This is a continuation of our trip to a Pumpkin Fantasyland. If you haven’t already read part one, I’d kindly suggest you click this link first, then come back and read this entry.

“I watch it again.”

“No, Tyler. The helicopter is gone now. Let’s go look at another firetruck.”

As we played and admired the bright red firetruck, we saw another pull around to where the helicopter had previously been resting. Firemen pulled some heavy tools from the truck and staged them on the ground. Nearby, rested a heavily damaged car. I remembered reading that there would be a “jaws of life” demonstration. I told Tyler to run to where we were earlier so we could watch. For the second time in less than thirty minutes, I watched as Tyler sat, slack-jawed in awe of the goings-on.

At the conclusion of the demonstration, I asked Tyler if he wanted to go into a hay maze.

“What a maze is?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“Well,” I said, thinking, “a maze is like a game. We go inside and have to try and find our way back out.”

“Ohh. I do it wif you?”

On the way to the maze, we stopped to play in a police car for a bit. Tyler was very excited and even asked the policeman sitting in the driver’s seat if it was his car.

Then, we made our way to the maze.

I was utterly amazed (heh) at the amount of fun Tyler had in there. Every time we ran into a dead end, Tyler would stop and say “uh-oh… dead end,” before turning and running past me in the other direction. Each time he reached the exit, Tyler would keep running, to do the maze over and over again. Soon, he decided it’d be fun to run directly into boys two to three times his own size and shout “SMASH” while doing so. The boys he crashed into looked at him, confused, as I roared in laughter. Tyler would then just bounce off them and keep running.

“The exit is that way,” a boy, who had just ran up to Tyler, said. He pointed to the left.

“No. It dis way,” Tyler said, pointing in the opposite direction. They were both right, but I didn’t say anything. I just watched.

“My name is Joseph Edward Wiggons (changed, to protect the innocent). I’m three years old.”

“I Tyler James Gearhart. I two.” When Tyler says his own name, it sounds more like Tywer Dame Gearhowt. He held up two fingers.

They both smiled at each other and ran in opposing directions.

When he finally tired of running nonstop through the same maze over and over again, we walked out and sat in the shade for a bit. We both drank some water, and Tyler had a snack, while we waited for the tractor to come back. Tyler desperately wanted to go for a hay ride, and I desperately wanted a break from running in the heat, so it worked out.

The tractor seemed to have been gone for an inordinate amount of time, and I began to wonder if the hayrides were through for the day. I asked Tyler, “Where do you think the tractor is, buddy?”

He held up his hand, like a policeman halting traffic and said, “Be patient, daddy. It comin.”

The tractor did, indeed, come back around. The breeze felt nice, and my feet sighed their relief at this chance for rest. To be brutally honest, the hayride was rather boring, but Tyler enjoyed it. At the end of the hayride, I asked Tyler if he’d like to go get some ice cream. He, of course, answered in the affirmative, so we made our way back to the car. Next to a nearby barn, a cat was resting in the shade.

“Hi cat,” Tyler said. “How you doing today? We going a get ice cream.”

To be concluded…