights so as not to get lost.

10:00 Freeze arse off on hayride.

10:30 Trip over pumpkin vines searching for perfect pumpkin.

11:00 Snap pictures as Niece feeds a variety of farm animals. Try to keep a straight face while explaining the large winged creature is a turkey and not a "pecker bird".

11:30 Have a sack lunch from a Hannah Montana lunchbox.

12:00 Do the playground thing (i.e. stand and wait for something to dreadful happen while Niece plays in the sand)

12:10 Get yelled out by an old lady because children are going down an enormous slide too quickly and piling up at the end. After ignoring her first request that I "station people at both the top and bottom" of the slide, she asks "Are you listening to me?" I calmly tell her that I 1) do not work for the orchard 2) am not a preschool teacher and 3)the child for which I am responsible is not playing on the slide so I really have business getting involved.

12:20 Listen to a chorus of mean mommas yell at the poor lone father who tried to take charge of the slide situation.

1:00 Surrender the preschool issued yellow t-shirt (like a work release uniform) and load up Niece for the ride home. We were allowed to take them home but not bring them, how weird.

1:10 Hear Niece snoring in back seat.

1:40 Drop her off at daycare. Mommy duty done.