Beware the Pumpkins

Growing up, everything scared me- – the dark, Uncle Billy’s Jheri Curl, sand, being buried alive, throwing up, the Tooth Fairy, Michael Jackson (started with Thriller and persisted), the basement, the attic, ants, gnats, those paintings where the eyes follow you, the sound biscuit cans make when you tear them open, ghosts, dolls (because of their ability to come to life) and my own shadow. So I find it only fitting that I’d birth a child equally as phobic.

Put a pin in that…

For the second time in two months my parents drove the 13 hours from St. Louis to State College to see their beloved grandchild. The sun hadn’t shown itself since their last visit (twice, tops), so when I spied blue skies this morning, I told Momma-dukes to pack up Boog so we could hit the pumpkin patch. For why? Gia needed some fresh air, to feel the grass, to take in the scenery, and of course, to be photographed amongst the pumpkins. I’m not one for cheesy, staged pics, but dammit, I wanted a ‘boog goes pumpkin’ picking’ picture. You know, one of these–

Anyway, we hopped in the car and entered the address in my iPhone. 11 miles. Cool. So we’re rolling, I’m torturing Mom with my favorite tracks from Watch the Throne and 4 and after about 25 miles, I was all, ‘Haven’t we been driving for a while? We should’ve been there by now.’ I was right. We had long since missed the obscure exit… the farm was on some no name street, up some no name mountain and my usually infallible phone succeeded in getting us super turned around. In the end, we drove about 35 miles out of the way, but it was all good… the sun was shining and I was gonna get that photo. So we finally arrive, and this is what we see–

Nice, right? Central PA stand up!

We parked, walked through the ‘country market’, perused the arts and crafts fair, and finally made our way to the pumpkin patch… which was really just a small field with some not so lively looking pumpkins scattered about. The time had come… my Kodak moment… the ideal photo opp that would make the hour long, country ass drive worthwhile.

Momma proceeds to put Boogie down. I’m ready on the ones and twos–

Gia- ‘that ish cra!’

Momma tries to walk away so I could quickly snap a pic before the tantrum–

Not. Happening.

So there you have it. My day in pictures. Never got the money shot I was hoping for, but one thing’s for sure. She get it from her momma. She’s afraid of furry things, fuzzy things, bumpy things, big bright things, balloons, water, grass, our dog Lady, difficult poops and now, pumpkins. My child.