the orchard alone

I went to the apple orchard finally. All of last fall I told myself that I would take Levi there and it never happened. So, last Saturday I put both the boys in the car and took off for the day without the husband factor. I went out towards the Western suburbs. I once had a boyfriend (who hated me that is another story though) who lived out in that general area so I felt nostalgic for the area again.

In my most recent garage sale-ing I had picked up another map book. Helio constantly takes mine out of the car and never returns it. It has been one of many sore subjects between us for years. So, with my map book and a cell phone I thought if I just started driving I would find a good apple picking location. I expected low levels of crowds, wandering animals and all the apples one could eat for a nominal fee. What I encountered was multiple car lots yet nowhere to park, massive crowds of people, and fees for all things- including viewing the goats and chickens behind cages.

I found a place to park way in the back up on a grassy hill and thought, eh?...looks fine to me. So, I took the boys out, put Dante in a front of my body carrier and did my best to shout at Levi to keep him out of traffic on the short walk to the orchard. As soon as we arrived we got onto a tractor pulled trailer to get a tour of the grounds. The whole time I kept thinking, I am going to burn up my baby’s face because he had neither sun screen nor hat and we are in direct sunlight. Next was a corn maze, a spendy corn maze. Growing up in northern Minnesota, I have a hard time stomaching $6.75 per person to walk through corn but I did it because Levi wanted to. However, his enthusiasm lasted about 8 minutes.

I quickly realized that if I wanted to use the facilities it was just not going to happen. I have a fundamental principle against using port-a-potty (and-all-over-the-interior-and-now-all-over-me) I am not one to shy away from tasks that are a bit difficult with kids. Using a mobile bathroom station with a toddler who can’t help but touch everything and an infant who is hanging off the front of me is not one of the tasks that I canjust take a deep breath and talk myself into. I had to decline for myself. Levi on the other hand, needed to pee. I told him to go in by himself and I looked the other way. What did it matter? There was pee all over inside anyway. I just could not deal with cramming the three of us in there. I still shudder thinking about it. He fell out of the plastic peeing station with his pants and underwear around his ankles. Quietly I said, “Levi, hurry up, pull those pants up, people are looking”. I couldn’t lean over to help- the baby would have fallen on the ground. Again, I should have maybe considered the stroller.

I had enough of price gouging and manning the boys alone so we headed out. I got everyone in their car seats and stripped down to the last layer of clothing as I was dripping in sweat from carrying Dante around in the warm autumn sun. I placed my new bag of honey crisps in the passenger seat for a snack once we hit the open road, took a cleansing breath, and put the car in drive. As I tried to climb the hill, my tires spun and I went nowhere. I put it in reverse then drive again, using a bit more speed to get up the slope. This time, the tires spun more rapidly, thus kicking up mud all over the cars near me. I scanned the area. Nobody was approaching. I looked behind me. Mud. All. Over. I did my best to get away from the scene as quickly as possible while not hitting other apple orchard go-ers. I thought that I had made a clean get away until I made it out on the paved road. As I increased in speed, mud flew everywhere- now spraying pedestrians, not cars. I kept saying, “oh my God, oh my God…” I didn’t know what to do. I had to move the car out of the road but in order to do so, I sprayed everyone with the mess I had just accumulated up under my wheel wells. I decided it best to just look forward and make a go of it. Pretend you see nothing and the problem goes away…

I have been waiting for nearly 4.5 years for Levi to be able to answer the following question- “What is your name little boy” and Saturday was the day it happened. We were on the back of the flat trailer with benches where the guy sitting next to Levi asked this very question. Levi to my surprise and small tear said “Evi”! It was the small victory of that day. All the unpleasantness of not being able to pee for hours and paying nearly $40 to look at trees was worth it to hear him finally say it. I do not think I will be going back to that apple orchard. I must find a new one and maybe the next time, I will bring a companion and a stroller.