A-MAZE-ING

Last week my mom and I met some friends from my church at a corn maze just outside of Orlando.  When they invited us, I thought, “That sounds like fun!  Pick some pumpkins.  Play with some corn stalks.  Drink some cider.”  But, y’all.  I was not prepared for the awesomeness that was the Scott’s Farm Corn Maze.

As a parent, one of the things that makes life easier is being prepared.  Knowing where you are going with your kids, bringing the necessary supplies, anticipating hiccups and bumps in the road.  All those things go into planning for events with wee ones.  And, normally, I do those things.  But for some reason, I just had in my head that this would be just a quick, fun little thing.

And I was so wrong.

This thing was intense!  First of all, I was unprepared for traveling there.  I didn’t print out directions because I knew the name of the little town it was taking place in and I figured, “Eh, there will be signs or something.”  But, turns out, there wasn’t much out in the middle of corn fields.  And if you take a wrong turn on country back roads, you drive forever until you realize that you’ve made a mistake.  Which happened to me.  Several times.  My mom was dying laughing in the seat next to me.  Some co-pilot…

Once we finally found the right farm, I realized how grossly unprepared I was.  There were a TON of people there!  A TON!  The line to buy tickets into the maze was crazy long, and we were standing at the very back of it.  Which held up our group of friends because they’d all gotten there on time and bought their tickets together.  But, thankfully, there was a lot for them to do while they waited for us.

At this particular farm, you buy your ticket and then you go through this giant tunnel that opens up inside the fall festival area.

I was shocked when I popped out of the tunnel.  It was HUGE!  There were several playgrounds and play areas for the kids (including a giant inflated pillow for them to bounce around on).  And there was a huge row of food trucks serving anything that you could fry and put on a stick. Which is my favorite kind of food, by the way…

There were huge look out stands where you could climb up and see out over the corn mazes.  And – that’s right, I said mazeS – there were THREE corn mazes in one field!  It was crazy!

We decided to attempt the Mini Maze, since our posse had mini people.  Bean led the way.  He loved the idea of a maze!  He kept telling us which direction we should go.  Although, I must say, he gets his sense of direction from me because he got us extremely lost in that not-so-mini maze!  But we kept trucking and finally made it through!

The kids favorite part, though, was the mister maze.  It was crazy hot there.  Super hot.  The last corn maze I experienced was in Connecticut in the fall and it was about 50 degrees outside.  Here it was a balmy 90-something.  My kids were HAWT, y’all.  So, this mister maze was a brilliant idea.  It was this tiny maze made out of plastic fencing and as they found their way through it, they were soaked in cool water misters!  Bean Man loved it!  He ran through it so many times that we gave up trying to catch him.

Gracie wasn’t so sure about the misters, but I guess she got hot enough because she eventually decided to give it a try.  I took her through once, but then she decided she was big enough to go by herself like Bean.  He had to go rescue her a couple times, but for the most part, she found her way through pretty quickly.  They had a ball!

It was so darn hot and the kids started to get crabby after a couple hours, so my mom and I decided to call it a day.  We headed back to the little country store and picked out our pumpkins and then packed up and headed home.

Sometimes I’m super prepared.  I’m the mom with the magical diaper bag full of everything you need for wherever we are.

Actually, that’s only happened, like, twice to me.

Usually, I’m the mom who thinks, “Oops…  Probably should have packed that…” or “It sure would have been nice to have packed this…”  But we usually survive anyway.  And, more than surviving, we have a great time in the process.  Preparations are overrated.  I think you should just GO.  Just DO.  And just find what you need along the way.