Do these look like great jack-o-lanterns to you?
Because I was pretty proud of them too. Jaelyn and Addison designed their faces, even went through several sketches. Cleaned the entire innards out of the pumpkins by themselves. Even coached me and gave me tips as I interpreted their drawings with the knife etching the faces into the pumpkins.
They felt pretty satisfied, too.
But I have a confession to make.
This year, I was really late in getting the jack-o-lanterns to the kids. It was partly because I went to California the weekend before Halloween. Partly because it's the busiest part of the semester right now. Partly because we put a lot of halloween energy toward costume design and acquisition.
And partly (happily) because we were getting ready for the visit of
Uncle Daniel,
Aunt Andrea and
Will & Isaac. (That's right a family of blogging Rudds....what a surprise, eh?)
We had a great time with our visiting cousins and family. Jaelyn and Addison adopted the role of the older nurturing cousins with a flourish. Will and Isaac conversely were delighted to both be the hilarious centers of attention.
The adults got to sneak away for good Indian food and strange consumerist quests one evening. Grand times were had by all.
The next morning as I zipped to our favorite local grocery to pick up a few items, I decided to go ahead and buy pumpkins. With two days left until real halloween -- and trick or treat scheduled for that very afternoon -- I was feeling more than a little bit substandard in my Holiday Parenting.
The bad news? Two days before Halloween? The pumpkin supply? "Picked over" is generous. "Horrifically deformed", "moldy" and "discolored" might even be generous.
The only pumpkins that had perfect shape and color -- were mini-pumpkins. What's more -- there were four. One for each of the cousins.
Jaelyn and Addison never even mentioned the size of the pumpkins. I don't know if it even occured to them.
So every week I spend my Tuesdays with Noah and Addison. I enjoy these playdates for many reasons. One of the best is that listening to these two engage in unmoderated dialogue is better than reading Plato's dialogues -- and very like overhearing the Muppet Judges commentary on my life.
So yesterday Noah and Addison were lunching next to the mini-pumpkins and I was lunching across the room, listening in:
NOAH: We always have Big Pumpkins.
(I cringe. My sins have found me out. My son will feel emasculated. His self image will be devastated....)
ADDISON: Well my dad is good enough to carve the small pumpkins. It's really hard. Can your dad carve the really small ones?
NOAH: (fumbling a bit, definitely on the defensive) Well...we like the big ones(?). (but doubt inflects his every syllable)
So I hate to call you out in public, Jeff, but clearly my pumpkin is more PRECISE than your pumpkin. And at least according to our muppet judge philosophers...that's the reigning value here...
