Smashing Pumpkins.

Mid-October and it begins.
The long stretch of holidays.
Traditions. Old and renewed.
Plans, hopes, daydreams.
Smashed.
After pumpkins and Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving and then Christmas
Fall is magical. Especially in Indiana.
I thought so many times about dressing Cora for Halloween.
But, most vividly?
I dreamed a dream of pumpkin patches.
I can still go there in my mind. Don't even have to close my eyes.

Picking pumpkins in a patch.

Strolling through, sitting Cora down next to the biggest and best of them.

Snapping photos.

"Look Cora! That pumpkin is almost as big as you!!"

Letting her touch the pumpkin.

Wrap her arms around it's width.

Maybe she'd hug it and smile and laugh.
"Punkin," she'd say.

On the perfect pumpkin picking day.

Fall gourds and corn husks.

I'd show them all to Cora.

Pointing, and explaining, I'd run my hands over the leaves.

A bright sun, but yet a chill hangs over the fall fields.

Cora bundled.

After snapping loads of pictures. 

And asking Cora what she thought.

We'd find the perfect pumpkin.

Point it out to daddy.

And demand he drag it to the car.

Even bundled Cora would stand.

Maybe even walk!

A big girl almost a year old. 

Fall daydreams.

I wish I could make them real.

Or think about them endlessly.

But, they end.

My perfect pumpkin picking dreams.

Smashed.

...

If you get a chance, pick out a pumpkin this weekend, for Cora and I. 

Photos from Flickr Creative Commons.

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