I hate carving pumpkins. I realize hate is a strong word and I honestly don't hate too many things, but carving pumpkins makes the short list. I know I am the title of this blog is "of good report", but I can think of few, if any, virtues of pumpkin guts! They are slimy, stinky and messy. I always try to put on a happy face as we spread out the newspaper, pull out bowls and pass around sharp knives to my children. I keep a prayer in my heart the the only guts and gore we see comes out of the pumpkin and not out of any fingers. So far we have not had to get any stitches due to pumpkin carving--there it is a virtue.
Tonight started out quite well, Spencer, Taylor and Emma were fairly independent gutters and carvers. Estelle required quite a bit of assistance, and Sarah, bless her heart, decided to paint her pumpkin. This of course meant we also had paint to clean up, but the fewer the pumpkin guts the better. Sarah was not very messy at all with the paint and I thought to myself, "finally a child after my own heart." Every time she got a drop of paint on her finger she would rush to the bathroom to wash her hands, she had one spill on the table which she promptly cleaned up herself. Then she discovered the slimy, gooey pleasure of immersing your hands into a bowl of guts and squeezing it through your fingers--yuck! She of course followed after her older siblings in this endeavor. Taylor was saving some guts to use as vomit erupting from his carved pumpkin face. We were also attempting to separate the seeds from the rest of the guts to roast. Roasted pumpkin seeds another "good report".
Taylor decided that it he would do something that no one who knows him would have thought he would ever do--drink "pumpkin juice", aka the liquid extracted from squeezing the guts and letting it drain through a kitchen strainer. Emma offered him a dollar for the feat. He tried to obtain payment from other family members, but she was the only who had money tonight. Surprisingly, he retrieved a straw from the cabinet and sucked up some of the foul smelling orange pulpy liquid. He actually swallowed it (a condition for receiving the dollar) and promptly threw up in the garbage can. Thankfully it was nearby. Surprisingly, again, he was laughing the whole time. I don't know what exactly came over this child who only ate bread, milk, and chicken nuggets for the first five years of his life. I think it was his preadolescent brain taking over.
This was slightly amusing to me, but I knew I would have an hour of scrubbing pumpkin guts from the top of my kitchen to the bottom after I finally got the giddy, Halloween intoxicated children to bed. And now I could add vomit to the clean up list. Actually, he cleaned that up himself. Of course just prior to the pumpkin juice drink, he had consumed a pumpkin shake. This would have been less of a problem for any other person, but since he had received insulin for the carbohydrate rich treat, the result was a low blood sugar. But don't you worry it didn't stop his silliness.
Oh well, it was a memory. And he is making plans to record his pumpkin juice drinking next year. He definitely is losing his mind. Who in their right mind would want to do something that would make you throw up on purpose??!!
My children are happy. And I am happy now that they are in bed and the kitchen is clean and their creations are cheerfully displayed on our front steps. Vomit and all.
Tonight started out quite well, Spencer, Taylor and Emma were fairly independent gutters and carvers. Estelle required quite a bit of assistance, and Sarah, bless her heart, decided to paint her pumpkin. This of course meant we also had paint to clean up, but the fewer the pumpkin guts the better. Sarah was not very messy at all with the paint and I thought to myself, "finally a child after my own heart." Every time she got a drop of paint on her finger she would rush to the bathroom to wash her hands, she had one spill on the table which she promptly cleaned up herself. Then she discovered the slimy, gooey pleasure of immersing your hands into a bowl of guts and squeezing it through your fingers--yuck! She of course followed after her older siblings in this endeavor. Taylor was saving some guts to use as vomit erupting from his carved pumpkin face. We were also attempting to separate the seeds from the rest of the guts to roast. Roasted pumpkin seeds another "good report".
Taylor decided that it he would do something that no one who knows him would have thought he would ever do--drink "pumpkin juice", aka the liquid extracted from squeezing the guts and letting it drain through a kitchen strainer. Emma offered him a dollar for the feat. He tried to obtain payment from other family members, but she was the only who had money tonight. Surprisingly, he retrieved a straw from the cabinet and sucked up some of the foul smelling orange pulpy liquid. He actually swallowed it (a condition for receiving the dollar) and promptly threw up in the garbage can. Thankfully it was nearby. Surprisingly, again, he was laughing the whole time. I don't know what exactly came over this child who only ate bread, milk, and chicken nuggets for the first five years of his life. I think it was his preadolescent brain taking over.
This was slightly amusing to me, but I knew I would have an hour of scrubbing pumpkin guts from the top of my kitchen to the bottom after I finally got the giddy, Halloween intoxicated children to bed. And now I could add vomit to the clean up list. Actually, he cleaned that up himself. Of course just prior to the pumpkin juice drink, he had consumed a pumpkin shake. This would have been less of a problem for any other person, but since he had received insulin for the carbohydrate rich treat, the result was a low blood sugar. But don't you worry it didn't stop his silliness.
Oh well, it was a memory. And he is making plans to record his pumpkin juice drinking next year. He definitely is losing his mind. Who in their right mind would want to do something that would make you throw up on purpose??!!
My children are happy. And I am happy now that they are in bed and the kitchen is clean and their creations are cheerfully displayed on our front steps. Vomit and all.
I vomited
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