Posing With Pumpkins

Why is it that we all want to take pictures of our kids with, on, or around pumpkins?  This time of year rolls around and we all travel as far as we need to to make our kids pose with this big, orange vegetable.  I suppose if there was such thing as a zucchini patch, we'd flock to that as well?

I realize the draw of these places is not just the pumpkins, but the family fun to be had there, but still, some of the poses I have seen (and taken pictures of myself!) of a kid and a pumpkin crack me up.  Nothing says "frame-worthy" like a picture of a kid on a giant vegetable.  I love it when parents (mothers mostly, I imagine) set up a whole bed of sorts amongst the pumpkins, complete with blankets and stuffed animals, for their infant to be properly posed and photographed.  I've also noticed that a lot of moms actually dress there kids like a pumpkin for these pictures too - kind of a "Where's Waldo" scenario, I suppose.  

I sometimes imagine what parents are thinking/saying as they scramble around the pumpkin patch, taking pictures of the produce: 

"Hey Ben, go hug that pumpkin!" 

"Ben, see if you can put it on top of your head!"  

"Matt, put Jack between those two pumpkins and then put one on his lap too so he can't get up so I can take his picture!"  

"Mitchell, peek out at me from behind that pile of pumpkins!"  

"Jack just fell down in between two pumpkins and is stuck with his legs in the air.  Can you reposition him and make him stop crying, please?  I haven't gotten the shot yet!"  

"Can't you all just sit and smile in the pumpkins for a few seconds while I take your picture?" "Hurry, take the picture of Baby Jack on top of this pile of gourds before he and the whole pile topple over!" 

"Honey, go ask that lady if she'll take a picture of us kissing while I hold a pumpkin!"  

"What do you mean, 'that's not a very safe place to put him,' it'll look great if he can just stay put!" 

"These pumpkins all look the same!  How do I decide which one to take a picture of!" 

Like I said, I am as guilty as the rest of you for these silly pictures, to the point of being disappointed in myself for not ending up with a picture worth framing somewhere in my house.  When I really think about it, how important is it in the end to have pumpkins in my pictures which are displayed all year 'round?  Not very.