pumpkin patch days

This month I had the privilege of attending my three year old, Sam’s, pumpkin patch field trip…and my mind just keeps going back to it.

Nothing spectacular happened,( it was even a little exhausting at times
trying to make sure we had eyes on all the preschoolers!), but I was still left with the feeling that I know these days are fleeting.

I have found myself wondering lately–how many more pumpkin patch days do I have with my kids before life rushes us along to the next stage? At ages 2 and 3, joy at the pumpkin patch is so easy to come by.

Finding THE BEST pumpkin?! Riding a trailer out in to a field!? Sliding down slides and eating cookies with spider web rings on top and wallering around in corn kernels?!

What more could a child want?

What more could a parent want, really, than being in this happy, innocent moment of life when the pumpkin patch is the epitome of happiness.

It dawned on me as we got back home and this exhausted little boy crashed for a nap that I may only do this 4 or 5 more times before it’s no longer considered the best day ever, to him. After a few more trips on that trailer, we might never go again.

There are truly so few pumpkin patch days, and I don’t just mean the ones in October.

This works for all of those magical seasons I tend to get wrapped up in.
Isn’t is crazy how few Halloweens and how few Easter Egg Hunts and how very few Christmas Eve nights with the belief of Santa Claus hanging in the air that we get to experience with our children?

The days are long, yes. The nights are long at times, oh yes. But the seasons are so few.

I can’t help feeling that time is flying by me, and I’ll wake up one morning to kids who may have no desire to go to the pumpkin patch. I’ll just buy them at Aldi :0

That’s a touch dramatic, but still. Magic days are numbered.

I think this is the reason I am so into all things holiday and festive. Be it  Santa Claus, dying eggs, carving pumpkins, green St. Patricks Day lunches,
even pictures in the cotton fields … They are seasons that come and go.

They are so measurable I feel like I must drink it all in, document it, savor it.

I once went outside in the cold, after my kids were asleep, to build a snowman. Because I knew the snow would melt by the time we got home from work and daycare the following evening. And I needed them to have a snowman. It may have been the only time that winter they got one!

It felt a little crazy at the time, but I see now that it was a season that could be gone too soon. Tom’s first and only winter where he could sit but not walk. Sam’s last winter to fit inside the makeshift sled I made from a Rubbermaid container…

Of course, I know there are amazing things to look forward to with older children. Our days won’t be lesser then, just different than they are now. I do look forward to every stage. Plus, I fully intend to make my children sit down with us and carve a pumpkin every year anyway, ha!

I write this all out not because I’m sad about it (okay… maybe I am a little), but mainly because I think we can all, myself included, use a reminder to stop for a moment.

Skip the time out and skip the scolding in some of those lovely moments with toddlers, skip the nap (super hard for me!), eat the cookies for breakfast, make a mess, and enjoy the season.

Whichever one we are in.

We’re going to do pumpkin patch round 2 with both kids this week– bonus for this season and this mama!