Home On The Ranch: October 2008

When my youngest daughter was in the fourth grade her teacher assigned the class a special project. She bought them all a real minature pumpkin. Their first assignment was to name the pumpkin and then make adoption certificates for it.

My baby was thrilled as she named her baby pumpkin, Rachel Ann. A very proud parent who adopted her from The Pumpkin Patch!

I was so amused that she was having such fun with a pumpkin! She carried it everywhere with her and gave me a day to day report of the things they were doing at school with their pumpkins. They painted faces on their pumpkins, made clothes and houses for them. They wrote stories about their pumpkins and at night her homework was to keep a diary of Rachel's activities. I noticed that she included Rachel's name on her schoolwork papers with her own name.

My baby's older brother began to tease her about Rachel. It was a constant challenge at home with my baby playing with a pumpkin wearing a dress and treating it like a real person to keep my fun-loving son from traumatizing her. I even began to have some reservations about this school project. My baby was emotionally attached to a vegetable!

Each day I would look at her papers from school. Her story of Rachel....

My Pumpkin Rachel
I am going to tell you about my pumpkin Rachel. She is so cute! She is funny and smart. She has orange skin and is not a brat either. Everybody at school loves her. I love her too. She is 5 days old already.

Rachel and I have had fun the last few days. Lets see.......We have gone on bikerides. We went to the mall, walked around the block a few times, played with the dogs, went to play across the street, and played basketball.

We fixed her a house for herself. It is pretty too. She loves it. She has a kitchen, restroom, her own room, and a living room.
Well that is all I can tell you about Rachel.

I was a little more concerned at another paper on adjectives to describe her pumpkin...

orange skin, brown and green stem, green freckles,
green face, white and black eyes, blue clothes, funny, smart, responsible, talks alot, shows respect to me, a girl named Rachel

Oh dear...when I remember...that child needed help...! My son was right...she was nuts...!

And...the icing on the cake was this diary entry...supposedly written

by Rachel...

Dear Diary...
My mom and I watched some MTV and a soap opera too. We cleaned her house and we vacuumed, ate a snack, and played
with two dogs. One named Angel tried to bite me thank goodness she didn't. She looked vicious but my mom saved me. Then we went to sleep.

Believe me when I say this child never watched MTV much less a soap opera! But she was definitely in "La-La Land" during this time...so I guess that explains it. This saga with the pumpkin went on for several months...even after they were through with it at school. Rachel had become a member of our family. My son kept telling me I needed to do something with his sister...

Little Rachel started to shrivel....much to my dismay....I had to explain to my baby that she wouldn't be with us much longer. We wrapped her in a blanket and kept her in the refrigerator. My baby would come home from school get her out and play with her and put her to bed there every night. We prolonged her life for several weeks. Then she started to fall apart...

We had to have a funeral...and buried dear Rachel Ann in the flowerbed.

I went to school to see the teacher ...