Jack-O-Lanterns

So we went to the pumpkin patch last week and came home with two pumpkins. 

I picked out a lovely perfectly rounded unblemished beauty. So stunning was this pumpkin that it could have been a coach for Cinderella.

Sean picked an oddly shaped, tall, skinny lop-sided pumpkin.  I pointed out its flaws, that it had a bad case of acne and couldn’t stand up straight.  But he didn’t care.  He pleaded his case saying it was a good pumpkin — that he loved it and it was the only pumpkin for him.  He didn’t see that it was ugly.   May he continue to see the world this way, as one who doesn’t look at the outside but only sees the good in a pumpkin.

As soon as we got home, he immediately wanted to get busy carving up those pumpkins, even though I told him they wouldn’t last long once they were carved.  And in typical three-year-old fashion, he would not be deterred by logic — even after I dispelled the visions of knife wielding dancing in his head when I informed him his job would be to pull out the seeds.

 After I cut the top off the first pumpkin, I told him to reach in and start pulling out all the seeds being very careful not to use the word guts.  “No thanks!” he said pinching his nose. “It’s stinky and icky.  I just want to do the fun stuff.”  And then he ran away to play until the fun stuff started happening.  I love his honesty. I may use that line on him the next time he calls me in the bathroom to wipe his little stinky icky behind.

When “we” were done carving up our pumpkins, I put tea light candles in each one and lit them and then turned down the lights.  I called Sean in to see our jack-o-lanterns in all their glowing glory. “Ooooh!” he said, “That’s inter-westing!”  And then he scrambled up on a chair and blew the candles out. And then I lit them. And he blew them out. And I lit them and this went on for many many rounds and again the next day and the next.  Apparently this was the fun stuff to which he was referring.

After about three days, the jack-o-lanterns began to shrivel and take on a peculiar smell as all beautiful and ugly things eventually do and so they were removed to the trashcan. 

We enjoyed the pumpkins immensely during their short tenure here at the House of Antique and in return they enjoyed a full 15 minutes of flame – in about 900 one-second intervals.