Apple and pumpkin picking

It was a beautiful day on Sunday, so we decided on the spur of the moment to go apple picking. I wanted to go buy a pumpkin since Ian has been commenting on pumpkins every time we pass a nursery. We decided to go up to Blue Jay Orchards in Bethel, CT, which had been recommended to me by someone at work. It's only about 45 minutes from here, so it was a quick ride up. I should precede this by saying that when we went to dinner on Saturday night, we kept Ian entertained by drawing pumpkins. We probably drew about a dozen of them and he wanted faces on some of them. One sad, one mad and all the others happy. He does good mad, sad and happy faces now. On the way home, he held that piece of paper and studied the pumpkins like it was a serious document. So when we headed out on Sunday, he wanted to bring the paper with him. Again, he sat in his car seat and seriously studied the pumpkins.

The orchard was on the small side, so it was perfect for us. They have free hay rides to and from their pumpkin patch and one of the employees suggested that we go before the lines got too long. We started off with some fresh apple cider and apple cider donuts. The donuts were a bit disappointing, not as good as the sugar donuts we had at the other orchard, but the cider was good. There was an area with picnic tables and next to it were wooden cut outs of a school bus, an apple and a few other items where you could stick your head through and take a picture. Ian saw the school bus and immediately said, "I wanna go on the school bus." I sat down at the table nearest the bus and Ian watched as some kids got their picture taken. I told him to wait his turn, which he did patiently, then he ran over and peeked out the window at me and said, "I wanna take my picture!" Jeff was moving the car to a closer spot, so he came a few minutes later with the camera and took Ian's picture:


We went on the hayride to the pumpkin patch and Ian was really excited because the hayride is pulled by a tractor. "I wanna ride on the tractor!" We told him we had to wait on line for the next one to come. "The tractor is coming. I wait my turn." He loved the tractor and imitated the sound that it made. When we got off, he ran for the pumpkin patch and went straight to the first pumpkin he saw and said, "I want this one!"

We suggested he look around some more before deciding, so he roamed around the field and looked at a few others. He went for really big ones and he would pick one and say, "Daddy carry it!" (He's no dummy.) Jeff and I would point out pumpkins to Ian and he would inspect them and say, "No, it's dirty." He rejected most of them because of the dirt. Finally, I told him that we would give the pumpkin a bath when we got home and he said, "Oh." We finally settled on one (slightly smaller than the ones Ian wanted originally and a little bit dirty). We waited for the tractor to take us back and Ian was very patient about waiting his turn again. He gave us his "happy face" again on the way back:


Then we went apple picking. Ian immediately picked a Granny Smith and wanted to eat it.

He spent most of the time chomping on his apple, but let us take it away for a few photo ops.

He did take his apple picking responsibilities very seriously.

We warned him to watch his step because of all of the apples on the ground near the trees. I told him, "Xiao3 xin4, bu2 yao4 cai3 dao4 ping2 guo3." He was very good and didn't step on any apples and didn't fall down. When we finally left at 3:15, he immediately picked up his pumpkin drawings and studied them seriously again, before passing out cold.

Just want to point out that every one of those big grins was the result of us asking him to show us his "happy face". He is very good at showing us his "mad face", his "sad face" and his "happy face".

The next morning on the way to school, I asked him what we had done yesterday and he said, "Apple picking." I said, "Ian qu4 cai3 ping2 guo3 le." (Ian picked apples.) He immediately said, "No, Ian mei2 you3 cai3 ping2 guo3!" (No, Ian didn't step on any apples!) I had to explain that the two words for stepping on and for picking sound the same, but they are different. I'm still not sure he gets it, but he was silent for a while thinking about it.