Two Little Boys: Two Little Boys At The Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday afternoon, I took the boys to Brooksby Farm in Peabody (which is so close to our house, by the way) to pick out a pumpkin. They were both jazzed about the idea, and since there were some sinister clouds in the sky, they insisted on wearing their rain jackets and boots (well, Zach didn't want to wear his boots because he "don't like it").

We had fun looking at all of the pumpkins, the different sizes and colors and shapes. It was hard to find the perfect one, but we eventually did. There was an antique tractor that the boys (especially Gabe) liked sitting on, steering the wheel, stepping on the pedals, and playing with the gear shifter. It was very hard to get Gabe off of said tractor, actually.

I was able to lure him away from the tractor and into the country store to pay for the pumpkin with the promise that we'd buy some cider donuts for dessert. While the boys ran around the country store causing their typical chaos, I tried to corral our 3 pumpkins, cider donuts, bag of apples, and jug of cider. Ugh.

While in the store, Gabe spied some wafer cones filled with animal feed, so we bought two cones and headed over to feed the animals. In my crazed Mommy mode (trying to get our pumpkins and other purchases into the car as fast as possible with two trailing toddlers so that we could go feed the animals), I spied Zach with his cone full of animal feed. He tipped his cone over, poured out the feed in the middle of the parking lot, and started eating the cone. Crazed Mommy then ran over, yelling at him to stop eating the cone, telling him that the feed was for the animals. Crazed Mommy grabbed the cone, tried to scoop up the feed pellets to put them back into the cone, all the while Zach is crying, "me hold it. Me do it myself." Crazed Mommy is yelling at him that he shouldn't have spilled the feed, that the food is for the animals, that Mommy will carry the cone from now on, etc. Seriously? I seriously lost it.

So, we get to the animals, I hand the feed-filled cone back to Zach, and he pours the feed out onto the ground as soon as possible in order to put the cone back in his mouth. Gah!!! But, of course he would. He's two years old. To him, ice cream cones are meant for eating. Right? On top of that, he'd just visited Gabe's school earlier that day and played with the very same cone (in pretend plastic form). What was I thinking? Anyway, my idea of two little boys feeding the animals sort of turned into one little boy parceling out the feed (two pieces by two pieces) to the goats and ostriches (i.e. Gabe); while Zach teased the animals with his empty cone. He eventually put his cone too close to an ostrich and the ostrich grabbed the cone through the fence and gobbled it up, all to Zach's dismay.

Even though this post sounds harried, we really did have a good time. And, Crazy Mommy was able to recognize that she was crazy. So that's always a good thing.

Here are the pics: