Just one day till the end of days—Birth-Days, that is! I’ve
been given a reprieve from being inventive lately as pre-scheduled events,
meetings, and holidays provide me with my extraordinary activities. Today is no
exception. It is the day before Halloween and our pumpkins were carved.
Lennon isn’t so skilled with a knife yet, so all the actual
carving was left to my husband and I. Lennon is also not fond of gooey stuff—he
got very upset at Kita when, on the first day, they tried to have him create a
print by dipping his hand in paint. He stood as an observer today as we cleaned
and cut.
We began carving in the late afternoon, when my husband got home from work. We borrowed a day old newspaper from our neighbors to use as a surface for the messy pumpkin massacre and were happy to see that is was printed with pigment-based inks, the kind that come off on everything they touch. All of the big papers in the U.S. no longer use this type of ink. Though we had smudge marks on our table, we were happy to know that we could grab a German paper and a spray bottle of vinegar any old time for spotlessly clean, streak-free windows.
Lennon did have a snack at the beginning of the carving and
his dinner toward the end, but still was excited to nibble on the cut-out top
of his miniature pumpkin. His little pumpkin had been in his room for a few
weeks now. When Nicholas put Lennon to bed, they said goodnight to pumpkin.
Today, Lennon got to see what we do with pumpkins around these parts.
Nicholas did most of the pumpkin cleaning and sorting of the
seeds for roasting. I was in charge of the carving. This is definitely not my
medium. I experimented with one of the pumpkins, trying to create the San
Francisco Giants logo, but miscalculated my lines and ended needing assist from
a toothpick. To my eye, it turned out far better than I imagined but is still sad
looking. Lennon’s little pumpkin and our bigger pumpkin faired better with
classic Halloween faces.
It was our intent to watch the 1966 classic, “It’s the GreatPumpkin, Charlie Brown” while we carved but the iTunes store let us know that
it would be thirteen hours before the movie would be fully downloaded. Luckily,
our internet troubles are being dealt with tomorrow, but for today, Lennon
friendly music would accompany our festivities.
We lit the pumpkins, turned off the lights, and all gazed at
what we’d made. It was time for Lennon to go to bed and for the first time when
I went to pick him up, he pulled away, not ready to say goodnight. I did this the
same thing all the time as a child. So did Nicholas. We just wanted to stay up
and have fun—not miss anything. It seems that neither does our little boy.
