This is so much worse than I thought it would be.
18
TYLER
Ihave a rare Wednesday off, and the first thing I think about is taking Nora and Harper to the pumpkin patch.
Not just Harper. Both of them.
That should probably concern me more than it does.
"You want to go where?" Nora asks, when I suggest it over breakfast, Harper is in her high chair between us, smearing puréed sweet potato everywhere.
"Pumpkin patch. It's Harper's first fall. She should experience it." I'm very deliberately not mentioning that I also want to spend the day with them, that the idea of doing something normal and domestic sounds better than anything else I could think of. "Plus, we need pumpkins for the porch."
"We don't have any pumpkins on the porch."
"Exactly. It's mid-October. We're failing at fall."
Nora laughs. "Okay. Pumpkin patch it is."
An hour later, we're pulling into Riverside Pumpkin Farm, and it's packed. Families everywhere, kids running between hay bales, couples holding hands while they browse the pumpkin selection. It's aggressively wholesome, and I'm weirdly into it.
I grab the stroller from the trunk while Nora gets Harper out of her car seat. Harper's bundled in a little jacket that makes herlook like a tiny marshmallow, and I take approximately fifty photos before we even make it to the entrance.
"You're going to fill up your phone," Nora says, but she's smiling.
"I'll buy more storage."
The pumpkin patch is massive. Rows and rows of pumpkins in every size, hay bale pyramids for kids to climb, a corn maze in the distance, and a small stand selling cider and donuts. I'm pushing Harper's stroller along the dirt paths, and Nora's examining pumpkins like she's searching for the perfect one.
"What about this one?" She holds up a small, perfectly round orange pumpkin.
"Too small. We need bigger ones for the porch."
"How many pumpkins are we getting?"
"At least six. Maybe eight. I haven't decided yet."
She laughs again, setting the small pumpkin in the stroller basket. "Eight pumpkins seem excessive."
"You can never have too many pumpkins. That's just science."
We wander through the rows, and I'm hyperaware of how this looks. Young couple, baby in a stroller, picking out pumpkins on a beautiful October afternoon. We look like every other family here, and the scary part is how much I like it.
"Photo op," Nora announces, pointing at a particularly photogenic section where someone's arranged hay bales and pumpkins into an Instagram-worthy display.
I park the stroller and lift Harper out, settling her in the middle of several small pumpkins. She immediately tries to eat one, which is very on brand for her since the tooth came in.
"Don't eat the pumpkin, baby girl." I'm taking photos from every angle while Nora laughs at Harper's determination to consume a gourd. "These are not food."
"Get in the photo," Nora says. "Both of you together."
I sit next to Harper, and Nora takes a bunch of photos of us. Then I insist she get in too, and we manage a few selfies with all three of us before Harper decides she's done andstarts fussing.
"Excuse me." An older woman approaches, holding her own phone. "You three are adorable together. Would you like me to take a family photo?"
Family photo.