Perfect Fall Day- take 1

On Friday Emma and I had this great plan to spend part of the morning picking pumpkins from a pumpkin patch. So we hung some laundry on the line, had breakfast, packed a snack and finally loaded up in the car. While I was doing these chores, Emma was telling all of her stuffed friends and babies that we were going to the pumpkin patch. She was very excited.

On the way Emma started coughing, the remains of a stubborn cold. She also started snacking and drinking some water. Do you know where this is going? She started to have a tear-jerker coughing fit somewhere along the Beltline (the east-west highway route). and then I looked back in the rear-view mirror at one point just in time to see the foamy, spit-up flowing out of her mouth. The Beltline is always crowded so it was hard to get over and we had just passed an exit. So I tried to get her a wet wipe, merge, and then exit all at once. (There is no place to pull over on the shoulder along that stretch.) I was frazzled because I wanted to stop, wipe her down and give her a big hug. She was obviously upset because spitting up is no fun and her clothes were all wet and icky. Of course we had no change of clothes so we had to get right back on the Beltline and head home. I made the mistake of saying we wouldn't be able to go to the pumpkin patch because we wouldn't have enough time after changing her clothes. Emma started balling and sobbing. I feared for another spit-up incident. I finally calmed her down. At home she changed quickly and I decided to try following these pumpkin signs I remembered seeing on the other side of our neighborhood.

Emma was happy that we were at last going to a pumpkin patch. We had a beautiful drive out past Cottage Grove in the countryside along a road we had never been on before. But the pumpkin patch was a complete disappointment (to me). They had a box to drop your money in and neat lines of pumpkins in size order. That was not a pumpkin patch! And then I realized that I only had $7 in cash. Since Emma went right for a good sized pumpkin we could only get one pumpkin. When I said I was disappointed that we didn't go to a pumpkin patch and that we only got one pumpkin, Emma vehemently replied, "That was a pumpkin patch!" and then, "Maybe we can get more pumpkins later after you get some more money."