We took the "tough love" approach to pumpkin-carving last night.Jensen has, in his seven and a half years, never placed his hand inside a pumpkin. He's always convinced us to do his dirty work. But not this year. "No scooping, no carving," we said. It worked. After several minutes of pouting, cajoling, and fake barfing, he sucked it up and scooped. And did a fair job. Fair.
Then it was time to carve. You know those carving kits they sell now? With all the (very useful, by the way) little saws and hundreds of completely impractical patterns so you can have your own "original" pumpkin? He wanted to one of those designs. If you're a parent, you know exactly where this is going. {groan}
(This, by the way, prompted all kinds of "when I was a kid" comments from his parents: "...we never needed any pattern to carve our pumpkins," and "...I don't see what's wrong with just doing a face with triangle eyes," and that sort of thing. We were only partly joking.)
He chose a spider. And worked hard on it for about seven minutes. During which time I helped Evan. Evan, you will recall, is four. And very prone to self-injury. He's not allowed within six feet of a carving utensil. So he dictated to me what he wanted on his tiny pumpkin: a t-rex (?!), frontal view, with nose holes. And boogers.
As soon as I finished that work of art, and it truly is something to behold, I got manipulated into finishing Jensen's spider. Yeah, so much for tough love.
When I finished, about 45 minutes later, Jensen was in bed, Evan and Caleb were crying, and Jeff was begging for beer. I was in a lovely mood.
We have the lamest pumpkins in the world this year. Maybe tonight I'll manage to find some candles so we can bask in the glow of their mediocrity.
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This is why, with four, we have implemented the art of painting the pumpkins most years instead of carving. Slightly less messy, nothing dangerous, little parental involvement.
ReplyDeleteWe still carve sometimes but the painting is awesome. It gets pretty creative.