Shelley's Case

Close encounters with reality TV

Friday morning, my sister-in-law and Peach and I set out to Roloff Farms, home of Little People, Big World.  (It's located about 15 minutes from my house.)  S-I-L Elina is a huge fan of the show, and I am a closet huge fan of the show... and Peach is at the perfect age for her first trip to a pumpkin patch!  It was perfect. 

We arrived two minutes before 10, opening time.  There was already a line of cars! 

 

(Parking was $2.  I don't know why this is important, but I thought I'd throw it out there.)

While we were waiting in the car line, family members cruised by in Mom Amy's minivan (Amy was riding and waved at the guy selling the parking tickets to us). 

We probably spent ten, fifteen minutes in the car line before things started moving.  And once we got to the top of this hill, we turned right into the parking lot.  And there it all was, just like the TV show!  Elaborate home, catapult, the swimming pool, the soccer field, volleyball court, etc.  It's all there. 

TLC was there filming, and Dad Matt Roloff was in front letting people take pictures with him.  While Elina and Peach were posing with him, Peach decided to melt down and have a little mini-tantrum.  My best shot?

You can see Peach's arm, at least!

We figured out how to buy tickets to the two tours (they added a second, scenic tour this year).  Tickets for both tours: $10 per person.

The scenic tour was first.  Our tractor driver?  Son Jeremy.  Our tour guide?  Brittany.  Not bad!  Finn Elina got points for being the person in our tour who came the furthest.  

Peach loved the tractor ride, and keeps talking about it.

 

(Here she is saying, "I ride tractor, too!")  

After the scenic tour, I took Elina's picture with Jeremy - it turned out beautifully, and I hope she reads this and emails me it so I can post it!  - then we found the port-a-potties (oh, SO much fun to attempt a diaper change in one of those)! and got in line for the "western town" tour. 

 

(I owe my kid's great behavior during much of this experience to tic-tacs, gummi bears, and raisins.) 

I have no idea who the driver or tour guide were for these, but the highlight was stopping at the western town and meeting Pop and Honey, Matt Roloff's parents.  They were super, super sweet, and posed for a picture with Elina (which is alas, on Elina's camera, too).

At this point, we'd been there about an hour and a half, and the place was crammed with people.  Tour groups from assisted living facilities, Kindercare classes, and it was crazy.  We skipped the petting zoo and pony rides and headed into the pumpkin patch. 

Peach went for the biggest ones she could find, until I started asking her to find small pumpkins (there were no wagons free to use - all taken)! 

 

(But even small pumpkins can be kind of heavy!) 

And gourds are kind of crazy looking!

In any event, I walked away with three pumpkins (total price: $9), a pack of gummy worms ($3) and a Diet Pepsi ($2), a very exhausted toddler, and a happy sister in law.  And it was fun.  The crowds were the worst part: I don't like crowds, anyway, but the fawning touristy types were obnoxious.  Heavily made up women pushing toddlers out of the way to get their pictures taken with the family?  That is so not cool.  Also, it was kind of sad - most of the people there were so busy snapping photos of the Roloff family that they weren't really into it as the experience for their kid that it ought to have been.  (At some point I realized I was the only person taking pictures of my own family during the tractor tours, instead of members of the Roloff family!)

Overall, I had a great time.  I would have enjoyed going to any pumpkin patch with Peach, but the reality show overlay made it thoroughly fun.  Also, I can't say I would have been all that excited to wait in lines to go on tractor rides of just any farmer's property (twice), which was clearly the highlight for Peach.  It was win-win.

Tips: get there as early as you can, and do what we did and go on Friday, instead of a weekend day.  (The Farm is open Friday-Sundays in October.)  Bring your own food and water and snacks for the kids. Avoid the women with spray-on tans and Kate Gosselin hairstyles. 

TV Review: Miss America

Wait!  Don't take away my feminist credentials just yet!  So, yes, Matthew and I just watched the Miss America Pageant.  I've never watched it before, but after I got sucked into watching all four episodes of Miss America: Reality Check (seriously: I am a TLC junkie these days), I really wanted Utah, Washington, or Alaska to win.  (They didn't, although Washington made it to the final five.)  Yeah, I didn't need to TiVo it to find out who won, but morbid curiosity got the better of me. 

(As staunch of a women's advocate as Matthew is, I was surprised to find out that he'd watched it before -- with his mother.  She modeled in the 1940s and was always interested in the "beauty" culture.) 

It was as insipid as I'd imagined, although having watched the earlier show, I knew that some of the contestants were actually quite bright -- which made me embarrassed for them as they wound their way through the various "competitions."  (At least, until I reminded myself that no one forced them into this competition). 

The format, though, baffled me.  It starts with the field being narrowed to fifteen women, plus one "People's Choice" candidate (Utah).  There's no explanation of how the judges reached that conclusion, but wham!  It's down to fifteen.  While I understand that it would be a very long and boring show if we had to watch 52 evening gowns, swimsuit, talent, and Q&A sessions, it would have been nice to have the pretense that it's not just about appearance. 

Then the competitions started and the eliminations quickly followed.  If I were running the show, I would have done the competitions in reverse order.  The way they did it was 1) swimsuits, 2) evening gowns, 3) "talent," and 4) Q&A.   I would have ditched the Q&A (shades of Miss Teen USA there), then started with "talent."  This is the cringe-inducing bit, the part where candidates could really break out (for better or worse).  How much more entertaining would the show be if it took on an American Idol slant?  As it was, by the time we suffered through the swimsuits and evening gowns (truly horrible, all the way around), we were left with a couple of ballerinas and a lot of singers.  I was rooting for the lone violinist, but alas, she didn't make the final five.   My feeling is that if you want women to take Miss America seriously, show them as being talented first and pretty last. 

Also, it'd be nice to know what exactly the judges were voting on -- what the criteria were.  Clearly it'd never be scientific, but even dog shows have established standards.  (An apt comparison.)

Anyway, it was interesting, but I probably wouldn't watch it again.  There was a lot of talk about "updating" Miss America, but it didn't seem terribly relevant to me -- though admittedly, they hooked me with the four episodes of "Reality Check," which did make me care about a number of the contestants. 

Proof I've watched a bit too much WNTW

I was getting a bottle ready for the peach, who was not happy about the wait.  Matthew was holding her while I was running water. Then I heard this:

Peach: [cries]
Matthew: Don't cry, baby girl.
P: [more cries]
M: No, no, don't cry.  It'll make your eyes all red and puffy, and that isn't following the Rules™.  What will Trinny think?

Full Disclosure: Matthew claims to hate WNTW and all such shows, but he gets sucked into them and has developed strong opinions about women's clothing.  What he doesn't get is the mental transformation process  the women on the shows go through - how they learn how to dress themselves and suddenly feel more confident.  That's the part that bugs him.  I've tried to explain it, but I almost wonder if it's possible for a guy to completely get it.  Thoughts?

I thought she'd last a little longer than one season

OK...is it just me, or was the Law & Order season finale just a major suck-fest?