Monday I participated in my first real school activity with Miss J. I, along with six other mommies and daddy, headed down to the local pumpkin patch with 21 over excited, busy bodied five year olds. The multi-block walk wasn't too painful. There was a pretty good child to parent ratio, hands were being held and Halloween decorations, familiar local shops and pretty flowers were being pointed out. I had to grab the hands of a couple of boys because one of the other moms couldn't figure out the secret to stopping them from rough housing and slowing down the line. But, other than that, everyone made it in one piece.

After the man in charge of the patch laid down the rules, the kids were set free to scower the land and choose their $1 pumpkins. Miss J. is pictured above holding her favorite pick. She insists that we carve it. I have never carved a pumpkin before and that was my 1st time inside of a pumpkin patch. I don't do pumpkins. Not jack-o-lanterns or pumpkin pie. Now give me a sweet potato and I can mess with that bad boy. Perhaps I can send this little guy on down to Jen and her family and they can make us a masterpiece.


As usual, Miss J. was the one to find the red wagons stashed in the corner. She decided to put this one to good use.




Surrounded by pumpkins of various sizes, we all sat down for a grapes and juice box lunch and sang Halloween favorites... Kindergarten Halloween favorites of course. Then it was time to head back. Everyone lined up for a class picture and then the journey began.

Unlike the walk down to the pumpkin patch, the walk back was horrific. Filled with uncontrollable bodies that couldn't walk a straight line or hold a hand that was not that of a parent to save their little lives. I don't know what happened. Were the pumpkins cursed? Did the teacher lace the grapes, did she spike the juice boxes? Whatever happened caused us to take twice as long to get back than it did to get there... or at least it seemed like it did. Some kids had misbehaving shoe strings (Miss J. included) and others had trouble not falling flat on their chubby little faces (Miss J.'s friend included).

Once we were all safely back on school grounds I kissed Miss J. and got the hell out of there as fast as my tired legs would carry me. As I said in my last post, I don't know how teachers do it. What? I didn't say that in the last post? Ok, well, I'm saying it right here and right now. I don't know how they do it. All of those different personalities working at the same time. My goodness! At even the faintest perce of the teachers voice their attention is front and center, erasing any evidence of field trip mishaps. Perfect little monsters children once again.