This is it.
The intersection of childhood and wonder and therapy and changing seasons and relief and plain old fun.
And it can be found at the pumpkin patch.
I may be biased, (fall is my favorite season after all), but this is exactly what I expected-or at least wanted-parenting to be like. Something relatively mundane-a church lawn transformed into a "patch" for pumpkins-turned into the best of excursions through the eyes of two toddlers, surrounded by gorgeous golden-orange orbs.
Oh, and two wagons.
You could see the lightbulb moment these two had as they observed my mom and I loading up our (much more substantially sized) pumpkins into a wagon to wheel to our car. Wagon = pumpkin carrier. It didn't take long for them to load up another wagon with about fifty bucks worth of baby pumpkins. At seventy-five cents a pop...that's a lot of little pumpkins.
We did not purchase the $50 lot of baby pumpkins, but I am quite happy with what $21 bought me. (Two large, two small, and three mini baby pumpkins for inside the house. I don't know too much about pumpkin pricing, but I thought that was a pretty darn good deal to get some fall in, around, and all up in this new place. Not to mention that I'm glad we got to move in the fall. Fall is a good season for cozying up and nesting. Summer? Not so much. But fall? Makes you feel good to cuddle up and be at "home".)
They each picked out their own pumpkin, which was adorable. You could see the pride as they carried them to the wagon. Which, for Caden, took quite awhile, since he kept trying to pick up pumpkins that were easily twice his body weight. While my mom and I searched for pumpkins to fit our taste (height and width not so much an issue, as long as they were perfectly spherical, no dents, and the deep, rich rusty-orange color of autumn), Caden and Brooklyn's requirements were pretty low: one that I can pick up by myself. Their slightly-dented, almost yellow (in Brooklyn's case), mostly missing a stem (Caden's) now sit proudly on our front stoop along with the rest.
In a hectic week: moving! unpacking! where is everything in this house and how do the appliances work?!? solo parenting again! Caden's moods are driving me slightly crazy! online searching like a madwoman for miscellaneous furniture/stuff for the house! let's add runny noses to the mix!
This...
is what it's all about.