Our Twisted Trip to the Pumpkin Patch — From a Certain Point of View

October 9, 2021
Pumkin Patch
Written by: Joe Ludwig

I failed as a husband. Let me explain.

Caroline has always been accident-prone. I say this in truly the most loving way possible. She is known to trip and fall, run into furniture, and, once, she knitted so much that she developed tendonitis. 

Some women have a thing for shoes, some really like clothes, and others enjoy collecting jewelry. My wife collects braces of every size and shape. Need to borrow a brace? Caroline’s got you covered. She’s like that guy you see at the airport, dressed in a trench coat selling pocket watches only she’s way more attractive, and instead of watches, she has medical braces.

My friend and I had a running joke that we were going to make the first floor of our house a ball pit so Caroline couldn’t hurt herself. He even designed an ironman-like suit made of bubble wrap. Sadly, the ball pit was impractical (we were told it would significantly lower the selling value of our house) and the suit never made it past the design stage. 

So, keeping all of this in mind, when Caroline and I got married, we decided to write our own vows. 

They started out like normal:

“I, Joe, take you, Caroline, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

But then we added an addendum:

“Six years from now, If we have a two year old named Lilly and a seven month old named Elliot and we go to the pumpkin patch on a random Saturday in October, then I (Joe) promise to do everything I can to prevent you (Caroline) from twisting your ankle so bad that we have to go to urgent care to get x-rays.”

I know, it’s oddly specific, right? Nevertheless, I promised it in front of the entire congregation and God. 

As I said, I failed as a husband.

Saturday, Caroline and I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. Caroline’s mom, my mom, and my little sister also went. When you have little kids, pumpkin patches are all the rage. It’s a big deal. And Brown’s Family Farm Market in Ross, Ohio is no different.

There’s no shortage of activities to keep the kids busy. They have goats, and chickens, and rabbits that the kids can see. There’s an outdoor play area and an indoor playground. Instead of sandboxes, they have gravel pits with toy trucks and tractors. If you want you can pay a small amount for the “barrel train”. They put wheels on blue drums, and instead of a train engine, it is pulled by a tractor.

The main event is a hayride to the pumpkin fields where you can find your own pumpkins. Be careful though, they charge your pumpkins by weight.

We did all of these activities. But about twenty minutes after we arrived at the pumpkin patch something happened that made life difficult.

In addition to pumpkins, Brown’s Family Farm Market has sunflower fields that line the far side of the main field. While we were waiting for our turn to go on the hayride, we decided to walk over towards the sunflowers so we could take some pictures. I had Elliot in the stroller and Caroline was keeping an eye on Lilly. Lilly got excited and started running, as toddlers do. The only problem was that she was running towards the path of the barrel train. So Caroline decided to run after her and in the process, she found the only hole in the whole field and twisted her ankle.

The good news is her ankle is not broken. We know that now because after we got home from the pumpkin patch, we went to urgent care to make sure it wasn’t. The bad news is that Caroline will be in discomfort and have trouble walking normally for a few days. This is problematic when you have two tiny kids but she will be okay. 

The moral of the story, for me at least, is that we should have developed the ironman-like suit made out of bubble wrap. 

CONNECT WITH US

Thanks so much for being here! If you enjoyed this blog post, then share it with your family and friends on your favorite social media platform. Use the hashtag #craftparenting and tag us. We’d love to hear from you! Follow us on Facebook and Instagram so you can get up-to-date information on when new content is available, see pictures of our adorable kids, and more. Send us an email and let us know your thoughts on this blog post.

Don’t forget to check back every Tuesday and Saturday for new blog posts and a new episode of the Craft Parenting podcast every Thursday. The podcast is also available on:

2 Comments

Comments are closed